Dear readers,
There are few ultimate dystopian novels that everyone knows. These are “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley and “1984” by George Orwell (both derived from “We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin, by the way).
The two societies are to be feared of, but unmistakably different. Orwell’s society is totalitarian in a hard way, with information being deprived from citizens, who live in drab conditions of fear and hate towards the enemies and outsiders. Huxley’s society is depicted as luxurious, pleasure-obsessed, full of feeling of superiority towards others (classes, savages, past societies). And for decades, both dystopian societies were used as scarecrows. And it is the case now. In the world so sharply divided between the “globalisers” and “internationalists” on one side and “populists” and “isolationists” on the other side, the politicians and dependent media tend to scare us with one of dystopian pictures if “the other option wins”. Of course, if the isolationist nationalists win, then the society will become “1984” with constant paranoia that the outsiders will harm us, be it transnational trade, common currency, megacompanies or simply, migrants. And vice versa, the populists warned us if the globalisers win, it will be the end of national states, nations, individualism, and it will be all drowned into one shapeless consumerist mass ruled by big corporations, which, like in Huxley’s world, dictate what to do, without you even noticing it. Trump vs Clinton, Van der Bellen vs Hoffer, Macron vs Le Pen. And instead of sowing the seeds of fear that the world will collapse if the other side win, we should analyse what the new system gives us. And we are dragged to vote by one of these dystopias, instead of finding “the third way”. Ultimately more humane than these options of today.