Dystopia (preliminary)

This section is devoted to collect the preliminary definitios one can hold about the dystopia concept, as a first step in a further inquire of the core concepts of political philosophy in the information age. The question "what is dystopia?" is posed to participants in the seminar "From Ancient Utopias to Cyberutopias. An introduction to political philosophy" in a very early stage. Thereafter, participants are invited to write down here their understandings of the term trying to group them in the definitions provided by other participants.

Please, before providing your definition take a careful look to the previous ones and ammend them if you consider necessary, leaving a note in the discussion tab (top, left). Indeed the discussion page can be very productive in a free confrontation of the different understandings as a dialectical approach to a better common understanding.

Preliminary definitions of the concept

The Concept of a Dystopia can be understood as the absurd, if not even perverted opposite of an Utopia. They are dominated by overbearing or even tyrannical governments, which results in fear and distress for the average citizen. Most Dystopias also getting depicted in connection with environmental, economical, or social disasters like a ruined word, a System of oppression, slavery and inequality and/or the collapse of the economy. Examples vary hugely – From clear Dystopias like Fahrenheit 451, 1948 to more indirect depictions like Dune (In the later Novels) or The Foundation. Also, there are real life examples for Dystopias from our point of view nowadays, like for an example the Nazi-Regime in Germany which took inspiration from Socialism in certain matters (Like, “Kraft durch Freude”) but would’ve or rather had dire consequences for everybody which didn’t fit their criteria’s.

In my personal view, Dystopias are far easier too achieve as actual Utopias, due to the reality that even the best ideas and beliefs can be corrupted due to many and various circumstances. It has also to be considered, I think, that it is far easier to regress or go into extremes, than to accept the challenges which we would face as a society but also on an individual level. Extremes do often give you at least the impression of a clear line, of clear consequences and clear distinctions. Although I know Godwin’s law, so I nevertheless want to point out the third Reich here; to a certain extent, they provided a public which considered themselves as humiliated, an easy and beneficial way out at first and if we look carefully around us – We will realize that we will find similar wordings, mechanism and I would even go so far as to use the word “Propaganda”, in our Society today too. Not as fascist, not as openly destructive – though, it is suspicious to me personally, that “we” always seem to be on the “good side”, that we always “bring freedom”, that other systems are automatically “more oppressive” yet we still earn a lot of profits with the suffering of others.

Yet, I choose the extreme comparison and as final words I do want to stress, that the fact that we are allowed to openly bring up this comparison proves me already partly wrong. Nevertheless, I am convinced, that we’ve to constantly question ourselves and our own system as a whole, to be able to progress and create a better world – Because, not doing exactly that, would automatically lead to a Dystopia; the Dystopia of liberal Capitalism.

Supporters of this understanding: Alexander Prugger