![]() They just weren’t cynical enough, relying more on shock tactics of population bombs than critical thought about what effects a slowly decreasing population would have on the world economy. So did the dystopian stories of the early and mid-twentieth century get it wrong? Not really - they got it right for the times. But then, cynical me says that there are fortunes to be made with selling more and more green vehicles and other green technologies to an ever-greater number of people. If instead of disregarding the dystopian stories, if instead of creating more dubious agricultural practices and food products, we had been able to curtail the world’s population back in the nineteen fifties and sixties, we wouldn’t be dealing with a so-called climate crisis now. (Is it any wonder that any time the USA birth rate dips the immigration rate rises?) Also, despite periodic whispers of a population cleanse or worldwide genocide, it will never happen. Despite a supposedly adequate food supply, 9 million people starve to death every year, a totally unacceptable number, and untold other millions deal with malnutrition because so much of the food that is available lacks essential nutrients.Įven though the world did not become as insanely crowded as the dystopian authors seemed to prophesy, our population still increased exponentially, though suddenly, any talk of overpopulation, whether in the dystopian literature, the daily media, or think tanks (formal and informal) has become taboo, making stories like Soylent Green seem even more stridently fanatical. Technology and agricultural advances made it possible to feed all those people or a great percentage, anyway. ![]() The population increased 5.5 billion from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 8 billion in 2022. ![]() What so many of the dystopian books and movies of the 1950s through the l970s seemed to be trying to show were possible results of an unchecked birthrate, and no wonder. As for the masses - all the rest of us - if the literature tells us anything about ourselves, it’s that we will be corralled somewhere in the middle, just trying to get by. That lone dissenter, either hero or anti-hero, hopefully shows the best of us. It’s no wonder that in all of these books the authorities, whoever or whatever they might be, show the worst face of us. Instead, it’s supposed to expose - perhaps - the truth of humans and what we can or can’t endure, what we can or can’t control, what we can or can’t accept if we wish to retain our humanity. It’s not supposed to predict or preach or even give us a glimpse into a world we are fated to endure. And although we seem to be living in a society controlled more and more by corporations and technology, we have not yet moved to the robotic social order of Brave New World.ĭystopian literature is about extending what is or what might be into the furthest reaches of imagination. Although Big Sib (have to be politically correct, you know) does seem to be watching us, we have not moved into the extreme totalitarianism of 1984. Although some books are burned and banned, the world is awash in books, unlike the society portrayed in Fahrenheit 451. I don’t know why these authors are concerned that the movie got it wrong - after all, most dystopian movies don’t come true. I’ve come across a few articles (one of which was sent to me by a friend) whose authors tried to figure out where the movie got 2022 so wrong, because, of course, we have not devolved to the point where the population is so staggeringly immense, corporate greed so all-consuming, and human life so worthless that the masses are being fed a mystery product called soylent green. The novel upon which the movie was based, Make Room, Make Room by Harry Harrison, took place in 1999, but the movie makers moved things forward a couple of decades to 2022. This is the year of Soylent Green, or rather the year that Soylent Green was supposed to portray. Meeting the Challenges of the Third Year of Grief.The Five Major Challenges We Face During the Second Year of Grief.Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One and Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Bertram is also the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, Daughter Am I, More Deaths Than One, and A Spark of Heavenly Fire.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |