essay on dystopia and utopia

Literature Notes
What Are Utopias and Dystopias?
Book Summary
About The Giver
Character List
Summary and Analysis
Chapters 1-2
Chapters 3-5
Chapters 6-8
Chapters 9-10
Chapters 11-12
Chapters 13-15
Chapters 16-17
Chapters 18-20
Chapters 21-23
Lois Lowry Biography
Critical Essays
Major Themes in The Giver
Style and Language in The Giver
A Note about Infanticide and Euthanasia
Full Glossary for The Giver
Essay Questions
Cite this Literature Note

Critical Essays What Are Utopias and Dystopias?

The word utopia comes from the Greek words ou , meaning "no" or "not," and topos , meaning "place." Since its original conception, utopia has come to mean a place that we can only dream about, a true paradise. Dystopia , which is the direct opposite of utopia, is a term used to describe a utopian society in which things have gone wrong. Both utopias and dystopias share characteristics of science fiction and fantasy, and both are usually set in a future in which technology has been used to create perfect living conditions. However, once the setting of a utopian or dystopian novel has been established, the focus of the novel is usually not on the technology itself but rather on the psychology and emotions of the characters who live under such conditions.

Although the word utopia was coined in 1516 by Sir Thomas More when he wrote Utopia , writers have written about utopias for centuries, including the biblical Garden of Eden in Genesis and Plato's Republic , about a perfect state ruled by philosopher-kings. More's Utopia protested contemporary English life by describing an ideal political state in a land called Utopia, or Nowhere Land. Other early fictional utopias include various exotic communities in Jonathan Swift's famous Gulliver's Travels (1726).

The idea of utopias continued to be popular during the nineteenth century. For example, English author Samuel Butler wrote Erewhon (1872) ("nowhere" spelled backward) and Erewhon Revisited (1901), and William Morris wrote News From Nowhere (1891). In the United States, people have attempted to create real-life utopias. A few of the places where utopian communities were started include Fruitlands, Massachusetts; Harmony, Pennsylvania; Corning, Iowa; Oneida, New York; and Brook Farm, Massachusetts, founded in 1841 by American transcendentalists. Although the founders of these utopian communities had good intentions, none of the communities flourished as their creators had hoped.

Dystopias are a way in which authors share their concerns about society and humanity. They also serve to warn members of a society to pay attention to the society in which they live and to be aware of how things can go from bad to worse without anyone realizing what has happened. Examples of fictional dystopias include Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), Ray Bradbury's

Fahrenheit 451 (1953), and George Orwell's Animal Farm (1944) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).

Lois Lowry chose to write The Giver as a dystopian novel because it was the most effective means to communicate her dissatisfaction with the lack of awareness that human beings have about their interdependence with each other, their environment, and their world. She uses the irony of utopian appearances but dystopian realities to provoke her readers to question and value their own freedoms and individual identities.

Jonas' community appears to be a utopia, but, in reality, it is a dystopia. The people seem perfectly content to live in an oli-garchy — a government run by a select few — in which a Community of Elders enforces the rules. In Jonas' community, there is no poverty, starvation, unemployment, lack of housing, or prejudice; everything is perfectly planned to eliminate any problems. However, as the novel progresses and Jonas gains insight into what the people have willingly given up — their freedoms and individual-ities — for the so-called common good of the community, it becomes more and more evident that the community is a bad place in which to live. Readers can relate to the disbelief and horror that Jonas feels when he realizes that his community is a hypocrisy, a society based on false ideals of goodness and conformity. As Jonas comes to understand the importance of memory, freedom, individuality, and even color, he can no longer stand by and watch the people in his community continue to live under such fraudulent pretenses.

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100 Dystopia Essay Topics & Ideas

🏆 best dystopian titles, 📌 simple & easy dystopian title ideas, 👍 good dystopia essay titles, ❓ dystopian discussion questions.

20th Century Dystopian Fiction and Today’s Society The author considers the fiction works of that era as an attempt to convey the destructive nature of violence and everything related to injustice.”The tone of dystopia is of despair and the feel it gives […]
Saunders’s “The Red Bow”: The Dystopian Reality of Totalitarianism This essay will consider the relevance of the topic introduced by Saunders and provide actual historical examples that support his hypothesis.”The Red Bow” starts with a group of men going out for a dog hunt […] We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
Gender Issues in Dystopian Film “Children of Men” The significance of this source is validated by its contribution to the argument of the relevance of the dystopian genre in cinematography for unfolding social issues.
The Planet of the Apes – A Dystopian Film Via the cinematic experience the entire infrastructure of people’s culture and the state of the world at large can be seen and experienced.
Dystopias “Brave New World” by Huxley and “1984” by Orwell The modern world is full of complications and the moments when it seems like a dystopia the darkest version of the future. In the novel, promiscuity is encouraged, and sex is a form of entertainment.
The Concept and History of Dystopian Fiction Thus, the goal of this paper is to study the phenomenon of DF based on the examples of Orwell’s and Huxley’s fiction and determine the presence of the themes that overlap with the contemporary social, […]
Genre: Science Fiction Dystopia The western genre is the most common movie genre used to highlight the dominance and development of both American and European cultures and economies to the rest of the world.
“WALL-E”: Dystopian Narrative In addition, genre conventions, along with the rules of science fiction, promote the engagement of the movie with the issues of programming and consumption.
Dystopia in “Gattaca” and “Never Let Me Go” Movies When people think about the future, in the majority of cases, they believe that science and technology should help to change the world. One of the goals of a utopia is to remove the overwhelming […]
The Brave New World Dystopia by Aldous Huxley The primary assertion in the novel is that the cost of this stability is the loss of individuality, creativity, and genuine human connection.
Genre Assessment: Dystopian Genre Review Based on the Film “Children of Men” The current proposal implies the creation of a review that explores the key features of dystopia as a cinema genre and based on a prominent example of such a film.
Unhappiness of Society in Orwell’s 1984 Dystopia His character is a strong individual who will not transgress the ideals of his party and is fully committed to him.
Welcome to Your Nightmares: The Dystopian Vision of the World It is quite peculiar that both Orwell and Huxley chose the same tool to express the tension and the absurdity of the situation that the people of the future were trapped in, creating the abridged […]
Dystopias in “Animal Farm” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” In this regard, the aim of literary dystopias is to caution and warn society against the blind following of ideologies that lead to the breakdown of social order.
Dystopias by Kurt Vonnegut and Robert Silverberg The feature of the story The Pain Peddlers is in the fact that the situation in it reminds bureaucratic procedures in reality.
Utopia Versus Dystopia: Discussion However, the practical realization of Communist concepts in Russia, had resulted in millions of citizens loosing their lives and in those people, who managed to survive, during the course of Communist “social purges”, becoming the […]
‘Se7en’ by David Fincher: A Film Steeped in Dystopia A professional model is found dead in her bed with her nose cut off, a container of sleeping pills in one hand, and a phone in the other; her death was the result of a […]
The Dystopian Societies of “1984” and Brave New World The three features which are discussed in this respect are the division of the two societies into social strata, the use of state power and control over citizens, and the loss of people’s individualities.
Dystopian Fiction for Young Readers First of all, it must be noted that the article of the current analysis is devoted to the impact of dystopian fiction on young people.
Dystopian Future in the “Blade Runner” Film The foremost aspect of how the urban landscape is being represented in Blade Runner is that the director made a deliberate point in accentuating the perceptual unfriendliness of the environment, in the foreground of which […]
Dystopia Idea in the Movies and Novels If considering the rebels in the novel and the movies the “vermin” instead of the “prey,” the idea of the stories will change slightly.
A Dystopian State: Astutopia The education system reinforces the essence of the dungeons, and the aim is to instill fear within the children so they can adhere to laid down teachings and doctrines.
Popularity of Utopian/Dystopian Young Adult Literature The box is entrusted in the Mayor’s care and a tradition of passing it from one Mayor to the next is established.
Dystopian Social Contract The Hunger Games series 1 is a science-fiction drama that delineates the situation of enslavement among the citizens of Panem to the governing class that reside in a city called Capitol.
Subversive Literature/ Dystopia in science fiction novels In the endeavor to place a case in support of this line of argument, the paper considers the key traits of dystopian literature then showing how Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep possesses them in […]
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Our Society is Becoming More Like a Dystopia Than a Democracy
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The Brave New World’s Dystopia And Assimilation
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Dystopia: Science Fiction, Exaggeration, Or Imminent Reality
Thoughts on Feminism and Dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale
Censorship in Dystopia in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
The Dystopia in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale
Dystopia Caused by the Massive Boom of Technology in The Hunger Games
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Somewhere Between Utopia and Dystopia: Choosing From Incomparable Prospects
The Causes of the Island’s Changes from Utopia to Dystopia in the Novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding
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The Handmaid’s Tale: Dissecting the Feminist Dystopia
Self-Repression and Dystopia: The Bumpy Road to Freedom in “Never Let Me Go”
Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 Modern Dystopia Warnings
Utopia and Dystopia in Animal Farm by George Orwell
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Who Invented Dystopia?
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Why Dystopia Fiction Often Paints a Frightening Picture of the Future?
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A Utopia for a Dystopian Age

By Espen Hammer

June 26, 2017

The term “utopia” was coined 500 years ago. By conjoining the Greek adverb “ou” (“not”) and the noun “topos” (“place”) the English humanist and politician Thomas More conceived of a place that is not — literally a “nowhere” or “noplace.” More’s learned readers would also have recognized another pun. The pronunciation of “utopia” can just as well be associated with “eu-topia,” which in Greek means “happy place.” Happiness, More might have suggested, is something we can only imagine. And yet imagining it, as philosophers, artists and politicians have done ever since, is far from pointless.

More was no doubt a joker. “Utopia,” his fictional travelogue about an island of plenty and equality, is told by a character whose name, Hythloday, yet another playful conjoining of Greek words, signifies something like “nonsense peddler.” Although More comes across as being quite fond of his noplace, he occasionally interrupts the narrative by warning against the islanders’ rejection of private property. Living under the reign of the autocratic Henry VIII, and being a prominent social figure, More might not have wanted to rock the boat too much.

Precisely that — rocking the boat — has, however, been the underlying aim of the great utopias that have shaped Western culture. It has animated and informed progressive thinking, providing direction and a sense of purpose to struggles for social change and emancipation. From the vantage point of the utopian imagination, history — that gushing river of seemingly contingent micro-events — has taken on meaning, becoming a steadfast movement toward the sought-for condition supposedly able to justify all previous striving and suffering.

Utopianism can be dreamy in a John Lennon “Imagine”-esque way. Yet it has also been ready to intervene and bring about concrete transformation.

Utopias come in different forms. Utopias of desire, as in Hieronymus Bosch’s painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” focus on happiness, tying it to the satisfaction of needs. Such utopias, demanding the complete alleviation of pain and sometimes glorious spaces of enjoyment and pleasure, tend, at least in modern times, to rely on technology. The utopias of technology see social, bodily and environmental ills as requiring technological solutions. We know such solutions all too well: ambitious city-planning schemes and robotics as well as dreams of cosmic expansion and immortality.

The utopias of justice are perhaps even more familiar. Asking, typically, for great personal sacrifice, these utopias call for the abolition of all social injustice . While the French Revolution had its fair share of such visions, they reached an apotheosis in 20th-century Marxist politics. Despite his own personal rejection of utopianism, Lenin, high on his pedestal addressing workers in October 1917, came to be the embodiment of all three forms of utopia. At the heart of the Soviet vision there were always those burning eyes gazing intently, and with total confidence, toward the promised land.

Today, the utopian impulse seems almost extinguished. The utopias of desire make little sense in a world overrun by cheap entertainment, unbridled consumerism and narcissistic behavior. The utopias of technology are less impressive than ever now that — after Hiroshima and Chernobyl — we are fully aware of the destructive potential of technology. Even the internet, perhaps the most recent candidate for technological optimism, turns out to have a number of potentially disastrous consequences, among them a widespread disregard for truth and objectivity, as well as an immense increase in the capacity for surveillance. The utopias of justice seem largely to have been eviscerated by 20th-century totalitarianism. After the Gulag Archipelago, the Khmer Rouge’s killing fields and the Cultural Revolution, these utopias seem both philosophically and politically dead.

The great irony of all forms of utopianism can hardly escape us. They say one thing, but when we attempt to realize them they seem to imply something entirely different. Their demand for perfection in all things human is often pitched at such a high level that they come across as aggressive and ultimately destructive. Their rejection of the past, and of established practice, is subject to its own logic of brutality.

And not only has the utopian imagination been stung by its own failures, it has also had to face up to the two fundamental dystopias of our time: those of ecological collapse and thermonuclear warfare. The utopian imagination thrives on challenges. Yet these are not challenges but chillingly realistic scenarios of utter destruction and the eventual elimination of the human species. Add to that the profoundly anti-utopian nature of the right-wing movements that have sprung up in the United States and Europe and the prospects for any kind of meaningful utopianism may seem bleak indeed. In matters social and political, we seem doomed if not to cynicism, then at least to a certain coolheadedness.

Anti-utopianism may, as in much recent liberalism, call for controlled, incremental change. The main task of government, Barack Obama ended up saying, is to avoid doing stupid stuff. However, anti-utopianism may also become atavistic and beckon us to return, regardless of any cost, to an idealized past. In such cases, the utopian narrative gets replaced by myth. And while the utopian narrative is universalistic and future-oriented, myth is particularistic and backward-looking. Myths purport to tell the story of us, our origin and of what it is that truly matters for us. Exclusion is part of their nature.

Can utopianism be rescued? Should it be? To many people the answer to both questions is a resounding no.

There are reasons, however, to think that a fully modern society cannot do without a utopian consciousness. To be modern is to be oriented toward the future. It is to be open to change even radical change, when called for. With its willingness to ride roughshod over all established certainties and ways of life, classical utopianism was too grandiose, too rationalist and ultimately too cold. We need the ability to look beyond the present. But we also need More’s insistence on playfulness. Once utopias are embodied in ideologies, they become dangerous and even deadly. So why not think of them as thought experiments? They point us in a certain direction. They may even provide some kind of purpose to our strivings as citizens and political beings.

We also need to be more careful about what it is that might preoccupy our utopian imagination. In my view, only one candidate is today left standing. That candidate is nature and the relation we have to it. More’s island was an earthly paradise of plenty. No amount of human intervention would ever exhaust its resources. We know better. As the climate is rapidly changing and the species extinction rate reaches unprecedented levels, we desperately need to conceive of alternative ways of inhabiting the planet.

Are our industrial, capitalist societies able to make the requisite changes? If not, where should we be headed? This is a utopian question as good as any. It is deep and universalistic. Yet it calls for neither a break with the past nor a headfirst dive into the future. The German thinker Ernst Bloch argued that all utopias ultimately express yearning for a reconciliation with that from which one has been estranged. They tell us how to get back home. A 21st-century utopia of nature would do that. It would remind us that we belong to nature, that we are dependent on it and that further alienation from it will be at our own peril.

Espen Hammer is a professor of philosophy at Temple University and the author of “Adorno’s Modernism: Art, Experience, and Catastrophe.”

Now in print : “ The Stone Reader: Modern Philosophy in 133 Arguments ,” an anthology of essays from The Times’s philosophy series, edited by Peter Catapano and Simon Critchley, published by Liveright Books.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter , and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter .

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A project by UNESCO-MOST – C.I.P.S.H – Mémoire de l’Avenir

In this article I will address the issues of anxiety and hope through the lens of a major artistic, literary, and philosophical genre—utopia. I will discuss how utopia and its counterpart, dystopia, have become essential tools for the critical analysis of an era by calling into question the aspirations of that era, as well as its more alarming aspects. Literature, cinema, and architecture have all called upon the utopia/dystopia tandem in order to arrive at a constructive examination of our society. I will also demonstrate how the rise of digital technology, through the production of simulation, has become significant in further developing this critical reflection.

Chronology Of An Antagonistic Couple

Utopia was originally a literary form. The term was coined in 1516 by Thomas More in his novel Utopia , which describes an ideal form of society “which is nowhere to be found” (utopia, a Greek word, translates as “no place”). Inspired by Plato’s Republic , the book is above all a humanist critique, an outline of the injustices that plagued 16th century European societies, England in particular. In the second edition, More added the English homonym Eutopia into the title, thus stressing the idea of a “place of good.” This double meaning reveals the very nature of utopia—a device pertaining more to literature than to politics, it is an imaginary creation, an ideal which cannot be established within human society. Paradoxically, because utopia claims to respond to the entirety of human aspirations and contradictions through a single, univocal form of societal organization, it carries within it the seeds of ideological thought.

The notion of dystopia—a “negative place” in etymological terms—appeared in the 19th century, also in England. Dystopia is the realization of utopia within a society, which rapidly turns into a chance to witness the malfunctions of said utopia when put to the test of reality, exposing its shortcomings and its social and political risks. In literature, dystopia adopts the individual’s point of view, exposing the absurd treatment he/she is subjected to by a utopia that has evolved from a philosophical idea into an implemented, dominant system. Literary examples of dystopias abound, and some of them constitute major works that have become iconic representations of their times— A Brave New World (Aldous Huxley, 1932), 1984 (Georges Orwell, 1948), Planet Of The Apes (Pierre Boulle, 1963), The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood, 1985), Submission (Michel Houellebecq, 2015), among others. In the end, this derivative literary form has proven more prolific and productive than its initial source, utopia.

In the 1960s, youth and intellectual circles were driven by such a thirst for revolution and idealism that any form of constructive criticism was immediately dismissed as reactionary. Certain intellectuals, however, including Guy Debord in France and Pierre Paolo Pasolini in Italy, were clearly aware that this new revolution, even if it aligned with legitimate and progressive struggles, also had to do with the emergence of a bourgeois society structured by market consumption, coupled with the new form of the society of the spectacle. Does absolute, dazzling freedom prosaically lead to addictive consumption, the triumph of international brands, and the ephemeral glories of social networks? Does utopia tragically bear its own dystopia?

The idea here is not to question freedom in itself, which is an essential and universal human achievement, but on the contrary to try to identify the ways in which ideology can supersede an ideal, and single out the indicators that mark the shift from a legitimate utopia to its disembodied realization. The question is rather complex, because the essence of ideology is to be diffuse in the minds that share belief in it—it is an invisible way of interpreting the world. It is therefore imperative that we build tools that can make it visible, forcing it to reveal its most hidden consequences. Often accused of reactionism, dystopia nevertheless remains a relevant tool for dissecting the deep meaning of an ideology. It questions the future and exposes more than it promotes, allowing the enlightened individual to freely make their own choices and determine their own ideals.

Cinema As Dystopia’s Medium Of Choice

The 20th century saw dystopia become a source of inspiration for the arts. Film thus succeeds the 19th century novel as the ultimate form of story-telling and becomes the primary witness of its time. Initially based on adaptations of literary works, the medium quickly and increasingly began to develop productions, based on original screenplays, which questioned societal matters directly: class society in Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927), the iterative loop of time and the eternal return in La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962), the dehumanization of society at the hands of a supercomputer in Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965), the society of the Eternal Immortals versus the Brutes in Zardoz (John Boorman, 1974), the tentacular and dysfunctional administration in Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985), or the collective dependence on an addictive and organic kind of virtuality in Existenz (David Cronenberg, 1999).

Beyond the political, philosophical, and humanistic narrative, these works examine the importance of the physical places that act as settings for dystopias. How can we give shape to the setting of a dysfunctional utopia? Should it take place in a purely fictional space, or, on the contrary, would it better demonstrate its immediacy to insert it within fragments of our present environment? Some directors choose to favour the studio set and special effects—the evocative vertical city in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis still astonishes viewers today. Other directors attempted to twist reality, creating a utopia by distorting elements of contemporary architecture, thus extracting their futuristic potential. Examples include La Jetée , Alphaville , Stanley Kubrick’s provocative A Clockwork Orange , and Terry Gilliam’s baroque Brazil . This use of reality serves a more direct critique of modernity, its dehumanized spaces, and its ways of living by creating anticipatory fables that speak clearly to our present.

Critical Tools For Thinking Urbanism

The fields of architecture and urban planning have long been closely linked to the notions of utopia and dystopia. During the Renaissance, parallel to the universalist and humanist ideals of a better world, the concept emerges of an Ideal City capable of embodying it. The Ideal City aims to physically install utopia within a determined spatial and social organization, and follows from the dominant model in Italy at the time—the city-state. Over the course of the following centuries, and depending upon the popular aspirations of the time, the theme will have many variations, from the Familistère (family lodging) designed by Jean-Baptiste André Godin to the pre-revolutionary architecture of Etienne-Louis Boullet and Claude Nicolas Ledoux.

In the 19th century, the garden city model introduced a hygienist utopia in relation to the place of production—the factory—in order to extract workers from the miasmas that diminished their productivity and hindered capitalism’s proper development. This ideology of imposed happiness for all will culminate at the beginning of the 20th century with Le Corbusier’s Ville Idéale , as demonstrated by the proposal brought forth by the seminal Plan Voisin , where both urban planning and happiness were authoritarian, imposed upon the individual, idealized as the athletic modern man. It is worth noting that this plan barely predates the expansion of fascism throughout Europe, and the ideological ties between the two are ambiguous to say the least.

Architectural utopia remained very much alive in the years following the Second World War. In the 1960s, the pop and avant-garde projects of the English group Archigram and the megastructure movement formed a kind of spectacular swan song, as the very existence of an ideal model faced growing scepticism. Can democratic society, born out of complex historical and social processes that reflect humanity’s diverse nature, be held to a unique, utopian, urban planning principle, however brilliant and beautiful it may be? Even if architects, overly confident in the social power of their constructions, have come to serve an ideology of habitat through their production of images, there are groups among them developing a more critical approach to the relevance of “modernity at all costs.” In this respect, the birth of Radical Architecture, which favours dystopia over utopia in order to explore aesthetic and social issues in relation to housing, marks a turning point in urban thinking.

A forerunner in this matter was the “No-Stop City” project (Archizoom Associati, 1969), a dystopia conceived by architect and designer Andrea Branzi. This endless city implements “the idea of the disappearance of architecture within the metropolis.” In practical terms, the city, transformed into infinite territory, is organized in the same manner as a parking lot or a supermarket. Underground architecture, limited to a simple grid, offers featureless, climate-controlled spaces isolated from the outside, in which individuals create their own habitat, like nomads wandering amidst a consumerist society. Branzi asserts the provocative and critical dimension of his dystopia, “To qualitative utopias, we respond with the only possible utopia: that of Quantity.” In an era in which discourses on the benefits of consumption are developing, Branzi forces us to distance ourselves through critical thinking, by presenting appealing rhetoric while at the same time displaying its obvious negative consequences.

Further developing this critical dimension, the “Exodus” project (Rem Koolhaas, Marion Elia, and Zoé Zenghelis, 1972) presents itself as a fiction, a kind of fable made up of images and texts. In the heart of London, a monumental urban strip is home to refugees who are completely subject to the reign of oppressive architecture. Inspired by the situation in 1970s Berlin and its wall, it describes a world divided in two, in which people from the wrong side desperately attempt to reach the right side. If they succeed, they then engage in a series of experiments within extreme architectural sequences. As with Andrea Branzi, the project is tainted with an unusual sarcastic tone, uncommon for designers who are accustomed to valuing the inherent benefits and qualities of their urban proposals.

Through its evocative power, radical architecture currently stands as a reference whose intellectual influence goes beyond the framework of urban planning. It represents a profound global reflection on the kind of society we want to implement. The frontrunners of this movement have since taken diverging paths. Some Italians, shaped by the weight of history, have brought their work back to inspirations of the classical city. The Dutchman Rem Koolhaas, on the contrary, has developed architecture embedded within the chaotic urban fabric of the great megalopolises.

Virtual Simulation—A Means For Exploring Possibilities

The field of digital contemporary creation is undoubtedly the most likely to further the dialogue between utopia and dystopia. Through digital technology and programming, we have shifted away from traditional representation, whether pictorial or photographic, into a form of real-time representation—simulation. What the image loses in terms of truth, it gains in interactivity. It abandons the representation of reality in order to embrace a kind of playful, scientific exploration of the virtual model.

Utopia has nourished the field of gaming since its creation. Published in 1981 by Mattel, Utopia constitutes the ancestor of all the simulation games that followed. Two competing players must each develop their own island, increasing its population and developing its urbanism. Although the game’s graphics remained quite simplified, Utopia was one of the first to integrate early forms of artificial intelligence. Many games will later draw their inspiration from this concept, building on storylines which implement a set of variables and mathematical functions to define what an ideal society would look like. One example is Civilization (1991), whose timeline spans from the Stone Age to the conquest of space. Pertaining to the specific sub-genre of the “god game,” Peter Molyneux’s Black And White (2001) gives the player the chance to transform into an omnipotent god, capable of offering happiness and prosperity to his subjects or, on the contrary, of arbitrarily destroying their achievements. Within this genre, the dystopian form too often focuses on exclusively first-person action. As an apocalyptic framework for individual missions based on violence, its philosophical or humanistic scope is limited. Creations such as Half-Life 2 (2004) enable the player to eliminate a large number of enemies by evolving though different levels, with the societal scope reduced to a decorative backdrop. If the player is subjected to political or social oppression, it only serves as an excuse to exalt their own individualism, and to justify their right to eliminate and destroy that which stands in the way of a Manichean notion of good.

In spite of video games’ limitations in terms of expressing dystopia, the evocative power and the endless possibilities offered by the medium remain evident. So how can a scripted digital simulation become the framework for a relevant and thorough reflection on our societal ideals and their consequences? If we broaden our scope to include other fields, it appears clear that simulation has become a precious tool for scientific research. The creation of digital models is allowing us to shift the field of experimentation from physical experiments to virtual simulations. Thanks to the use of big data, we have been able to bring meteorology, nuclear reactions, aerodynamic design, financial viability tests, and the structural resistance of engineering structures into the field of simulation. Today, quantum computing can even simulate the behaviour of elementary particles in chemical reactions, creating bridges between scientific disciplines that once had their own distinct theories of the behaviour of matter.

However, we cannot reasonably assemble all the parameters characterizing dystopia as adjustable variables in a simulation. The fields involved in the matter are far too vast for such a project to be realistic—economics, architecture, urban planning, ecology, sociology, technology. The possibilities for each of these fields are far too immense for current computer simulations which, on the contrary, focus on solving specific problems through precise and copious calculation. What is, on the other hand, available to us is the possibility of making the public interact with pre-selected structuring data, of establishing a narrative scenario and allowing users to push it to its maximum expression, so as to reveal that which remains purely theoretical and has not yet materialized as a tangible reality. It is a matter of offering not only perceptual, but also reflective experiences.

Themes For Contemporary Dystopia

I propose to elaborate a social and environmental simulation, implementing the structural points of emerging ideologies. The first step is to identify these ideologies. Although our era seems particularly inclined to cover up the tragic dimensions of existence, it is home to multiple catastrophes—global warming and its environmental consequences, the resulting human migrations, and the rise of populism are all disasters that inhibit the ability to project oneself into the future, and seem to indicate imminent civilizational rupture. But the human spirit needs hope, and no society can be built without values and ideals. Today, ecology, organic farming, bio-inspiration, sustainable development, degrowth, and local purchasing are all issues which crystallize these ideals.

However, a dystopia must go beyond simply stating the obvious if it is to maintain its critical scope. Its nature is purely prescient—it aims neither to trouble nor to reassure. To conclude, let us examine a few contemporary social indicators that relate to dystopian fiction.

Scientific Cosmogony

Whereas religion is characterized by a dogmatic attitude with no allowance for the dogma’s evolution, science proceeds by establishing theories that can be overturned by other more relevant theories at any time, the only judge being repeated and peer-reviewed experimentation. Since the beginning of the 20th century and the advent of the theory of relativity, science has reached a metaphysical level which has opened up the examination of the universe. By extracting us from a godless, purely deterministic Newtonian world, quantum physics unwittingly brought up a set of questions regarding the very nature of reality. Many elements seem to converge toward the appearance of a new cosmogony, based upon scientific hypotheses and stemming from our new knowledge of the laws of the universe—forms of time and space, the nature of the Big Bang, the existence of parallel universes on a macroscopic scale, neuron structures proving the brain to be the most complex structure in the known universe, analyzing genomes on the microscopic scale, or even the theory of evolution. Can such a spiritual quest, being inherently mutative, escape the sectarian temptation of pseudoscience that brought about a quantum mysticism based upon speculative and erroneous interpretations of scientific theory?

Transhumanism

The ability to control births, a practice descending from eugenics, and the desire to modify the living have been addressed in many dystopian fictions. Through transhumanism, our era has introduced further confusion in defining the nature of life. The idea of a “singularity,” a point in time at which artificial intelligence will supersede human capacities—which is believed to be very close—and the aspiration to completely transfer a human mind into the global computer network in order to make him or her eternal and omniscient constitute two watersheds, though we have yet to determine whether they are real possibilities or simply the result of an unbalanced and deranged ideology. Although the possibility of augmented man is becoming increasingly palpable with each step in scientific progress, the very nature of our consciousness cannot be reduced to a data-processing machine, for it remains inextricably bound to the nerve endings of our body. Does transhumanism’s yearning for eternal life not remind us of one of our most ancient myths—Icarus, who by refusing the transitory nature of human life, announces his inevitable demise?

Derived from ontology, animalism goes beyond humanism by extending its moral scope to the entire animal kingdom. One of its most recent developments, antispeciesism, rejects the categorization of animal species by arbitrary criteria established according to the interests of the human race—an attitude that, according to anti-speciesists, is part of the anthropocentrism responsible for the destruction of all living things. The rapid and unprecedented disappearance of the majority of known species, induced by human activity, has given much credit to this philosophy, which, through radical activism, has challenged many traditional aspects of our society—food, farming, agriculture, our relationship with nature, urban development, and more. Is it possible for our species to profoundly redefine itself, going beyond the ecological urgency of ending industrial farming? Is it possible to engage in otherness with animal forms of consciousness that are different from ours? Will this utopia, a rediscovered Garden of Eden of sorts, drive Adam and Eve out of paradise once again?

Bio-inspiration

Human genius arose out of careful observation of the world, be it nature or the physical laws underlying its existence. In spite of this, technological progress, based upon an abstract application of sciences such as physics, thermodynamics, and chemistry, has turned a blind eye to the notions of ecosystem and interdependence, exploiting resources as if they were unlimited. The beginning of the 21st century marks a brutal wake-up call in which human beings have finally begun to understand the complexity and fragility of the planet they inhabit. The evolution of plant and animal species and the solutions they have deployed to adapt to their environment demonstrates the kind of harmonious development that has already begun influencing architecture, design, and agriculture. Although bio-inspiration may appear as the antidote to the model of all-mighty modernity, it can also turn into a shallow display safeguarding the endurance of destructive industrial growth. Will bio-inspiration be capable of effecting profound change in the way we produce and consume, or is it just our latest attempt at covering up our addiction to unconscionable consumption?

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Dystopia vs. Utopia: Literary Settings (Explained)

by Team Experts
July 2, 2023 July 3, 2023

Discover the Surprising Differences Between Dystopian and Utopian Literary Settings in this Fascinating Blog Post!

What is the Difference Between Oppressive and Ideal Societies in Literary Settings?

What does an author’s vision reveal about totalitarian regimes in literature, exploring dystopian and utopian literary settings: a comparative analysis, common mistakes and misconceptions.

Roots, Routes and a New Awakening pp 287–307 Cite as

Utopias and Dystopias in Literature and Life

Peter Heehs 2
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Plato’s Republic and More’s Utopia served as models for most of the literary utopias written between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, dystopian novels began to displace their positive counterparts. Five dystopian fictions published between 1891 and 1949—Jerome’s “The New Utopia”, Wells’s The Sleeper Awakes , Zamyatin’s We , Huxley’s Brave New World , and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty - Four —exhibit many common themes, such as (1) isolation, (2) totalitarianism, (3) technology in service of the state, (4) rigid social organization, (5) uniformity and (6) social control. In the twenty-first century, some of these characteristics of fictional dystopian societies have become realities in the form of unseen technological surveillance and control. Nevertheless, utopia lives on as an ideal, for instance in philosophical transhumanism.

Dystopian fiction
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Essays About Utopia: Top 6 Examples and 9 Prompts

Struggling to write essays about utopia? Our essay examples about utopia plus prompts will be useful in your writing journey.

Utopia refers to an imaginary world where perfect societies are created. Translated as “no place” in Greek, the term was coined by English Statesman Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book “Utopia.” In More’s Utopia, a political satire, people share the same ways of life and live in harmony.

Utopia in various contexts has been used to define a perfect society that has served as the foundation of several ideologies. However, it has also been slammed for propelling people to strive for the impossible and dismiss realities on the ground. Various schools of thought have risen to improve on the utopian concept.

6 Helpful Essay Examples

1. utopian thinking: the easy way to eradicate poverty by rutger bregman, 2. the schools of utopia by john dewey, 3. metaverse: utopia for virtual business opportunities right now by noah rue, 4. saudi’s neom is dystopia portrayed as utopia by edwin heathcote, 5. streaming utopia: imagining digital music’s perfect world by marc hogan, 6. what’s the difference between utopia, eutopia, and protopia by hanzi freinacht, 1. describe your utopia, 2. my utopian vacation, 3. what is utopian literature, 4. utopia vs. dystopia in movies, 5. plato on utopia, 6. utopia of feminists, 7. dangers of utopian thinking, 8. utopia in capitalism, 9. your utopia for education.

“The time for small thoughts and little nudges is past. The time has come for new, radical ideas. If this sounds utopian to you, then remember that every milestone of civilisation – the end of slavery, democracy, equal rights for men and women – was once a utopian fantasy too.”

The article brings to light a utopian vision for eradicating poverty. This vision involves providing annual income to the poor. While such a scheme has drawn criticism over the possibility of dampening beneficiaries’ inclination to work. The essay cites the success of a Canadian field experiment that provided the entire town of Dauphin a monthly income for four years and helped ease poor living conditions. You might also be interested in these essays about Beowulf .

“The most Utopian thing in Utopia is that there are no schools at all. Education is carried on without anything of the nature of schools, or, if this idea is so extreme that we cannot conceive of it as educational at all, then we may say nothing of the sort at present we know as schools.”

John Dewey , an American philosopher, and education reformist, contested the old ways of schooling where rows of students recite and memorize lessons. In this speech, he illuminates the need for education to be a lived experience rather than confined within the four corners of a classroom. Check out these essays about freedom .

“The metaverse looks like a good business opportunity right now, but emerging markets are always volatile, and changing laws or regulations could turn the metaverse from a profitable utopia into a cash-guzzling dystopia for business.”

Businesses of all sizes are beginning to enter the metaverse. As with all pursuits, early movers are gaining the biggest advantage in carving out their niche in the utopian digital world. But despite the blazing popularity of the metaverse, a degree of caution must still be exercised as the virtual space is uncharted territory for sustainable business profitability.

“The inside is, of course, rendered as a bucolic techno-utopia, a valley of trees and foliage, the new Babylon. This is the great contemporary cliché. No matter how huge the building, how hideous the ethics, everything can be concealed by a bit of greenery.”

Saudi and humanity’s biggest ambition for a future eco-city is a trillion-dollar city in the middle of a desert. But the ways to attain this utopian city might not live up to the rhetoric it has been selling, as its gigantic promises of free-flowing energy and technology haven’t accounted for their resulting environmental costs.

“Many were happy with their current digital tools… and just wished for slight improvements, though they frequently expressed concern that artists should be getting a bigger cut of the profits.”

The essay interviews a handful of music nerds and junkies and asks them to describe their utopia in the music streaming world. Some were as ambitious as seeing an integration of music libraries and having all their music collections for free fit into their phones.

“The Utopian believes in progress. The Eutopian believes in critique and a rediscovery of simpler wisdoms and relationships. The Protopian believes that progress can be enacted by understanding how the many critiques and rediscoveries of wisdom are interconnected into a larger whole.”

A political philosopher, Freinacht dissects the differences between utopia, eutopia, and protopia in modern and post-modern contexts. He concludes that protopia is the best way to go as it centers on the reality of daily progress and the beauty of listening to the diversity of human experiences.

9 Interesting Prompts To Begin Your Essays About Utopia

Describe your idea of a perfect world. You could start your essay with the common question of what you think would make the world a better place. Then, provide an ambitious answer, such as a world without poverty or violence. Next, explain why this is the one evil you would like to weed out from the world. Finally, provide background showing the gravity of the situation and why it needs urgent resolution.

For this essay, try to describe your ideal vacation as detailed and colorful as possible to the point that your readers feel they are pulled into your utopia. Pump out your creative juices by adding as many elements that can effectively and strikingly describe your ultimate paradise.

More’s Utopia was a great success among the elites of its time. The groundbreaking book gave way to a new genre: utopian literature. For this writing prompt, describe utopian literature and analyze what new perspectives such genre could offer. Cite famous examples such as More’s Utopia and describe the lessons which could be mused from these utopian novels.

Essays About Utopia: Utopia vs. Dystopia in movies

Dystopia is the opposite of utopia. In your essay, explain the differences od dystopia and utopia, then provide a brief historical summary of how each came about. Cite film examples for each genre and try to answer which of the two is the more popular today. Finally, investigate to understand why there is greater leaning toward this genre and how this genre feeds into the fantasies of today’s audience.

While Plato never used the word “utopia” since he lived long before its conception, Plato is credited for creating the first utopian literary work, The Republic . Summarize the utopia as described by Plato and analyze how his ideals figure in the modern world.

Interview at least three feminists and ask them to describe what a utopia for feminists would look like and why this is their ideal world. How is society expected to behave in their ideal world? Then, consolidate their answers to build the backbone of your essay. You may also search for feminist utopia novels and compare the concepts of these novels to the answers of the feminists you interviewed.

Genocides made to forward extreme ideologies have been linked to utopian thinking. Identify the dangers of aiming for the perfect society and cite past incidents where groups committed heinous crimes to achieve their utopia. To conclude, offer viable solutions, including the proper mindset, realistic setting of boundaries, and actions that groups should carry out when striving to create change.

Essays About Utopia: Utopia in capitalism

Greedy capitalism is blamed for a slew of problems facing today: environmental abuse, labor exploitation, and a gaping divide in income equality that is stoking dissatisfaction among many workers and compelling calls to tax the rich. For your essay, enumerate the problems of capitalism and the remedies being sought to direct the capitalist endeavors to more sustainable projects.

Beyond Dewey’s utopia for the educational system, write your wishlist for how learning should be built at schools. Your utopian school could implement any policy, from having minimal assignments to more educational field trips and challenging activities every day. Finally, explain how this could elevate the educational experience among students, back up your utopian goals with research that also recommends this setup for schools. When editing for grammar, we also recommend improving the readability score of a piece of writing before publishing or submitting. For more guidance, read our explainer on grammar and syntax .

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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Similarities Between Utopia and Dystopia

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At first glance: utopia and dystopia as polar opposites, similarity in their roots in human imagination, similar narrative structures, shared concern with the relationship between individuals and the state, exploration of human nature and potential for corruption, provoking critical thinking and social commentary.

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The Concepts of Utopia and Dystopia

Introduction, works cited page.

The concepts of utopia and dystopia characterize political and economic system of a state and its ideology. Utopia means “an ideal state where all is ordered for the best for humanity as a whole and where the evils of society, such as poverty and misery, have been eliminated” (The Columbia Encyclopedia 48978). In contrast to utopia, dystopia means a society where imperfect traits such as evil, tyranny or poverty become perfect or ideal.

A dystopian state or society situates itself in direct opposition to utopian thought, warning against the potential negative consequences of arrant utopianism (Hodgson 195). At the same time, dystopia society generally also constitutes a critique of existing social conditions or political systems.

They criticize the utopian premises upon which those conditions and systems are based or through the imaginative extension of those conditions and systems into different contexts that more clearly reveal their contradictions (Hodgson 195). “Political creed may be simultaneously the object of utopian hopes and dystopian fears. That one person’s utopia can act as another’s dystopia is a fundamental paradox of utopian thought, and it is evident in those writings of Morris and Orwell where socialism plays two mutually exclusive roles” (Vaninskaya 83).

The concept and functions of utopian states were vividly portrayed by Thomas More (the work Utopia ) and Plato ( Republic ), E. Bellamy Looking Backward and W. Moriss News from Nowhere. Also, socialist communities are sometimes considered as utopia aimed to increase common good and freedom of choice (Vaninskaya 83). Utopian socialism is typical for the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. For Marx capitalism, far from empowering humanity through the technological progress that lay at its heart, sacrificed the development of real human potential at the expense of an economic system that devoured everything in its path in the interest of its own ruthless expansion (Shuklian 781).

For Marx even capitalism was a step forward, just as all of history involved a series of forward steps toward the coming communist utopia. Marx is thus in some ways a typical nineteenth-century thinker, and his faith in the ultimate triumph of the proletariat bears many of the marks of the faith in progress (especially technological progress) that was so central to the nineteenth-century mind-set. At the same time, Marx consistently insists on the necessary of direct action by the working classes to bring about the historical progression to communism (Shuklian 781).

And he is quite clear in his belief that this historical change will require violent revolution followed by a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat, a tough-mind Meanwhile, Marx’s insightful focus on the evils of capitalism has much in common with dystopian thought, and much of his work involves an attempt to reveal the illusory nature of the rather utopian claims of capitalism itself. Marxist analyses of the creation and interpellation of subjects by bourgeois ideology demonstrate the illusory of the sense of personal mastery experienced by the bourgeois subject, a sense of mastery central to Enlightenment utopianism (Shuklian 781).

I suppose that dystopia makes the most sense because it contains an element of social or political criticism. Dramatization of negative traits provides fresh perspectives on problematic social and political practices that might otherwise be taken for granted or considered natural and inevitable. Such analyses also indicate that this sense of mastery already contained the seeds of its own destruction.

Hodgson, G. M. The Political Economy of Utopia. Review of Social Economy 53 (1995), 195.

Shuklian, S. Marx, Dewey and the Instrumentalist Approach to Political Economy. Journal of Economic Issues 29 (1995), 781.

Utopia. The Columbia Encyclopedia , Sixth Edition, 2004, p. 48978.

Vaninskaya, A. Janus-Faced Fictions: Socialism as Utopia and Dystopia in William Morris and George Orwell. Utopian Studies 14 (2003), 83.

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4. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale as Dystopian Fiction

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11. Comparative Analysis Of Station Eleven And War For The Planet Of The Apes

12. Hope and Faith as the Tools for Survival in “Station Eleven”

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Difference Between Utopia and Dystopia

• Categorized under Words | Difference Between Utopia and Dystopia

Utopia vs Dystopia

“Utopia” and “dystopia” are two sides of the same coin. They picture a science fiction setting of two extreme points. Literature also explains the two in a more profound way. But by definition, “utopia” is a society or community setting wherein the people experience the ideal and most perfect life possible. By contrast, “dystopia” highlights the complete opposite, which is a place of extremely unpleasant living and working conditions for most people. Most or all of the societal and governmental systems are bad.

“Utopia” is what many would think as a paradise. The term was first coined by Thomas Moore in his official publication entitled “Utopia” back in 1516. In his utopia, he described an imaginary and solitary island where everything seems to be running smoothly. It’s like looking at blue skies, warm and bright sunlight, working in clean, spacious buildings, living with friendly individuals, going to work happily, and harmoniously coexisting with everyone.

However, there’s a reason why many acknowledge a utopia as a pure work of fiction. It is because the idea of utopia itself seems to be impossible. A real, material world of perfection cannot truly exist. As a matter of fact, “utopia” is translated literally as an imaginary good place that does not physically exist. This kind of world is not just unrealistic but also impractical.

By contrast, a dystopian world, also known as anti-utopia or kakotopia, is totally rundown. “Dystopia” was also coined at the same time as “utopia.” However, its usage became known only in the late 19th century. In a dystopian world, the skies are dull. The sun may not be shining, and the buildings are mostly in ruins. The people (if there are any left) are annoying and unfriendly. Going to work is always a painful experience, and everyone seems not to have settled their differences yet. A dystopian world is like the setting of the popular film “I Am Legend” wherein the main protagonist (Will Smith) appeared to be the only survivor of a ruined civilization.

In several publications, the dystopian setting is also guised as somewhat similar to a utopian society. It’s just that upon further immersion into that society, you’ll eventually learn that there’s excessive control, repression, and abuse. This description practically fits into the idea of police states where great power is used to control the citizens. In this connection, the people holding power become far more advanced and progressive than the rest, which also emphasizes the distinct separation of different classes or castes (i.e. the upper, middle, and lower classes).

1.“Utopia” is what most would regard as a paradise. Everything seems to be good and smooth flowing with the right balance of the social, governmental, and religious systems among others. 2.“Dystopia” is the opposite of “utopia” because everything seems to be imbalanced, chaotic, lawless, unruly, dirty, violent, and the like. 3.Because of the grave abuse of those having great power, dystopian societies tend to become technologically advanced having clearly defined caste systems.

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Hmm. My workplace management has set a utopian goal for our staff’s work experience (everyone is caring and helpful). In practice, the computers don’t work well, perfection is expected and blame-shifting is common, senior management assumes we can all ‘re-engineer’ work so it takes less time, and there is broad discontent as a result. There is no notice taken when people leave or are fired – one just finds their email is no longer in the system… Consequently, we seem more like the dystopian society lurking beneath the theoretical utopia we are charged to create for our staff. I’m relieved to see that utopia is just a concept which no one expects to exist on earth.

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Utopia vs. Dystopia Essay

For centuries, mankind has attempted to create a universe in which people can live in peace, equality, justice, and happiness. Many great philosophers and writers have created imaginations and conceivable plans of what a perfect world should look like. However, every individual visualizes utopia from their own perspective. Utopia refers to fictitious paradise, a land of enchantment, an ideal state with nearly perfect qualities of its people. In the western civilization, utopia plays a critical role in the history of ideas. For instance, models of flawless government have been used to express ideas on present-day issues and political conditions. Dystopia is another type of a world that is opposite of Utopia. It literary means a bad place. Despite a lot of civilization, the contemporary world has been faced with numerous wars and conflict, epidemics, drought and global hunger. With this regard creating a utopian world is not an easy task. Many authors have chosen different standpoints in expressing their views regarding utopia. While some agree to the possibility of such a world some total dispute.Utopia and dystopia are two extremes of hypothetical fiction that have always provided a striking contrast to modern reality due to the fascination with their visionary aspects. Individuals interested in modern fantasy or science-fiction often comes across stories that paint the future in a certain color. Such narrations always awaken powerful curiosity in people that change their perspective on life as soon as the story ends.

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The utopia fiction portrays a future in which humanity has attained a state of peace and balance, and a place where all life forms are valued and maintained. In such a world there is no more struggle and injustice, no more violence and ignorance. The comprehensive message of utopian narratives is one of hope and faith in humanity. It reminds us of our ingrained instinct to crave for peace, regenerate and to progress past our shortcomings. Under the economic category of utopian fiction, the society is perceived to have evolved towards the equal distribution of resources, the abolition of monetary value, personal profit and forced labor. Additionally, societies are able to enjoy increased value attributed to art and science. Political utopia, on the other hand, is marked global and galactic peace, unity and elimination of gender, cultural and racial based prejudices.

Dystopia is an era in which mankind's golden age has been long buried in the ashes. The fiction paints a picture in which mankind has fallen into ruin and decline, and where nature and life forms have been recklessly exploited and destroyed. The underlying message behind dystopian narratives is one that warns against hope in humanity. The dystopia community or society is one that is undesirable and frightening. Through an exaggeration of their own consequences dystopias often criticize the present-day trends. Economic dystopias argue that the world will soon be ruled by a single corporation which wills dominate mankind through intrusive advertisement, propaganda, implanted technology, and manipulation. As a result, there will be absolute control of resources with strict limitations of available comfort. With regards to politics, dystopias crush the premise of global unity with the view that governments are the root of all evil. In dystopias society's individual freedom is a myth, trust is an expensive commodity and governments violate human rights while treating people like animals.

Edward Bellamy's 'Looking Backwards' is a perfect novel that constructs visions of what a perfect utopia looks like. The author addresses various topics that are critical to the development of civilizations. In the book, a character named Julian suffers from insomnia, a condition that allows him to be put in a soundproof chamber. He falls into a deep sleep and wakes up after a century only to find that the American society has developed into socialism and is on the brink of utopia. While authoring the book, Bellamy's key concern was the fact that American independence and the self-proclaimed ideals of equality and democracy was the root of the economic plutocracy that has instituted oppressive class structures while smothering individual freedoms. The author's ideas echo the Marxist conviction that American political structures are intertwined with economic forces. From the eyes of Bellamy, socialism is a perfect ideology that presents a spectrum of possibilities and changes for the audience in the 19th century. Generally, the author represents his perception of utopia as a society that is flexible, with respect for personal freedom because capital is owned publicly.

At the time when George Orwell was putting down ideas of the book 'Propaganda on 1984', He was particularly concerned by the then global affairs that were taking shape in different regions such as capitalism and communism. Written in 1948, the book was an apocalyptic vision of what the future would look like with regards to cruelty and horror of dwelling in a completely totalitarian world in which human individuality and community had been obliterated. In the eyes of George Orwell, there is no chance for utopia. The society obtains true actual power and maintains dystopia by having control over the power of love both romantic and filial. At a young age, children are brainwashed not to love but spy against their parents thus killing the filial love. Instead, they are raised to love only Big Brother. The story is about Winston Smith who lives in a country called Oceania. The ruling government is called IngSoc. Smith lives in constant fear following his arrest and torture by party members of the ruling government. The author shows how IngSoc is a totalitarian regime and discusses the dangers of such governments. Orwell creates a dystopia of a totalitarian government by denouncing totalitarianism. He perceives totalitarianism as a tempting option for nations overwhelmed by poverty and advises citizens of such countries to avoid that path. Leaders in totalitarian regimes like the former Stalin's Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Italy are examples of people whose main concern is absolute power no matter how many lives are destroyed.

The ideologies of Utopia and dystopia continue to be popular in the 21st century. Filmmakers and authors continue to paint the two worlds in the minds of their audience. While utopians believe in the possibility of an ideal world, dystopias disagree because by nature mankind is selfish and evil. Edward Bellamy's utopia construction is so perfect and well planned and leaves one to wonder how such perfect ideas could be brought about and implemented. The novel contains significant ideas on how a society should look like but still, there are so many loopholes. The whole ideas seem too good to be realistic. Whereas people do not wish to live in dark societies, anti-utopians like George Orwell suggest that such worlds could exist. Despite the obvious pessimistic connotations of dystopias, the phenomena are inevitable.

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Utopia or dystopia? In these books, it’s complicated.

For a while, it seemed as if the only stories anyone wanted to tell were dystopian, but as our own world has grown increasingly grim, people seem a bit tired of dreadful worlds full of misery. “Where are the utopian stories?” I often hear people ask. But as five new books show, utopia is always in the eye of the beholder, and paradise is a messy business at best.

Take “ More Perfect ” by Temi Oh, a feverishly inventive novel set in a world that sounds ideal. Almost everyone has a brain implant connected to the internet, so nobody ever needs to be alone and people can even share memories, which contributes to a society with almost no crime. But a young hacker, Orpheus, realizes that the government is feeding him “patriotic,” saccharine dreams of a family he never had. And the police are arresting innocent people for illegal acts that an algorithm predicts they’ll commit.

Every time you think you know where “More Perfect” is heading, Oh makes you guess again. She expertly shows why people love being endlessly connected and how our technology can heal us, while slowly revealing the downside. Through it all, she finds time for a haunting love story and an exploration of trauma. The ending doesn’t entirely make sense, and the journey of the too-aptly named Orpheus has overtones of Greek mythology that feel unnecessary. But all in all, “More Perfect” is nearly perfect.

“ The Great Transition ” by Nick Fuller Googins appears more straightforwardly utopian. In the near-future setting of Googins’s novel, humans have averted the worst of climate change, reached net-zero carbon emissions and transformed half the globe into a nature preserve. But the struggle to save the planet has left scars, both physical and psychological, on everyone. Teenage Emi is torn between a father who’s keen to move forward and a mother, Kristina, who dwells on the hardships of the past and is convinced that those who broke the Earth will try to start over. After Kristina goes missing, Emi finds herself caught in a war that never ended.

Googins writes inspiring, vivid depictions of people putting aside their differences as they work to restore damaged habitats and put out massive forest fires in the novel’s past. But “The Great Transition” shines especially in its nuanced exploration of generational trauma and denial.

Speaking of kids, children’s television shows are a special kind of utopia, where the young can safely daydream and create their own worlds. Kiersten White’s latest novel, “ Mister Magic ,” tells the story of a long-canceled TV show whose former child stars are reuniting as adults for a bizarre podcast.

Trust White, a master of complicated darkness, to find the creepy underbelly of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” — or, at least, a fictional program very much like it. From the start, it’s obvious something terrible happened to the kids who appeared on the show. But White still conveys how alluring its fantasy world was and how happy the former participants believe they were. She summons up the candy-colored nostalgia that so many of us feel for our childhood entertainment, even as she demonstrates how hard it is to grow up and face the ugly truths that shadowed our younger years.

“ The Water Outlaws ” by S.L. Huang is an addictive action-adventure novel and one of the most straightforwardly utopian books in ages. In this feminist retelling of the famous Chinese novel “ Water Margin ” (which dates to the middle of the last millennium), a female-led bandit community fights for justice and steals from corrupt officials. Lin, a martial arts instructor who is dishonored and imprisoned after she rebuffs a powerful official’s advances, finds herself living in a rebel outpost she slowly comes to defend with her very life in the face of an ultimate weapon created by her former best friend.

Huang has worked as a Hollywood stuntwoman, so it’s no surprise that her action scenes rock. But “The Water Outlaws” also features a small army of memorable characters whose sisterhood (and occasionally brotherhood) is both highly spiritual and believably coarse. In the conflict between bandits and officials, both sides believe they’re building an ideal world, and Huang’s sensitive exploration of the conflict between law and justice is as exciting as the most spectacular airborne kick.

Everyone has their own definition of utopia, but one key aspect must be collaboration in the name of the common good. That’s why “ Thornhedge ,” a novella by T. Kingfisher, is refreshing. In this “Sleeping Beauty” retelling, the slumbering princess is not what she seems, and she’s guarded by a diminutive girl named Toadling, who will do anything to keep her from awakening. When a knight named Halim arrives to break the curse and free the princess, you expect bloody conflict. Instead, you get … friendship.

“Thornhedge” is a true comfort read, in which gentleness endures despite outrageous cruelty. Kingfisher is not afraid to twist the knife, showing the sacrifices Toadling has made and the ill treatment she’s suffered, but the story keeps coming back to kindness — which could be the best possible antidote to dystopia.

Utopia or dystopia? In these books, it’s complicated.

The ‘American Tolstoy’ of TV Shows

Culture and entertainment musts from Rogé Karma

The cop character Stan Valchek standing over a desk in The Wire

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is Rogé Karma, a staff writer who has written about the secretive industry devouring the U.S. economy , Americans’ enduring economic pessimism , and the large-scale evaporation of the crime and inflation crises .

Rogé is currently enjoying his first watch of The Wire , a show described by a friend as “American Tolstoy.” His media diet also includes reading The Brothers Karamazov , keeping up with ContraPoints videos on YouTube, and listening to Taylor Swift while waiting for her upcoming album.

First, here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic :

“Crying myself to sleep on the biggest cruise ship ever”
The doctor will ask about your gun now.
What the suburb haters don’t understand

The Culture Survey: Rogé Karma

The television show I’m most enjoying right now: I have to pick two here. The first is Schitt’s Creek , which I think is hands down the funniest show I’ve ever watched.

The second is The Wire , which I began watching a few months ago after a friend (who happens to have an English Ph.D.) described it to me as “American Tolstoy.” I thought there was no way any show could live up to that description—and then it did. What stands out most is the way it blurs the lines between good and evil, just and unjust. Most police shows are predicated on a neat separation between the heroic cops and the terrible criminals. But The Wire makes clear that what sets apart the police officers and the drug dealers isn’t some intrinsic moral superiority; the difference is the respective systems they find themselves in. In one of those systems, anger and ambition are rewarded with accolades and promotions; in the other, they are punished with prison time.

An online creator that I’m a fan of: Again, I have to pick two. There’s just something about lefty YouTubers who create feature-length videos combining dazzling theatrics, ironic humor, and long monologues that really does it for me.

The first is ContraPoints. At a time when I didn’t personally know many trans people, she really opened my mind to what it means to have an experience so unlike my own—but did so in a way that brought me along, and that sincerely answered my very basic (and at times ignorant) questions about everything from pronouns to J. K. Rowling . It also helps that her videos are legitimate works of art.

The second is Dan Olson at Folding Ideas. I first came across his viral video, “ Line Goes Up ,” in early 2022 and have been hooked ever since. There is, to this day, no single more compelling exploration—and indictment—of the world of crypto than that video. Olson completely immerses himself in fringe internet subcultures and conspiracy theories and then brings you inside of them too, while retaining a sense of bemused detachment that makes his content wildly entertaining.

An author I would read anything by: Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries, the world’s largest gang-rehabilitation organization. Boyle’s singular gift as a writer is his ability to see—and communicate—the best of humanity in those who are often considered the worst of it. All of his books are incredible, but my favorite is Barking to the Choir . I don’t think any other author has broken my heart open so fully. And if you’re not convinced yet, just try getting through this 11-minute speech of his without bawling.

Best novel I’ve read, and the best work of nonfiction: I’m usually a nonfiction obsessive, but I’m going to break form and go with two novels here.

The Brothers Karamazov is the single greatest work of moral philosophy I’ve ever read (and I was forced to read a lot of philosophy in college). It is fundamentally about the question: What does it mean to live an ethical life (and how much does morality hinge on belief in God)? The characters don’t just sit in an ivory tower opining about the answers to these questions; they move through the world with radically different ontologies and ethical frameworks, and as a reader, you get to witness firsthand where those worldviews lead them. No amount of Aristotle or Kant can give you that.

There’s a quote from the Dutch historian Rutger Bregman that I love. To him, imagining utopia “isn’t an attempt to predict the future. It’s an attempt to unlock the future. To fling open the windows of our minds.” That’s what The Dispossessed , by Ursula K. Le Guin, did for me. I’ve never come across a more serious effort to imagine what it would mean to build a truly socialist society—including the political structures, cultural traits, social norms, and even linguistic tics that would make that economic system work. The result is neither the hellish dystopia that the right imagines nor the perfect paradise the left does.

My favorite way of wasting time on my phone: Looking at food recipes and recipe videos. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about food. Because of my family background, I’m partial to Lebanese and Palestinian cuisine, but I’ve recently been on a pretty strong Korean food kick, and I’ve found The Korean Vegan’s TikTok videos (and cookbook) to be a godsend. Pick Up Limes’s YouTube channel is also a must-watch for anyone who wants access to a plethora of delicious, cheap, healthy, and easy-to-cook meals.

The upcoming entertainment event I’m most looking forward to: Honestly, it’s the release of Taylor Swift’s next album, The Tortured Poets Department . First, because I am engaged to one of the biggest Swifties the world has ever seen (who has successfully converted me to the cause). Second, because of what a once-in-a-generation opportunity it is to witness an artist who is at the top of her game the way T. Swift is. I always wonder what it would have been like to experience Beatlemania, in the 1960s. I think this may be the closest I’ll ever get.

The Week Ahead

Civil War , a dystopian action film about a team of journalists pushing to reach the White House before rebel factions do (in theaters Friday)
Fallout , a postapocalyptic drama series based on the popular video-game franchise, about the survivors of a nuclear war who finally venture out of their fallout bunkers (premieres Thursday on Prime Video)
Mania , a novel by Lionel Shriver that’s set in an alternate version of 2011, in which everybody is considered equally smart and discrimination against less intelligent people is banned (out Tuesday)

The True Cost of the Churchgoing Bust

By Derek Thompson

As an agnostic, I have spent most of my life thinking about the decline of faith in America in mostly positive terms. Organized religion seemed, to me, beset by scandal and entangled in noxious politics. So, I thought, what is there really to mourn? Only in the past few years have I come around to a different view. Maybe religion, for all of its faults, works a bit like a retaining wall to hold back the destabilizing pressure of American hyper-individualism, which threatens to swell and spill over in its absence.

Read the full article.

Concrete Utopia review – tense dystopian Korean thriller is bitter housing crisis satire

Set in the last residential tower block remaining in Seoul, this South Korean genre film puts the city’s haves and have-nots into deadly competition

A nother day, another strong Korean genre film. And it’s another one treading the territory of social atavism, where that country’s films and TV always make a firm impact, from Snowpiercer to The King of Pigs to Squid Game . South Korea’s entrant for the 2024 international feature film Oscar, Um Tae-hwa’s Concrete Utopia is a bitter satire on its recent housing bubble. It is set in a devastated, pallid, post-apocalyptic Seoul where only a single tower block remains standing. National icon Lee Byung-hun (Joint Security Area, Squid Game) is on fantastic form as the tyrannical “Delegate” running the show inside the building.

The exact nature of what has wrecked Seoul is vague, with an earthquake mentioned and a giant pyroclastic cloud on show in the disaster scenes. Nor does it make a whole lot of sense that Hwang Gung Apartments isn’t immediately overrun by the millions of survivors outside. But that’s all pragmatic short-cutting in the interests of a neat allegory for haves and have-nots (while the destruction itself is also maybe a metaphor for the catastrophic energy of an overheated property market). Lee’s Delegate Kim – appointed after preventing a fire – rallies the apartment holders to turf out any outsiders. Soon even the nurturing Min-sung (Park Seo-joon), who initially takes in a pair of refugees, is on guard against the “cockroaches” and convinced of his own God-given superiority.

The focus on inside and outside, normality and dehumanisation, is oddly reminiscent of The Zone of Interest, the winner of the 2024 Oscar for best international feature fillms. (And both films feature a very similar showcase retching scene.) But Um also combines capitalist-inequality needling with a more communistic kind of satire. The residents are supposedly equal but are all too eager to cede authority and responsibility to Delegate Kim. “You look sexy!” someone says of his bloodied face after he faces down the evicted riff-raff, and with rock-star charisma a viable post-apocalyptic social currency, a personality cult is soon in force.

Initially operating with the kind of disconcerting jollity with which Korean films often approach trauma, Concrete Utopia becomes increasingly tense and serious. The film not only casts light on the self-mythologising roots of power – as Min-sung’s meek wife Myung-hwa (Park Bo-young) digs into the Delegate’s past – but also how such lies eventually corrupt and pervert everyone in the vicinity. If George Orwell had had a career stint as a Korean estate agent, this is the kind of story he might have turned out.

Science fiction and fantasy films
Action and adventure films
South Korea
Asia Pacific

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Utopia vs. Dystopia
Notable literary utopias following More include Tommaso Campanella's City of the Sun (completed 1602, first published 1623), Francis Bacon's New Atlantis (1627), and Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World (1666), the first recorded English utopia by a female writer.. In the eighteenth century, European literary utopias often depicted voyages to faraway lands, only to discover reflections ...
What Are Utopias and Dystopias?
The word utopia comes from the Greek words ou, meaning "no" or "not," and topos, meaning "place."Since its original conception, utopia has come to mean a place that we can only dream about, a true paradise.Dystopia, which is the direct opposite of utopia, is a term used to describe a utopian society in which things have gone wrong.Both utopias and dystopias share characteristics of science ...
100 Dystopian Essay Topics & Ideas
Dystopias "Brave New World" by Huxley and "1984" by Orwell. The modern world is full of complications and the moments when it seems like a dystopia the darkest version of the future. In the novel, promiscuity is encouraged, and sex is a form of entertainment. The Concept and History of Dystopian Fiction.
Opinion
A Utopia for a Dystopian Age. "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by Hieronymus Bosch. Bridgeman Images. The term "utopia" was coined 500 years ago. By conjoining the Greek adverb "ou ...
PDF Slideshow Utopias and dystopias
This lesson is about two literary genres: utopia and dystopia. Utopia is a literary genre that portrays an ideal society or an ideal existence, perhaps an ideal that could not possibly be realized. Dystopia is a literary genre that is the opposite of utopia. Dystopia often depicts a nightmarish existence or an inhuman future society.
PDF Utopias and dystopias
How utopia turned to dystopia Visions of good are replaced by visions of evil. HIERONYMUS BOSCH, "THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS" (1503-1515). 1984 - a dystopian vision of a total surveillance society GEORGE ORWELL'S 1984, BOKFÖRLAGET ATLANTIS, 2017 George Orwell (1903-1950).
Utopia and Dystopia as Critical Representations of Reality
The notion of dystopia—a "negative place" in etymological terms—appeared in the 19th century, also in England. Dystopia is the realization of utopia within a society, which rapidly turns into a chance to witness the malfunctions of said utopia when put to the test of reality, exposing its shortcomings and its social and political risks.
Dystopia vs. Utopia: Literary Settings (Explained)
Dystopia is a literary setting that portrays an oppressive society, while Utopia is an ideal world where everything is perfect. Social critique is a literary technique used to expose and criticize the flaws of society. It is often used in dystopian settings to highlight the negative consequences of totalitarian regimes.
PDF Analyse a Utopia or Dystopia
A dystopia is a story or film that is set in a future in which something dramatic and horrible has happened to change the conditions for human life and for nature. Many utopias express grief over how much we are in the process of losing, but also a powerful desire to fight back and make everything right. The opposite of dystopia is utopia.
PDF 21st-Century Dystopia and Utopia and a Re-Centring of Humanism
Introduction. The first part of this paper proposes to look at some international science-fiction films that explore human society and behaviour in either a negative or positive light, and more specifically in terms of dystopia and utopia. The second part focuses mainly on some essays on post-humanism and inequality.
Utopia: Suggested Essay Topics
Discuss the ways in which the ideal Utopian society resembles some dystopian societies, such as those in Brave New World and 1984. What are the differences between Utopia and these dystopias? Consider the different times in which Utopia and the worlds of Brave New World and 1984 were conceived. How do the conceptions and beliefs of a particular ...
Utopias and Dystopias in Literature and Life
Plato's Republic and More's Utopia served as models for most of the literary utopias written between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, dystopian novels began to displace their positive counterparts. Five dystopian fictions published between 1891 and 1949—Jerome's "The New Utopia", Wells's The Sleeper Awakes, Zamyatin's We ...
Utopia defined, utopian and dystopian literature examined, and utopian
utopia, An ideal society whose inhabitants exist under seemingly perfect conditions.The word was coined by Sir Thomas More in his work Utopia (1516), which described a pagan and communist city-state whose institutions and policies were governed entirely by reason. Literary utopias are far older than their name. Plato's Republic was the model of many others, from More's Utopia to H.G. Wells ...
5
'Dystopia' is often used interchangeably with 'anti-utopia' or 'negative utopia', by contrast to utopia or 'eutopia' (good place), to describe a fictional portrayal of a society in which evil, or negative social and political developments, have the upper hand, or as a satire of utopian aspirations which attempts to show up their fallacies, or ...
Science fiction
Science fiction - Utopias, Dystopias, Futurism: Sir Thomas More's learned satire Utopia (1516)—the title is based on a pun of the Greek words eutopia ("good place") and outopia ("no place")—shed an analytic light on 16th-century England along rational, humanistic lines. Utopia portrayed an ideal society in a hypothetical "no-place" so that More would be perceived as ...
Essays About Utopia: Top 6 Examples And 9 Prompts
4. Utopia Vs. Dystopia in Movies Cite film examples for each genre and try to answer which of the two is the more popular today. Dystopia is the opposite of utopia. In your essay, explain the differences od dystopia and utopia, then provide a brief historical summary of how each came about.
Similarities Between Utopia and Dystopia
Utopia and Dystopia are two contrasting concepts that have captured the imaginations of writers, thinkers, and readers for centuries. These seemingly opposite ideas share surprising similarities, which reveal deep insights into human nature and the complexities of society. In this essay, we will explore the similarities between Utopia and Dystopia, shedding light on the intricate interplay ...
What is the difference between a utopia and a dystopia?
Dystopian literature has been characterized as fiction that presents a negative view of the future of society and humankind. The qualities of a dystopian literary work might include these traits ...
The Concepts of Utopia and Dystopia
Utopia means "an ideal state where all is ordered for the best for humanity as a whole and where the evils of society, such as poverty and misery, have been eliminated" (The Columbia Encyclopedia 48978). In contrast to utopia, dystopia means a society where imperfect traits such as evil, tyranny or poverty become perfect or ideal.
Dystopia Essays: Samples & Topics
Dystopia is the opposite of the ideal society, which is a utopia, that often appears in literature and artistic creation. Dystopias are typically post-apocalyptic or totalitaristic, but there are other forms of dystopias as well such as feminist, cyberpunk, off-world, etc.
Difference Between Utopia and Dystopia
Summary: 1."Utopia" is what most would regard as a paradise. Everything seems to be good and smooth flowing with the right balance of the social, governmental, and religious systems among others. 2."Dystopia" is the opposite of "utopia" because everything seems to be imbalanced, chaotic, lawless, unruly, dirty, violent, and the like.
Utopia vs. Dystopia Essay
Conclusion. The ideologies of Utopia and dystopia continue to be popular in the 21st century. Filmmakers and authors continue to paint the two worlds in the minds of their audience. While utopians believe in the possibility of an ideal world, dystopias disagree because by nature mankind is selfish and evil.
Dystopia Vs Utopia
Dystopia Vs Utopia. This essay sample was donated by a student to help the academic community. Papers provided by EduBirdie writers usually outdo students' samples. Utopia is a paradise, a heaven. Where everyone lives fairly, feels happy, free, give love for each other. Respecting others, listen to someone else's words, moral, and good.
Utopia or dystopia? In these books, it's complicated.
Take " More Perfect " by Temi Oh, a feverishly inventive novel set in a world that sounds ideal. Almost everyone has a brain implant connected to the internet, so nobody ever needs to be alone ...
Welcome to an artificial-intelligence Utopia
Start with the first scenario, which Mr Bostrom labels a "post-scarcity" Utopia. In such a world, the need for work would be reduced. Almost a century ago John Maynard Keynes wrote an essay ...
The 'American Tolstoy' of TV shows
The result is neither the hellish dystopia that the right imagines nor the perfect paradise the left does. My favorite way of wasting time on my phone: Looking at food recipes and recipe videos. I ...
Concrete Utopia review
Concrete Utopia review - tense dystopian Korean thriller is bitter housing crisis satire. ... Um Tae-hwa's Concrete Utopia is a bitter satire on its recent housing bubble. It is set in a ...