Thread:Forum:Literature/George Orwell on utopia/reply (4)

I think one of the areas where these anxieties have already manifested is in the education system (at least in America, don't know about other countries).

The fact that modern teenagers find themselves in an environment where their actions have no real world consequences whatsoever is a major source of discontent, from what I've seen. Recently, there's been a resurgence in young adult dystopias (The Hunger Games, etc). Even when I was in High School, speculating about a post-apocolyptic world was popular. I believe that this reflects a deep desire to escape the overly controlled, overly protected existence many teenagers find themselves in.

And I think this is the important part: the lives of teenagers are far from worry free. If you take away the fear of starvation or danger, and place people in an entirely human controlled world, it's only replaced by an entirely new set of fears. Whether they worry about displeasing their peers or their authority figures, new stresses arise to replace the stresses of nature. In some ways, these are worse, because the skills that can be used to overcome them are fewer in number and more difficult to learn, and success is less certain.

I think a large part of why we'll never actually get much closer to a Brave New World status than we already are is that the resistance is pretty strong. As Orwell pointed out, "...one of the sources of the Fascist movement is the desire to avoid a too-rational and too-comfortable world." I think we see this in the modern world, too. Whenever things have been quiet for too long, reactionary movements experience a resurgence. The only way such a society can occur is if it's forced on a less powerful class by a more powerful class, as it is with students.