Beijing Smog Signals Even Darker Times

Apocalypse now!  In Beijing, smog levels have been described by officials as "crazy bad" on their Twitters, and the levels of air quality were beyond 500, which is the max limit of hazardous on the air level charts, according to the New York Times in their article "'Airpocalypse' Smog hits Beijing at dangerous levels."  The article explains going outside in levels above 300 is not recommended.

And there's more: If you want to see the sun rise in Beijing, they have LED screens that show the sun rise.  Check out Business Insider's article "The smog is so bad in Beijing you have to watch the sun rise on TV," and watch the video they posted.  While the video is rather cheesin', it raises some serious issues, one of the scariest being "the season's first wave of extremely dangerous smog," implying that this is just the beginning.

An earlier article by the New York Times titled "Urbanites flee China's smog for blue skies" features a family that fled Guangzhou, a large city in the south, to escape the smog.  The feature uses the term 'environmental refugees.'

As one article described, the scene is reminiscent of Blade Runner or perhaps the Matrix.  As pollution increases, gases are trapped in the atmosphere, acting as an insulator, and, just like a greenhouse, the temperature keeps rising.  But that's a heavier topic for another time.      

A Bit About Books

Today, The New York Times posted a short, light story discussing the differences between paper and e- books.  The article featured a recent survey that showed the majority of teenagers interviewed preferred paper books.  Studies like these, during the time our culture is transferring everything online, are fascinating in that they beg the discussion: Is new technology always better?

This is where dystopias come in.  I am not going to answer the question of whether or not new technology is always better - I am merely going to tip my hat to Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, and the Wachowski brothers, creators/directors of The Matrix, both of which address the question of advancing technology beautifully.

Dystopias: On the Rise

Today, dystopias are on the rise.

The Walking Dead is the most-watched basic cable drama with 16.1 million viewers for its fourth (current) season premier.  Nearly two million of these fans follow the show on Twitter.  

Another dystopia, The Hunger Games, is one of Kindle’s top five all-time bestselling books, and the movie adaptation set records for the highest-grossing, non-sequel opening day, earning $67.3 million.  

The Road won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was subsequently adapted for film.  

Summit Entertainment bought media rights to Divergent and was given a budget of $80 million for a planned release in 2014.  

As the numbers show, dystopias are wildly successful with today’s audience — and these audiences want more, or else they would have lost interest in these series.  The Walking Dead’s audience grows with every season, with 5,400 viewers of the season one, 2010 pilot; 7300 viewers of the season two, 2011 premier; 11,000 viewers of the season three, 2012 premier; and 16,000 viewers of the season four, 2013 premier.  Similarly, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire film adaptation was Fandango’s 2013 advance-ticket top seller, and the opening day grossed around $70.5 million, earning even more than The Hunger Games.  


Dystopian audiences have grown massive, no longer just a small group interested in George Orwell’s 1984 (although they too are included).  And as huge as dystopias are today, they are only growing in popularity.

More US Governmental Problems... Classic.

Of course, we have run into yet another governmental deadline: by Dec. 1, today, the problems with HealthCare.gov are supposed to be cleared up.

Good luck to us with that.  Check out The New York Times' article, Sunday Breakfast Menu, which doesn't specify the details but promises more information as the topic surely advances this week.

It seems as if our society is headed for dystopia no matter which direction we go: too little government, and we'll end up in a Lord-of-the-Flies situation where we are forced to make our own rules; too much government, and 1984's Big Brother and Party will reappear.

But with all this NSA phone tapping, I'd better watch out what I say to guard against thoughtcrime.  Or espionage and/or sedition.  Because those are still things.    

Walking Dead Playlist?

In the spirit of The Walking Dead, the music site Songza made a playlist titled Brooding over Biters with Rick Grimes featuring depressing, downer-blues-southern-rock.  Pretty catchy.    

The Walking Dead: Dystopian TV!

On Halloween of 2010, AMC premiered The Walking Dead, a post-apocalyptic (and therefore, dystopian) drama about a small group of survivors in a world of zombies originally based on a graphic novel.  Now on its fourth season, The Walking Dead is the #1 most-watched drama TV series ever in basic cable history with 16.1 million viewers for the season four premier.

What makes this show better than the others?  Zombies.  Well-done, not-cheesy zombies.  Err, walkers.

Besides the walkers, the show is just a drama - a close-knit group of people that experiences ups and downs together, focusing strongly on the characters' emotions, not just their actions.  Plus walkers.

In an attempt to rise above the rest of the zombie subgenre, The Walking Dead never, ever uses the word 'zombie.'  Instead, they call the undead 'walkers' or 'biters.'  This new labeling allows the show to create their own spin because the audience's preconceived notions of 'zombies' are not applicable to 'walkers' or 'biters.'  And the re-labeling helps.  Now, people can become walkers without being bit - a new feature for walking dead.

While the first season deals primarily with the fall of humanity and the second season builds the characters' relationships with one another, the third season seriously increases the moral discussion so often accompanying dystopic stories - what defines humanity?

The ragtag main group, led by Rick Grimes, encounters a second seriously organized group of survivors in the third season.  The resulting conflict between these groups forces the audience to ponder - if you were part of the group, what would you do?  Is it ethical to kill another living human if their group and your group are fighting for the same resources?  Should you align yourself with the other group merely because you have a common enemy?  In the absence of government, what is the determining factor in your behavior?  Do ethics even apply?

The fourth season, although only about halfway through, not only continues but advances season three's discussion: How far should a person go to protect those they love?  Is murder ever ethical?  The most common question this season (even asked by the characters themselves!) is, "Can you come back from this?  How?"

Thus far, the fourth season's contemplation of right versus wrong in a world no longer organized by rules has only increased the show's literary merit.  While the show does indeed have its faults (Rick floats between crazy and totally sane way too easily and way too much), its portrayal of human response to horrific de-humanizing experiences and a complete collapse of society is brilliant.  My only fear (besides that my favorite will die) is that the show may over-villainize the Governor to the point that he will end up closer to a super-villain instead of a real human person who wasn't able to adjust to a dystopic society.         

A Clockwork Orange Review

          Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, published in 1962, endures as one of the most iconic dystopian works despite the fact Burgess considered his novella manipulative and preachy.  While the book thrives under its dystopian label and does address the plight of the individual versus the collective state, A Clockwork Orange is primarily a discussion of free will as the defining characteristic of humanity.

           Told in first-person from the perspective of “your humble narrator” Alex, the story follows Alex and his group of droogs—friends—chronicling their horrifying crimes until Alex is imprisoned and undergoes state-supported involuntary conditioning to rid him of his violent tendencies. The book is divided into three parts: the first details Alex’s gang’s crimes, the second Alex’s stay in prison and “rehabilitative” conditioning, and the third Alex’s return to society with his new involuntary aversion to violence.  The first and the third part mirror each other, illustrating the complete reversal of Alex’s life as soon as he is deprived of his free will.  In both the first and third parts, Alex is out on the streets; however, while in the first Alex is portrayed as a lively degenerate who commits horrifying crimes by choice, the third part shows him as hapless and purposeless, incapable of committing any crime. 

            Set in a post-war, fictionalized, lifeless England, Alex’s crimes seem no better or no worse than the society he lives in.  At the milkbar, listless citizens drink down beverages laced with mind-numbing, incapacitating drugs—the legal alternative to escaping society in lieu of Alex’s liberating violence. When viewed in light of the apathy of the rest of the population, Alex’s choice of violence becomes almost justified for readers—at least he is making a choice.   

            Burgess hammers the importance of choice home even more as he begins each part with the question, “What’s it going to be then, eh?” automatically underscoring the role of free will with the very opening lines of his novella.  Burgess then blatantly discusses free will through Alex’s involuntary “rehabilitation” conditioning.  The procedure—Ludovico’s Technique—uses Alex as its test subject, and Alex is conditioned to have intense physical sickness in response to violence, thereby depriving him of choice.  As the prison chaplain argues, “Goodness is something chosen.  When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.”  The chaplain also raises the point that humanity is defined by free will, and to deprive someone of choice is to deprive them of their humanity, making them a machine. 

The title itself—A Clockwork Orange—refers to mankind becoming machinery.  “A clockwork” refers to the automatic operation of machinery, and “orange” can refer to man (referencing ‘orangutan’), as well as nature, the natural world, or humanity in general.  Within the novella, Alex reads from a book also titled A Clockwork Orange: “The attempt to impose upon man… laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, against this I raise my sword-pen.”  Here, Burgess uses the book to discuss not only mankind’s relation to machinery when deprived of choice but also the dystopian motif of the government’s role in this loss of humanity.

Similar to the collectivism and loss of individuality seen in George Orwell’s 1984, the State in A Clockwork Orange is preoccupied with maintaining power and ignores the needs of the individual, even going so far as to turn mankind into machinery by depriving people of their free will through Ludovico’s Technique.  This discussion of the government’s oppression of its people in the name of “the greater good” makes A Clockwork Orange one of the most iconic dystopian works; however, Burgess takes the discussion a step further by nullifying the idea of “the greater good” with the State’s removal of choice because, as Burgess emphasizes, good is a choice.

            Burgess harnesses language to wonderful effect: the entire story is told in Nadsat, the Russian/Cockney slang Alex speaks.  Even excluding Burgess’s discussions of free will and governmental roles, this novella is likely the most linguistically engaging work of fiction ever created. Without glossary or footnote, readers must learn the language as the story progresses.  This allows Burgess to manipulate his readers by language alone.  Because Alex is “your humble narrator,” everything is filtered through his perspective, and this filtering allows even a despicable criminal to become a sympathetic character since readers are only exposed to his version of events.  The readers’ acclimation to the language also provides an initial barrier to understanding during the first part; Burgess uses this barrier to his advantage and details the most horrifying of Alex’s crimes in this part where readers will understand and care the least, making Alex’s crimes appear less significant.  Nadsat itself is manipulative in the sense that readers are presented with nadsat—teen—slang that only has the capacity to convey certain limited meaning.  Because Nadsat is heavily Russian-based, Burgess may have been alluding once again to the story’s communist/collectivist backdrop; however, if this was his intent, it was executed poorly because Nadsat serves as a rebellious language in his story and functions in opposition to the State rather than in accordance with it. 

            Originally, the novella was written with twenty-one chapters.  Prior to 1986, all American publications only included the first twenty chapters.  While Burgess insisted the final chapter was necessary to make the story complete through Alex’s development, American publishers disagreed and thought American audiences would find the darker ending of the twentieth chapter more believable and more appealing.  Both forms are valid: with the inclusion of the last chapter, the novella becomes a story about a character’s choice, whereas the novella becomes more of a hard-hitting parable describing the simultaneous danger and necessity of free will if the last chapter is excluded.  Either way, A Clockwork Orange is a necessity for any literary discussion pertaining to free will, especially in relation to government.