Dystopia Quotes

“The reshaping of dystopian writing in the aftermath of World War II was dominated by five themes. Firstly, humanity entered the nuclear age on 16 July 1945. By the mid-1950s we could destroy ourselves completely, and there were good reasons to assume we would. Secondly, the spectre of environmental degeneration, later transmuted into a discourse on climate change, with a potentially catastrophic outcome, emerged in the 1970s. Thirdly, the progress of mechanization threatened ever more subordination of people to machines, and an increasing blurring of human/machine identity. Fourthly, liberal non-totalitarian societies showed serious signs of cultural degeneration into intellectual senility and enslavement to a mindless ethos of hedonistic consumption. Finally, anxiety regarding the ‘War on Terror’ came to dominate the news.”
― Gregory Claeys, Dystopia: A Natural History