The New Imperial Order Foretold
Hollywood's grimly dystopian films of the last 25 years, from Blade Runner to The Matrix reiterate the same themes of apocalyptic disaster & dwindling value of ordinary people that is argued to be disturbing evidence of a emotional resonance with many people, & an inability to envision more positive futures. A comparative rereading of Huxley's Brave New World & Orwell'sNineteen Eighty-Four identifies similarities of social hierarchies with tiny elites & powerless masses, the disintegration of love, parenting & family, & deliberately induced collective amnesia to condition people into accepting a social order that has utterly abandoned them. Fundamental differences between the two worlds are delineated as the seduction of adults versus their terrorist nation & the elimination verses the never ending presence war. Both writers were correct in that we are living in a Janus faced present that is a Brave New Nineteen Eighty-Four that echo the conditions of controlling consumption through narrow marketing, the resurrection of big brother, the creation of classes, international manipulation by the US, & the simulacral culture of mass destruction by the entertainment industry. The trajectories for the future predicted by these two British socialist men are most compellingly answered by the vision to the future of to North American left-leaning & feminist women, Piercy & Atwood. But unlike all four future worlds, resistance to the corporate order today is neither small, nor contained, nor futile & has a sharp, life-affirming sense of humor. Unlike the monoculture of the dystopias, it is fabulously diverse, & it constitutes the hope of this world to challenge the pessimism of visions by the victories of resistance. References. J. Harwell