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Dystopia is a literary and cinematographic trend. In narrow sense it is the description of the totalitarian state, in a broad sense any society in which negative tendencies of development have prevailed. For the first time dystopian as contrast of utopian was used by the English philosopher and economist John Stewart Mill in 1868. The term dystopia as the name of a literary genre was introduced by Glenn Negli and Max Patrick in The Quest for Utopia, the anthology of dystopias made by them in 1952.
In the mid-sixties the term appeared in Soviet criticism, and later and in the English one. There is an opinion that English anti-utopia and English dystopia are synonyms.
Differences between dystopia and utopia
Dystopia is a logic development of the utopia and formally it can be believed to this direction. However, if the classical utopia concentrates on demonstration of positive qualities of the social system described in the work, the dystopia aspires to reveal its negative qualities. Thus, difference between dystopia and utopia is only in the authors point of view.In utopias the society is showed to detached observer like a fine and isolated from other worlds and the states one. Its principles of life are explained to the newcomer in details by local "instructor", the leader (lets remember the head Vera Pavlovnas fourth dream from the novel What to do? written by Nikolay Chernyshevsky). Dystopias are based on disclosing of different aspects of life of so-called ideal society. The world is shown from within by the eyes of its inhabitants, the ordinary citizen, in order to trace the impulse of mind and to show feelings of the person undergoing on its laws. Exactly in this case the society seen "from within" seems to be not so perfect like it seems to a newcomer, a stranger. It shows to ordinary members of the society its unattractive wrong side. Thus, dystopia is personal because the criterion of the authenticity, perfection in it is the subjective view of one person. Utopia in its turn is content with the claim of impersonal general happiness behind which tears of separate inhabitants of the utopian state are imperceptible. The utopians intentions to achieve the general prosperity, to solve the century problems of social injustice, to perfect the reality are really good, but the road to a terrestrial hell is paved with these intentions. Having faced an impossibility to alter outlook and to satisfy all requirements of the person in short terms, utopians quickly understand that it is easier to alter the person: to change its outlooks on life and to itself, to limit requirements, to force to think on a template defining initially what is the good also what is the evil. However, as it has appeared, it is easier to make a person ugly, even to kill, than to alter her, otherwise it is more a person, but not the human. The person becomes a stumbling-block for any utopians, aspiring to finish with a persons free will. Therefore the conflict between a person and the totalitarian system becomes the driving force of any dystopia, allowing identifying its lines in the various at first sight works. The utopias important feature is its static character while the dystopia aspires to consider different possibilities of development of the described social devices. Thus, the dystopia works usually with more difficult social models.
Famous utopias
Famous dystopias
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