What exactly is a dystopia? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, it's "an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives." If you had to read books like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury or saw The Hunger Games, you're probably familiar with the concept.
Those stories depict societies oppressed by authoritarians, whose subjects have to live in near-constant fear and fight for survival. We might think that dystopias only happen in fictional worlds, but some historians and anthropologists would say that dystopian societies have already existed in the past.
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Ukrainian-born and Brooklyn-based writer Alex Gendler argues that the industrial revolution in the 18th century can be an example of a dystopian time, at least at the very beginning. The invention of machines and mass production promised a world where many people could have jobs and comfortable lives; yet, it was the complete opposite.
It soon became clear that the workers were just cogs in industrialization, being exploited for productivity, often ignoring the hazardous and harsh working environments. It also resulted in massive amounts of pollution, leading to people's health deteriorating and accelerating conditions such as asthma, tuberculosis, and industrial poisoning.
Gendler goes on to explain that the rise of nationalism in 20th-century Europe created several dystopian societies. Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union are the most obvious examples today, as they were akin to police states that controlled and surveilled their citizens, ruthlessly eliminating those who disagreed or were deemed not to belong.
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Modern dystopias are a tad bit different. In The Handmaid's Tale, Canadian author Margaret Atwood imagined a world where women were stripped of their rights and were forced into the roles of reproductive tools with no consideration for their humanity. Shows like Black Mirror often deal with how we dehumanize others for our entertainment. We only have to remember episodes like "Fifteen Million Merits" or "Nosedive," where people earn their status by the approval of others.
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Other modern dystopian anxieties include machines, robots, and artificial intelligence taking over our world. In cinema and literature, stories like I, Robot and Ex Machina ask the questions: "What would happen if humanity's creations turned against their creators?" In today's life, people feel anxious about AI taking over their jobs, replacing the need for human creativity, and collectively dumbing us down to unprecedented levels.
As we read and watch dystopian stories, we might feel like they're only exaggerations that would never happen in real life. However, some of them feel increasingly possible and scary. Alex Gendler explains that the point of dystopian stories is to be cautionary tales. "[They're] not about some particular government or technology, but the very idea that humanity can be molded into an ideal shape."
