Utopia vs Dystopia? Surprise! They mean the same thing.

I’ve noted in the past on this blog how every once in a while a word rises to sudden prominence in popular usage, but is nonetheless used incorrectly by almost everyone. I blame this largely on media pundits, who hear a word, fixate on its novelty value, then start using it willy-nilly. Pundits are not really any worse than everyone else when it comes to using words, they simply have a collective prominence that gives their usage greater spread. “Tranche” was a perfect example a few years back; last fall I dedicated most of a post to the misuse of “condone“ (although the context was somewhat different). If you follow enough news, especially commentary, you’ll encounter numerous other examples. There are other words that are used incorrectly so often that the value and power of their original meanings have been lost, and using them has become a badge of ignorance for the user (and a loss for the rest of us: rest in peace, surreal). Social media probably deserves nearly as much blame as pundits.

A word that is suddenly very popular in recent weeks—but yet which is usually misused, and thus sadly on the path to meaninglessness—is “dystopian.” That one raises my hackles more than most because I am an expert in dystopia.

I don’t say that lightly: I claim to be an expert in few things. Understanding how American English works and using that skill to improve the work of others is one of my areas of expertise: it is not bragging to say that my ability puts me in an extremely thin layer of knowledgeable experts. I’m a pretty good home baker, and over the past 20 years or so I have become an excellent home cook (thanks largely to an attention to detail and the collection of some outstanding recipes). Am I expert in either? Possibly. Through much study and contemplation, I understand the deep technical and philosophical issues of artificial intelligence better than the vast majority of people, even some who work in the field (which I do not). I probably have a few other skills or areas of knowledge where I would rate at an expert level, but nothing else worth mentioning here.

When it comes to utopia and dystopia, though, I have no trouble asserting that I am an expert and you (probably) are not. To lay some groundwork for this claim, I point to my graduate thesis (2005, University of Southern Maine, unpublished), which includes an appendix, “Trouble in Paradise: The Extinction of Individuality as a Prerequisite of Dystopian Fiction.” There is a lot that I could tell you about utopia and dystopia, including the fairly obvious nugget indicated in that title—that all dystopian fiction operates on some level as a struggle of true individuality against an imposed identity.

I could go on for pages establishing definitions, highlighting key points, describing predictable paths dystopian literature follows, and listing various check boxes these stories usually tick off—but you’re likely not very interested in that. I can, however, give you a simple insight or two into dystopia that very few people recognize or comprehend. First, a paragraph on utopia and its ugly (and younger) sibling, dystopia.

A key that anyone looking at these concepts must understand is that when Thomas More released the idea of “Utopia” upon the world he was already messing with our minds. Most people who have encountered his original book (more likely some summary of it) understand that his Utopia meant (roughly) “no place” in Greek. What most of those people don’t understand is that “outopos” (or “utopos“) in Greek, as known and used by More’s contemporaries, was already a bit of wordplay: it was pronounced virtually the same as “eutopos,” which means “the good place.” Meant as something of a pun, or instead as deliberate ambiguity by More, the two ideas have been hopelessly intertwined from the first moment. Is utopia a good place, as we’re led to believe, or no place, as we’re told it must be? Is it both? Neither? Anyone claiming to have the definitive answer to these questions should be challenged.

To return to my main point: all discussions of utopia as an idea balanced against dystopia are misguided. These conversations and comparisons begin from the flawed premise that utopia and dystopia are in fact opposites, the one good the other bad. The truth is that they are the same concept: any utopia, because it is ultimately based on the idea of “good” as set forth by an individual (or small group), is inherently a dystopia for others (often, most others). Even when a utopia is supported by a majority, it is inherent in the concept that for some minority this utopia will, in fact, be a dystopia. There is no getting around this idea; utopia is one of those rare concepts that contains within it its own annihilation; it is a word and an idea that is its own opposite. Anyone who ever tries to sell you on the concept of utopia as demonstrably perfect should be considered naive at best; at worst, they should be recognized as extremely dangerous.

If there is any accuracy to the bonanza of uses of dystopia in recent months, it is that most users seem to have a certain instinctual understanding of what they’re saying: they fail to comprehend the true meaning of the word they’re using, but on the other hand they also seem to be using the word in an attempt to come to grips with their own intellectual and emotional discomfort (if not outright distress) at the current state of American culture (substitute society, politics, economics, class, race relations, or a host of other contemporary issues for “culture” if you need additional convincing). At a deep, but not consciously grasped, level, these people see that something is very, very wrong with the world they (we) inhabit. They also get—again perhaps not consciously—that they are staring down a road that will have us living in a dystopia imposed upon them by an individual or small group who actually believes that this is Utopia.

We can be very specific about what this means: the current president, his inner circle, and their supporters—make no mistake, a demonstrable minority in every way—feel that a racist, religious, misogynist, white-nationalist state; built on economic policies intended to redistribute resources to the already-wealthy; in which domestic politics are built on a foundation of fear of the other, while international relations are based exclusively on threat and intimidation; is in fact, their Utopia.

They deny actual reality in favor of a cocooned nostalgia-infected fantasy world of unrivaled and undisputed cultural, military, moral, and racial superiority. Which, if you understand anything about utopia and dystopia, is only to be expected. That kind of world can only exist as a fantasy. They believe this is utopia, their good place, refusing to recognize that it is now and will always be no place.

The rest of us struggle against this—as we all must, every day of each or our lives—to ensure that the false utopia of another does not become a dystopia under which each of us suffers individually, continuously, in ways great and small. In 2019, this struggle is more overt than it’s been in a very long time, and there is perhaps more at stake than ever. We’re under a continuous barrage of hate, lies, and the imposition of the intolerant beliefs of others; we cannot concede, even on the small things, or we’ve already lost. Achieving utopia might be a goal worth striving for, but the best most of us can hope for is to hold the dystopias of others at bay.

Don’t get smug, either. If you think you’re the one brilliant genius who can bring a true utopia to the world, if you only ever got the chance, then remember this: your utopia will always be someone else’s dystopia.

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A few quick extras: related material and interesting tidbits that didn’t fit smoothly into the post above.

What word are many people grasping for when they spit out “dystopia?” I’ve recently heard at least three works (Mad Max, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Terminator) described as “dystopian,” or referenced in a way that compared contemporary events to these “dystopian” visions. That use is utterly incorrect for two of these three (The Handmaid’s Tale fully fits the definition). For the others, and similar world visions, the word you’re looking for is probably “post-apocalyptic.” This is, I believe, yet another case of people using words that they’ve heard but don’t understand, deserving the long-played-yet-never-out-of-style refrain: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Use of the word dystopia seems, bizarrely, to be very popular when discussing cryptocurrencies (possibly because of a January letter from a senior executive at JPMorgan). Shame on the writer of every story who has ignorantly echoed the use of the word, and every news outlet that’s let the word pass without noting how meaningless it is in context. The word that was meant in this case is unclear—authoritarian? tyrannical? oppressive? possibly something as simple as over-regulated?

A strange use of “utopian” crossed my news feed as I was drafting this post. An exercise program threw a public tantrum and began a boycott of all Facebook properties over a temporary forum suspension. I don’t know much about that operation, but I’m not sure what kind of world their PR folks think we’re living in if they feel “utopian socialists” is a phrase that can be accurately applied to Facebook. Perhaps in an alternate dimension several steps removed from our reality. I’ve never been much of a fan of Facebook and rarely spend time there, but of the many phrases that could be used to (negatively) describe that company, this doesn’t seem an accurate one. It probably tells us more about the user’s politics, too, that “utopian socialist” would be considered a damning insult.
I invite you to read the actual press release, especially if you’re in the mood for some good old-fashioned gibberish pretending to represent a thoughtful position. Not to sound alarmist, but there are some lines in there which would be laugh-out-loud funny writing—if not for the fact that, taken as a whole, the document sounds awfully close to the defensive, paranoid ramblings of a cult leader (skim the comments for more of the same).

…And, as this post sat in the queue over the long weekend, to be published on autopilot on Tuesday, an op-ed in the New York Times proceeded to use dystopian incorrectly. Riddley Walker is a singular and brilliant novel, which I highly recommend. It’s far more complex than that Times article recognizes, and far richer, especially when it comes to Hoban’s extensive use of Riddley’s degenerate form of English: virtually every sentence contains multiple potential meanings, leaving the narrator and reader in a state of constant negotiation.

But the world of Riddley Walker is post-apocalyptic. There is almost nothing in it that  justifies the label dystopian, except continued misuse of the term.

…And high-profile uses of the word just keep coming. Within a few hours, plus or minus, of posting this, an article appeared in The Atlantic. This is an interesting one, for several reasons. First of all, it’s well-written and insightful, so take the time to scan it. Second, the author never actually uses the term dystopian: it only appears in the headline, so if this publication operates as many traditionally do, then the title was likely an editorial choice, not the author’s own. But third…while it’s not stated in so many words, the world vision espoused by Facebook likely does qualify as dystopian. What is described in the article is a system that exists to greatly benefit one small group (Facebook, its executives and large stakeholders, its partners, and the various parasitical entities that thrive along with it). It’s their utopia. But everyone else—the majority of humanity—suffers in such a system. The suffering here is not, most likely, outright physical deprivation and literal oppression. Instead, it’s intellectual, educational, emotional, cultural; it undermines trust, faith, integrity, standards of behavior. That suffering is no less real.