Paradigm Shift In Utopian Fiction
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Utopian fiction or the imaginary projection of a perfect society in which all need and want have been removed and conflict is eliminated, has a long history. Sir Thomas Mores Utopia is a focal point in the tradition of the genre, and Mores contemplation of a society removed from daily struggle to a place of ease, has had a powerful and lasting effect on subsequent visions of the future.
Dystopian fiction is the natural correlative of this literary mode and presents visions of imaginary worlds in which the worst of all possible social conditions pertains and where all ethical, aesthetic and metaphysical judgments are consequently problematised.
A strict definition of utopia would serve no useful purpose; as Nietzsche says, only that which has no history can be defined.
A utopia always maintains a close and specific relationship with the sociopolitical environment from which it stems. Utopia is thus a game played between the two poles of reality and fiction.( George Orwell, A readers guide to essential criticism, edited by Daniel Lea,2001)
The term “utopia” first appeared in the 1516 work Utopia by Sir Thomas More , literally meaning ” nowhere”, it represents the perfect society. Thus, the idea is inherently ironic in that can never be achieved.
Utopian Literature of the 20th century stands out / marks out through the relinquishment of the perspective which governed the utopia of past centuries: a positive utopia, confident in institutions and progress- an internal law of utopian genre. In the first years of the 20th century, utopia ceases describing the advantages of progress in the service of community, eliminating individual.
In the first half of the 20th century, utopian history is dominated by H.G.Wells s work.. His creation marks the transition from one period to another. Social and political themes are still present ,but this time are accompanied by scientific speculation.
Characteristic to the 20th century is the next mutation or shifting : political and social regimes are no longer a concern or an interest, but rather the human nature, altered gradually, eugeny or controlled evolution; utopia abolishes history and past, in general, being placed in a parallel present, but in the 20th century, it is planned in the future.
Anti-utopia or dystopia continues the tradition of utopia from the point of view of invention and of technique, but it differs regarding intention. Instead of welfare and prosperity, we have despair and misery; instead of flourishing, the end of humanity. Anti-utopia goes in the opposite direction of utopia.
Negative utopia, namely dystopia – in Anthony Burgess terms – is directed not necessarily against utopia, but towards disassembling the idyllic prospection of utopian future. It doesnt denounce the principle of utopia, happiness, but the method of realizing this utopian society. If at the beginning of the 19th century, utopia would be an anticipation at the most fairy-like, in the 20th century we can say that the dystopian authors show us which are the effects of progress reevaluated
by the utopian steps.
In this mutation science is used or abused by different types of rulers in the nearer future . It will begin with psychology, the science which concerns us more closely and intimately than any other, the science whose subject matter is the human mind itself.
In this direction, the novel of Aldous Huxley Brave New World appeared in 1932 and it is one of the most successful literary materialization of reflection concerning utopian evolution. Huxleys dystopia hints not only at criticism of science and its negative effects on human condition, but also at the totalitarian political regimes.
Huxley is one of the authors who have offered the most consistent, original and defining elements for this paradigm. The same thing can be also applied for the history of modern novel. Both in utopian fiction and modern novels the defining element is the belief that the technical-industrial progress leads to alienation of individual, loss of identity and of freedom.
Brave New World moots the question of incompatibility between public good and individual salvation, pointing out standardization which makes impossible the affirmation of individuality. Huxleys dystopia is not directed against scientific progress, but against scientific progress to individual detriment. What distinguishes Huxley, as an utopist, is the drama of biological-psychological manipulation of human being. Science, in this case, is not an instrument of knowledge, but of power in the service of the motto of the society: Community, Identity, Stability.
The obligatory / compulsory prosperity of dystopian society is achieved by human deformation generating an absurd society without moral, values and without God- a dehumanized world.
In this world, the cost of stability is the absence of individuality. Stability needs robots in order to work, not human beings. Therefore at the basis of society is conditioning. Freud and his followers have shown how profoundly important to us are the events of the first few months and years of our existence. They have proved that our adult mentality, our whole way of thinking and feeling, our entire philosophy of life may be shaped and moulded by what we experience in earliest childhood. Following another line of research, the great Russian biologist, Pavlov, and the American Behaviourists have shown how easy it is, with animals and young children, to form conditioned reflexes which habit soon hardens into what we are loosely accustomed to call instinctive patterns of behaviour. Another instrument used for achieving social stability is by the method Bokanovski through which is they produce standard individuals.
In the many years that followed Mores Utopia, the genre of Utopian writing flourished as more emphasis was given to life as it is lived on Earth and explorers returned with accounts of societies that had different systems than European ones. The French satirist Rabelais in the first book of his Pantagruel (1532) has a section titled “Expedition to Utopia.” In his next book Gargantua, Rabelais describes another ideal society .The City of the Sun (1623) by Tommaso Campanella, Christianopolis (1619) by Johann V. Andreae and The New Atlantis (1624) by Francis Bacon were all published in the early seventeenth century.
Like Utopia, there is no private property and money in this land and there is a sharing of work.