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Inside Every Utopia Is a Dystopia

bostonreview.net

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Re: Inside Every Utopia Is a Dystopia

#21

Post by nyolfen »

ideonexus wrote: post #4

The remains of the 1939 Worlds Fair are found in the Bronx. I took a subway there once on a visit to NY. I was both inspired by the science center there, and dismayed to find it surrounded by antiquated residences and roads. It was like a vision of the future in a garden surrounded by the mundane suburban sprawl of reality. Futurism is still the closest thing I have to a religion, and so I admire that in Bel Geddes v…

i fell down a reading hole about the 1939 world's fair and found this film about it from the same year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF594h8KUXw

fair warning: it seems to mostly be about how unlikable a character's communist art professor boyfriend is

Re: Inside Every Utopia Is a Dystopia

#22

Post by [deleted] »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #12
ideonexus wrote: post #4

The remains of the 1939 Worlds Fair are found in the Bronx. I took a subway there once on a visit to NY. I was both inspired by the science center there, and dismayed to find it surrounded by antiquated residences and roads. It was like a vision of the future in a garden surrounded by the mundane suburban sprawl of reality. Futurism is still the closest thing I have to a religion, and so I admire that in Bel Geddes v…

And insofar as Omelas is trying to make a point about life in general, history in general, potential societies or lives in general , it is simply reactionary. Who is even Ursula Le Guin to tell us that everything must have a seed of evil in its core?

[deleted]

Re: Inside Every Utopia Is a Dystopia

#23

Post by pmoriarty »

ideonexus wrote: post #4

The remains of the 1939 Worlds Fair are found in the Bronx. I took a subway there once on a visit to NY. I was both inspired by the science center there, and dismayed to find it surrounded by antiquated residences and roads. It was like a vision of the future in a garden surrounded by the mundane suburban sprawl of reality. Futurism is still the closest thing I have to a religion, and so I admire that in Bel Geddes v…

It sounds like Le Guin expanded on a famous passage from Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.

"Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature—that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance—and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."

"No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha softly.

http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/introbook2.1/x4603.html

Re: Inside Every Utopia Is a Dystopia

#24

Post by ftlio »

danharaj wrote: post #20
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And insofar as Omelas is trying to make a point about life in general, history in general, potential societies or lives in general , it is simply reactionary. Who is even Ursula Le Guin to tell us that everything must have a seed of evil in its core?

I don't think that's le Guin's thesis. The Dispossessed is her book that explores the nature of utopia, its subtitle is "an ambiguous utopia" even. I think the focus of omelas is the juxtaposition of outward peace and prosperity and internal brutality. The key to the book is how people react to seeing the rotten core of their society. It's not a thesis on what all societies look like-- le Guin has constructed many co…

A good answer to a good question!

Re: Inside Every Utopia Is a Dystopia

#25

Post by aomurphy »

danharaj wrote: post #20
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And insofar as Omelas is trying to make a point about life in general, history in general, potential societies or lives in general , it is simply reactionary. Who is even Ursula Le Guin to tell us that everything must have a seed of evil in its core?

I don't think that's le Guin's thesis. The Dispossessed is her book that explores the nature of utopia, its subtitle is "an ambiguous utopia" even. I think the focus of omelas is the juxtaposition of outward peace and prosperity and internal brutality. The key to the book is how people react to seeing the rotten core of their society. It's not a thesis on what all societies look like-- le Guin has constructed many co…

Yes, absolutely. I think LeGuin is the last "great" Utopian writer we've had. The Dispossessed is a beautiful work, and one that doesn't have a dark heart. It has bad parts, it might not last, but it's not Omelas. You're exactly right, Omelas is about how we the reader would choose.

Would you leave everything behind because of evil? Would you live with it?

Re: Inside Every Utopia Is a Dystopia

#26

Post by jessaustin »

kleer001 wrote: post #5
ideonexus wrote: post #4

The remains of the 1939 Worlds Fair are found in the Bronx. I took a subway there once on a visit to NY. I was both inspired by the science center there, and dismayed to find it surrounded by antiquated residences and roads. It was like a vision of the future in a garden surrounded by the mundane suburban sprawl of reality. Futurism is still the closest thing I have to a religion, and so I admire that in Bel Geddes v…

I always wondered what happened to the kid as she aged. Killed? Shipped far away? Dies during child birth of the next pariah? Is it a guy? Kept in perpetual childhood?

The perpetual childhood might be part of the torture?

Re: Inside Every Utopia Is a Dystopia

#27

Post by kleer001 »

jessaustin wrote: post #26
kleer001 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered what happened to the kid as she aged. Killed? Shipped far away? Dies during child birth of the next pariah? Is it a guy? Kept in perpetual childhood?

The perpetual childhood might be part of the torture?

I'd buy that. Now I'm wondering how this solution was found and how long it took to get adopted.

Re: Inside Every Utopia Is a Dystopia

#28

Post by mrkgnao »

ideonexus wrote: post #4

The remains of the 1939 Worlds Fair are found in the Bronx. I took a subway there once on a visit to NY. I was both inspired by the science center there, and dismayed to find it surrounded by antiquated residences and roads. It was like a vision of the future in a garden surrounded by the mundane suburban sprawl of reality. Futurism is still the closest thing I have to a religion, and so I admire that in Bel Geddes v…

That picture did something to me.

Re: Inside Every Utopia Is a Dystopia

#29

Post by taneq »

m1sta_ wrote: post #19
ashark wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our standard of living depends on a great deal of the suffering of others. Most of nature is essentially a constant living horror movie for all participants, which we just barely sit outside of (as long as food remains plentiful and the TV is on). So was the human experience for most people, most of the time we've been on this planet. Still is for many people. The truest understanding of conscious, mortal existence i…

I disagree. There is nothing fundamental about our existence which mandates suffering. That provides hope.

It's not a fundamental necessity, just the reality for the vast majority of all living creatures.

Re: Inside Every Utopia Is a Dystopia

#30

Post by Animats »

If you've never seen Norman Bel Geddes' Futurama from the 1939 World's Fair, here it is.[1] (480p). That was the GM vision of the future. Much of it was achieved, mostly the highway part.

By 1956, GM's vision had progressed to a titanium body self-driving turbine car with huge tailfins.[2] That prototype car, the Firebird II, actually worked.

In 1964, GM did Futureama 2 at the 1964 World's Fair. This was a future that didn't happen, with space stations, all-terrain vehicles on the moon, and giant road-building machines cutting roads through tropical jungles. The 1964 World's Fair perhaps represented "peak future", the high point of industrial-strength utopianism.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypxE5XdzLuY&t=467 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_ccAf82RQ8 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-5aK0H05jk

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