Un socio-logiste qui parle de dystopies

Anglais llce – script sociologist

Have you ever heard of distopia?

According to George Orwell, a dystopian stories writer, a dystopia is a dark utopian world’s story. So it’s a world characterise by human misory, a world where life is hard, the people are not happy and where nobody wants to live.

I am **** **** and I am a sociologist. Today I will try to explain the importance of the dystopian stories in our society and maybe help you to answer your questions.

First and foremost dystopias bring us face to face with our fears and we do like to be scared as long as we feel safe. Indeed this feeling gives us adrenaline and therefore gives us well being.

So when we read a dystopian story it’s pleasant, because we know that we read is not real and it’s just a story so it could not happen. The fact of feeling safe is very important, nobody would like to be in a scary situation in real life. Nobody would like to be Winston Smith in “1949” with Big Brother watching you all the time. It would be awful!

Afterwards, the fact of we don’t want to be faces with our fears in real life, makes us think about the world of today.. Indeed, the dystopian stories gives us an insight of what our future may be like. So the reflection of a future world makes us think about the world of today. So we do our best to prevent this from happening. The dystopian stories try to avoid that it may happen one day. One more time nobody wants to live in a world like in the “Handmaid’s tale”, a world where dictatorship reigns.

On the other hand and finally, we all know technology is evolving faster than ever today. But now, imagine that in the future, technology will become a threat to us. Some of these technologies are very powerful so what would happen to our world if this technology fell into the wrong hands. This person could control the world. Imagine yourself in the "HUMANS" series in which technology has made it possible to create "Synths", domestic robots that obey humans. But some of them seem mysteriously endowed with a conscience and a free will. The situation can quickly become dangerous.

So to conclude, maybe in our world there are some dystopian aspects. It’s a way to avoid such situations to happen. It’s a way to warn people about some dangers. Dystopias have a really important role in our society, because they foreshadow what may happen if we are not careful. Once again the situation can quickly become dangerous.

But there are other forms, especially in Science Fiction, which illustrates the possible drifts of the current world. It's another way to enter into other parallel worlds.

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