Dystopia-
This week for a blog post, we were assigned to look into an environmental dystopia. When I searched the definition for an environmental dystopia, I was lead to a wiki site. They define an environmental dystopia as a “A dystopia is a community or society that is in some important way undesirable or frightening. It is the opposite of a utopia. Such societies appear in many artistic works, particularly in stories set in a future. Dystopias are often characterized by dehumanization,[1] totalitarian governments, environmental disaster” I previously knew a little about a dystopia from the book The Hunger Games. It involves a world in which each district is assigned to a focus such as fishing, mining, etc. because the earth had run out of its resources.
As I looked even further, I found a bunch of articles stating “we don’t really know how exactly this could happen.” As I digged further, any valuable information about what humans are specifically harming the earth and causing a predicted dystopia is an overpopulation. But instead of repeating most of what the other posts had been on about the overpopulation issue, I decided to look at the literary aspect. I wanted to see what these authors have in common in their writings that could reflect on the situation currently happening.
I read a little about a new novel called On Such A Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee. She, along with many other authors, uses the future idea of a dystopia. “The new novel takes place in a chilling dystopia, a century or so beyond the present, where abandoned post-industrial cities like Baltimore have been converted into forced labor colonies and populated with immigrant workers. China is a distant, mythical memory.” Similar to the books by Suzanne Collins these stories are about a world that we have no resources. People are manic to conserve what resources are left and there is a hero that saves the world.
My thoughts-
I believe that we should take action now and not wait until the day that we have to fix the problem. We should conserve the resources that we currently obtain and stop only predicting a dystopia and realize that it is reality. It is a big scientific issue and we need to stop making excuses and work to replenish the resources that we lost and work on conserving what is left.
Dystopias in literature are often exaggerated, however I believe that they are important because it brings real life issues into light. Like you said, there is a very real aspect to these literary dystopias.
ReplyDeleteI agree that people can be really stuck on the past because we can't bring back what we already destroyed. All we can do is look forward to the future and do the best that we can to avoid anymore loss of essential land and resources.
ReplyDeleteThe thought of running out of resources is very scary. Luckily, we are creating new technologies that can substitute some of these resources but I don't think we are progressing fast enough!
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