dystopia helps to scare us into working harder

Or maybe weshould just give up entirely on optimism or pessimism

Anti-utopias are the anti, saying that the idea of utopia itself is wrong and bad, and thatany attempt to try to make things better is sure to wind up making things worse, creating anintended or unintended totalitarian state, or some other such political disaster

there are forces keeping the collective from seeing this

This period we are entering could becomethe sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history, and the first caused by human activity

however bad our presentmoment is, it’s nowhere near as bad as the ones these poor characters are suffering through.

One lens of science fiction’s aesthetic machineryportrays some future that might actually come to pass

Possibly dystopiashope to kill the societies they depict

utopiasexpress our social hopes, dystopias our social fears.

it is not that the beautiful totality of the individual is amputated, repressed, altered by our social order, it is rather that the individual is carefully fabricated in it

But the Panopticon was also a laboratory; it could be used as a machine to carry out experiments, to alter behaviour, to train or correct individuals. To experiment with medicines and monitor their effects. To try out different punishments on prisoners, according to their crimes and character, and to seek the most effective ones. To teach different techniques simultaneously to the workers, to decide which is the best. To try out pedagogical experiments — and in particular to take up once again the well-debated problem of secluded education, by using orphans

produces homogeneous effects of power

ence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power

penitentiary, the reformatory,

this is the utopia of the perfectly governed city

The first is that of a pure community, the second that of a disciplined society. Two ways of exercising power over men, of controlling their relations, of separating out their dangerous mixtures.

verything that may be observed during the course of the visits — deaths, illnesses, complaints, irregularities is noted down and transmitted to the intendants and magistrates. The magistrates have complete control over medical treatment; they have appointed a physician in charge; no other practitioner may treat,

the closing of the town and its outlying districts, a prohibition to leave the town

whereno law, no injustice

when going to sleep, he locks his doors; wheneven in his house, he locks his chests; and this when he knows there be lawsand public officers armed to revenge all injuries shall be done him; what opinionhe has of his fellow-subjects when he rides armed; of his fellow-citizens, whenhe locks his doors; and of his children and servants, when he locks his chests.

no society, and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violentdeath, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

condition which is called war

From this equality of ability ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our ends

For such is the nature of men that, howsoever theymay acknowledge many others to be more witty or more eloquent or morelearned, yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves, forthey see their own wit at hand and other men’s at a distance.

That which may perhaps makesuch equality incredible is but a vain conceit of one’s own wisdom, which almostall men think they have in a greater degree than the vulgar, that is, than all menbut themselves, and a few others whom by fame or for concurring withthemselves they approve.

Forprudence is but experience

general and infallible rulescalled science,

the weakest has strength enough to kill thestrongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are inthe same danger with himself.

one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body orof quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the differencebetween man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereuponclaim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he.

American methods

reveals man as a savage beast to whom consideration towardshis own kind is something alien.

which women are little capable.

not all men are worthy of love

hilosophic system, or ideal

prosthetic God.

Happiness, however, is something essentially subjective

In consequence of insufficientobservation and a mistaken view of their manners and customs, they appeared to Europeans to beleading a simple, happy life with few wants, a life such as was unattainable by their visitors with theirsuperior civilization. Later experience has corrected some of those judgements. In many cases theobservers had wrongly attributed to the absence of complicated cultural demands what was in fact dueto the bounty of nature and the ease with which the major human needs were satisfied.

his contention holds that what we call our civilization is largely responsible for ourmisery, and that we should be much happier if we gave it up and returned to primitive conditions.

too, a piece of unconquerable nature

A social group is defined not primarily by a set of shared attributes, but by a sense of identity.What definesBlack Americans as a social group is not primarily their skin color; some persons whose skin coior is fairly light, for example, identify themselves as Black.Though sometimes objective attributes are a necessary condition for classifying oneself or others as belonging to a certain social group, it is identificationwith a certain social status, the common histor y that social status produces,and self-identification that define the group as a group.

Many people in the United States would not choose the term "oppression" to name injustice in our society. For contemporary emancipatory socialmovements, on the other hand-socialists, radical feminists, American Indianactivists, Black activists, gay and lesbian activists-oppression is a central category _of political discourse

Someone who does not see a pane of glass does not know that he does not see d.Someone who, being placed differently, does see it does not know the other doesnot see it.