Dystopian Future

 Wealth and power don’t thrive in a vacuum. A king without subjects is just another guy. The wealthy need some form of measure, or their financial status is meaningless. Both wealth and power are just abstract terms without a way to compare their relative strengths against others. The wealthy may spend much of their time comparing their baubles and discussing their wealth with others who might be impressed. It seems to bring them pleasure.

Morlock with an Eloi

The poor may also aspire to symbols of advanced status. While I don’t intentionally listen to rap music and much of it is, to my ear, incoherent, some of it has crept into movie soundtracks where closed captioning has recorded the words. I see aspirations to bling, flash, stacks of money, drinking “Dom” in the clubs, etc. To quote one rapper, “Having money isn't everything, not having it is”- Kanye.

While I might have a more positive outlook for America than some pundits who predict a more dystopian future, I can’t help but draw at least some analogies and certain parallels with previous descriptions in science fiction classics. While Orwell’s 1984 is often used for comparison, I will reference two others. Both novels were made into movies and painted a bleak outcome for mankind brought about by circumstances not dissimilar to our current societal environment.

The first was based on a book written in 1895 by H.G. Wells and later made into a movie. The protagonist has invented a time machine and uses it to visit the future. Both the book and the movie had the same title, The Time Machine. The movie is set in 1900, but, unlike the book, the movie, made in 1960, had the advantage of 65 years of actual history. It managed to accurately predict our two world wars and went on to forecast the eventual extinction of much of the human race that resulted from a 326-year war in the distant future. The survivors of that war were divided into two groups, the Morlocks and the Eloi.

The Eloi were a vapid group of young vegetarians who played all day, didn’t work, didn’t operate machines, didn’t read, and knew nothing of their history. Except for the vegetarian part, I can think of a few young people today who still live with their parents, play video games all day, don’t work, don’t read, and couldn't care less about history.

While visiting this future world, the movie protagonist visits an abandoned library where books have all but disintegrated. There were, however, some “talking rings” that told of the long war and the move of the few survivors to an underground world. They eventually split into two groups. At some point, the Eloi returned to their above-ground world while the Morlocks remained below.

The dark and dank underground world seems in stark contrast to the more utopian above-ground world where everyone mindlessly plays all day. We eventually learn, however, that the Morlocks are the superior beings, and the Eloi are merely their cattle and are used for food.

The second movie was made in 1973, loosely based on a book written in 1966. This dystopian future-world movie was called Soylent Green and is set in a then-distant 2022. In this future, the planet is suffering the dire effects of climate change where the greenhouse effect has killed much of the life in the oceans, causing year-round high humidity, pollution, poverty, food shortages, overpopulation, and sparse resources. The story is set in a future New York where the current population has reached 40 million.

The city is divided into the haves and the have-nots. The uber-wealthy live in spacious apartments with servants, concubines (sex slaves called furniture), and armed security. The majority of the population, however, live in dire poverty and squalor, forced to eat processed food wafers made by the Soylent Corporation. There were but two flavors, Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow. At the time of the story, the company has just introduced a more nutritious and more flavorful product made from plankton called Soylent Green.

The story unfolds as the recent murder of a corporate executive of Soylent is being investigated. Spoiler alert ahead. Without going into much more detail, the big reveal at the end of the movie and the motive for the murder was that the victim was about to reveal that the tasty Soylent Green was actually made from euthanized humans who sought assisted suicide at government clinics due to their severe depression. The protagonist in the final frame shouts to the surrounding crowd, “Soylent Green is people!”

Both movies received mixed reviews. The Time Machine was the better reviewed of the two. One Time Machine reviewer lamented a lack of comic relief. It holds a 76% position on Rotten Tomatoes. On Soylent Green, one reviewer questioning its validity asked several questions. “Where is the democracy? Where is the popular vote? Where is women’s lib? Where is the uprising poor, who would have suspected what was happening in a moment?” I guess those might have been questions that a reviewer might have considered valid…, in 1973. I wonder what she would have written today. Might she question, what’s really in Sour Patch Kids? Why did Twinkies disappear? Or, how does a Hostess Ding Dong have a shelf life of 9 years? Hmmm?

Are we destined to be further divided by an American caste system where the wealthy control all forms of a faux democratic system for their own reward? Can they accomplish this by keeping the masses under-educated, misinformed, and motivated by a carrot on an ever-lengthening stick? Will the occasional lottery winner, nouveau riche athlete, or rock star provide enough incentive to keep them in line performing their assigned tasks so that the more affluent can continue to gain even more?

This is not about a single election and an isolated turn of events. The current environment was built slowly over time with almost imperceptible losses of our freedoms. There is a psychological term, “death by 1,000 cuts” (named after the Imperial China form of torture and death) that describes the way a major negative change happens slowly in many unnoticed increments that is not perceived as objectionable. So far, the masses have welcomed the changes at the ballot box and they have been joined by a gleeful wealthy class who see an engorgement of their riches.

This recent election was but a symptom of a greater effort by the few to control the many. Placate them with promises that we, the ones who created this environment, are the only ones to fix it. Trust us. The people did. Now what?