UTOPIA is the "Garden of Eden" humans strive to recover. Our pursuit of that seeming pleasant existence began well before literacy took hold and recurs throughout the history of literature and science as a continual urge to possess our hearts' desires without problem or difficulty. In recent decades science seems to be catching up to the fantastic dreams of science fiction--in many instances without regard to the dystopia that success might create. Two twentieth century novels, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, are notable for their depiction of the consensus best and worst scenarios humans envision. Nineteen Eighty-Four is universally feared as the inhumane control politicians and power-mongers might foist on an unwitting or ill-educated public. Brave New World is otherwise viewed as a pleasurable existence, the reverse of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Not until Huxley offered his long essay Brave New World Revisited a quarter of a century after publication of his original story, did the public realize the equally inhumane life we might look forward to if his utopian proposal should come to pass. These two novels, more familiar to modern readers than others, both offer (clearly in one, successfully veiled in the other) utopia as advantage to the rulers, not the ruled. That advantage, when it is employed, removes the essence of humanity from society. This theft from humanity is present in all utopian systems.
Following is a thumbnail sketch of literary utopian history
- The Republic--Plato divides society into three groups: ordinary people, the military, and a small cadre who selected one ruler from their midst.
- The New Atlantis--Francis Bacon adds to the political aspect as he proposes to keep his society separated from others and keeps Atlanteans from learning about other civilizations.
- Utopia--Thomas Moore offers little new in the utopian scheme except to emphasize the responsibility of the ruling council.
- Erewhon and Erewhon Revisited--Samuel Butler's dual offerings are as much satire as utopian concept. He shows a society destroyed by current English social beliefs.
- The Time Machine--H. G. Wells extends his time frame far into the future to show a questionable utopian existence in humanity's split into the Morlocks and the Eloi This "far-fetched" option is much more than a moot point given genetic engineering possibilities.
- Looking Backward--Edward Bellamy, in this first American utopian effort, emphasizes society's forced acquiescence to a ruler's control over them.
- Herland--Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in the first feminist and second American utopia, reprises Erewhon and adds the Amazon element.
- We--Yevgeny Zamyatin foreshadows Russian Communism under Stalin and the impossibility of rebellion.
- Brave New World--Aldous Huxley appears to conquer utopian problems, but in doing so he voids humanity's freedom and rights.
- Nineteen Eighty-Four--George Orwell offers no pleasure at all in this antithesis to Brave New World. Big Brother is an absolutely unassailable dictator.
- Walden II--B. F. Skinner uses peer pressure (behavioral psychology) to maintain control over his small utopian group which accepts his commands and yields its rights.
- Island--Aldous Huxley tried a different scenario but still shows that outside information presents the greatest attack to utopia's stagnant success.
- The Dispossessed--Ursula LeGuin maintains that even if rulers have a chance to improve the society, they will not for fear of losing their power in control.
- Kirinyaga--Mike Resnick demonstrates anew that information will destroy utopia.
Videos of note that neglect the post-holocaust "start over in violence":
- Metropolis--Fritz Lang could have been inspiration for Brave New World. The wealthy rule the rest who are forced to maintain the wealthy in their life style.
- Brave New World--Two versions of this have been made, neither particularly good, if they can be found.
- 1984--Hollywood degraded Orwell's masterpiece into a love story.
- Twilight Zone--"Obsolete Man"-Rod Serling offers a 1984 setting, a man who refuses to yield his human rights, and an insight into humanity.
- Star Trek--"The Way to Eden"-Futuristic hippies search for a fabled Garden of Eden planet and discover Eden isn't exactly what they expect.
- Star Trek--"This Side of Paradise" -A human settlement thriving on a seemingly hostile planet loses the necessary human characteristic to strive.
- Star Trek--"The Cloud Minders" -The wealthy living among the clouds force the ground people to serve them in this reprise of Metropolis.
- Star Trek, Next Generation--"Masterpiece Society" -This utopian example (maybe best of all) depends on an absolute isolation and still ruins humanity.
- Star Trek, Deep Space Nine--"Paradise" -The ruler maintains absolute control and removes human dignity from all citizens who are literally slaves.