| FALSE UTOPIAS -- BASIC ELEMENTS |
Metropolis, 1926 |
The
Machine Stops |
The
City and the Stars |
Logan's Run |
The
Truman Show |
Demolition Man |
Brave New World |
The Time Machine |
The Cage |
The Futurological Congress (&2) |
1984 |
The Electric Horseman |
What kind of a world
is this?
(These works depict a future humanity or a race much like our own, living in enclosed and
protected cities, cocoons of illusion, and other spaces. All are controlled environments). |
Metropolis is a false utopia
of pleasure in the form of a high-rise city based on technology and the enslavement of
those who live below it. |
This is a false utopia of
self-involvement, based on technology and simulation, in which people live in an
underground machine that provides everything they desire with authentic objects and
simulated substitutes. |
Diaspar is a false utopia in
the form of an enclosed city run by a Central Computer that provides everything people
need and gives them virtual realities in place of real experiences outside the city. It is
based on technology and simulation. |
This is a false utopia of
pleasure and decadence in the form of a domed city run by a computer that gives the
inhabitants everything they desire and controls their lives. It is based on technology.
|
This is a false utopia of
50's niceness and community that is really a giant stage set. |
The city is a false utopia of
technology and niceness in which technology monitors people and keeps them in line. |
|
This is a false utopia in
which a future humanity, the Eloi, live a life of leisure in which their needs are
provided for them, in what appears to be a park-like pastoral paradise. They are exploited
by the Morlocks, mutants that live in a chthonic underground. |
Captain Pike is trapped in
an underground complex on the planet Talos IV, where he is offered a false utopia of
psychological illusions that can give him any experience he desires. The Talosians who
induce these illusions in him with their mental abilities, are addicted to illusion and
stuck underground because they destroyed the surface of their planet. |
The inhabitants of the
future live in a false utopia of illusions induced by drugs that misleads them into
believing they live in a world of abundance and comfort.. |
A partial, false utopia of
propaganda |
|
What catastrophe or
forces created this world?
(In some instances, humanity retreats into these enclosed spaces in the face of nuclear
war, overpopulation and ecological catastrophe. In others, these places develop as a
result of technology and simulation; power-seeking and exploitation. Many stories combine
various possibilities.) |
Presumably, Metropolis
evolved from capitalism, technology, power-seeking, and greed. |
|
|
Humanity retreated into the
city after the outside world was destroyed by nuclear war, overpopulation and pollution. |
A television producer wants
to create the illusion of an ideal world and a loveable character so those in the fallen
world outside can have someone to empathize with and experience positive emotions. |
Presumably, society evolved
into a dictatorship of enforced niceness because of political correctness. |
|
Nuclear war destroys the
world. Some human beings go underground and become monsters; others stay above and become
dinner. |
The Talosians destroy the
surface of their planet and, trapped underground, they succumb to the addictive power of
illusion. |
Humanity destroys the planet
through ecological catastrophe, and becomes addicted to a life of simulation, as a
dictator immerses them in an illusion that masks the truth. |
|
|
What are the primary
bifurcations when it comes to spaces or domains in the story?
(These stories include a number of places or domains the characters move through, that
embody three primary contrasts: past/future; high; low; inside/outside. These, in turn,
embody various qualities and ways of life: power/ powerlessness, and truth/falsehood are
the two most important.) |
The primary bifurcation is:
above in the high-tech city versus below in the worker's factories and housing.
High/Rich/Power versus Low/Poor/Powerlessness. |
The primary bifurcation is:
inside the underground machine-city versus above ground, exposed.
Underground/contained/controlled/protected/ cut-off from life versus being on the surface/
exposed/ free/ unprotected/ in contact with life. |
The primary bifurcation is:
Inside the enclosed high-tech city versus outside, exposed. (More will be added, here.) |
The primary bifurcation is:
inside the domed mall-like city versus the wild nature outside. Contained/protected/
controlled/cut off versus on the surface/ exposed/ free/ in contact with life. Also the enclosed mall city versus the ruins of Washington D.C. |
The primary bifurcations are
inside the enclosed stage set versus the outside world. |
The primary bifurcation is:
the ordered, controlled and affluent world above ground versus the freer but chaotic and
poor world of the rebel movement, underground. |
|
The primary bifurcation is:
the above-ground pastoral gardenlike surroundings versus below in the dark caverns. Also,
the present time that the time traveler comes from, versus the future. |
The primary bifurcation is:
the false world "inside" illusions, versus seeing things as they are. They are:
being in the illusion/being controlled (or addicted)/cut off from life versus
reality/freedom/in contact. This is connected to another: the underground complex versus
the surface. There is an implied spatial metaphor here -- being "inside" the
illusion as well as the underground complex versus being outside of both. |
The primary bifurcation is:
the false world inside illusions, versus seeing things as they are. |
|
|
| What are other
significant bifurcations, if any? |
|
|
|
The bright, controlled,
plaza-like areas of the mall city versus the dark area called Cathedral, where wild child
are on the loose. The bright, controlled, plaza-like
areas of the mall city versus the unkempt areas and underground labyrinth beneath it.
The computer control room versus the inside of the ruins of
the U.S. Capitol building. |
A secondary bifurcation is
between the stage set and back stage areas. |
Our present versus the
future; |
|
|
The Talosian's underground
habitation versus the ship. |
The near future where the
protagonist comes from, versus the more distant future, where the society of illusion
exists. |
|
|
Who or what is the
controller of this high-tech world:
(These worlds are controlled by computers/machines; and human dictators or other humanoid
creatures. |
The ruling class of
Metropolis controls the workers below them. The ruling class is governed by a man who is
the father of the hero. |
The machine controls
everything. Humanity is inside it. |
The computer controls
everything. It creates and re-creates the city and its inhabitants. |
A computer with a female
voice controls everything. |
A malevolent television
producer who is playing God with Truman's life. |
Technology and the niceness
police keep people in line. Behind them is a corrupt manipulator. |
|
The mutant Morlocks control
the Eloi and use their chthonic machines to maintain the park-like setting. |
The Talosian illusionists
seek to control and manipulate Pike. (Here, the controller oppresses one man, rather than
an entire population, but the basic idea is the same.) |
A pharmacological dictator
creates illusions inside which all of humanity lives. |
|
|
What pathologies
does this world suffer from?
(The inhabitants of these worlds most commonly suffer from pathologies in which they are
kept as children and/or cut off from life. They suffer from some combination of
dependence; lack of assertion; distorted perceptions and beliefs; decadence and
self-involvement: authentiphobia; addiction; and powerlessness and poverty. They may also
have a fascination with simulations of evil and, as described below, they are tricked by
various kind s of illusions.) |
Those who live in the towers
fail to recognize the humanity of those below, while they live a life of frivolous
pleasures. Pathologies: Slavery and oppression, poverty,
inhumanity, political manipulation, self-involvement. |
The inhabitants are
agoraphobic shut-ins who can't do things for themselves. They depend on the machine to do
things for them. They are also afraid of, and cut off from, direct experience, including
from the outside world and each other, and they misperceive their own needs, nature and
situation and the possibilities of life. Pathologies: dependence, lack of assertion,
distorted perception, beliefs and desires, agoraphobia, authentiphobia. |
The inhabitants are
agoraphobic shut-ins, who depend on the computer for everything and are afraid of, and cut
off from, their own nature and the outside world. Pathologies: dependence, lack of
assertion, agoraphobia, |
The inhabitants are
agoraphobic shut-ins who depend on the computer for everything and are afraid of, and cut
off from, their own nature and the outside world. They are isolated from the natural
processes of natural birth, marriage, procreation, aging and death. They are deluded and
unable to think for themselves. And they are killed at 30. |
Truman is kept as a
dependent child, never facing the true challenges of life and never knowing true love. He
is agoraphobic. |
The inhabitants let a regime
based on niceness and political correctness control their behavior. They can't assert
themselves and live a bland, monitored, overly ordered life. |
|
The Eloi have a childlike
lack of assertiveness, dependence and inability to question their situation or resist.
They are killed for food. |
Having destroyed the surface
of their planet, the Talosians are trapped underground, where they have become addicted to
living a life of illusions and lost the ability to act on the world. They entrap and try
to control a human prisoner, in the hopes he can be used to breed a slave population to
reclaim the surface. Pathologies: addiction, lack of the ability to engage in direct
action, entrapment, authentiphobia. Pike is lured in with promises of love, paradise and
indulging fantasies of recreational evil, but resists. He is also tricked by some
illusions. |
Having destroyed the planet
and themselves, and brought about imminent ecological collapse, humanity is trapped by a
pseudo-benevolent dictator inside a drug-induced illusion so they see a world of high
technology and prosperity. Many are addicted to illusory gratifications and to acting out
fantasies of evil. Pathologies: entrapment, misperception of reality, addiction to
illusion, recreational evil. |
|
|
| What is the
palliative people are given to make up for the pathologies? |
The workers get none. They
subsist. The ruling class gets a life of pleasure and comfort. |
The inhabitants of the city
lead a life based on "cultural" pursuits. The machine does everything for them.
They get simulations as substitutes for real things. |
The inhabitants get an
interesting life full of pleasure and distractions. They get adventures in virtual
realities in place of genuine experiences. |
The computer gives the
inhabitants a life of comfort and decadent pleasures, including sex, drug-induced highs,
and the excitement of Carousel, a ritual in which 30 year-olds are killed, with the
promise they will have a chance to renew. The promise that they will get the chance to be
reborn, mitigates their unhappiness over having to die at 30. |
A life of safety and
pleasantness. |
The inhabitants get a
well-ordered, safe, peaceful, life. |
|
The Eloi are taken care of
and live a life of leisure and unconcern, although they are so passive it appears they
would tolerate their situation whatever it was. |
The Talosians offer Pike the
palliative they rely on in their state of addicted imprisonment -- lifelike simulated
fantasies as substitutes for real thing |
The inhabitants get
illusions as substitutes for the real thing. |
|
|
| What is the
essential illusion. How is the inhabitants' view of reality structured, limited and
constructed? |
As noted, the inhabitants
fail to recognize the humanity of the workers or that things can be different than they
are. Also, the workers mistake a simulation, a robot, for a woman who is their leader. |
The inhabitants believe the
life they lead is good, complete and natural, and they can't imagine another one. this is
the accepted way of viewing things. |
|
The inhabitants believe the
city is the world; that it is natural and that their life is all there is. They believe
they have to die at 30 and have a chance to be reborn. Their view of the rest of the world
is blocked by the walls of the city and the police force that stops "runners"
from leaving. The opinion of other people helps keep dissident thinking under control. |
Truman mistakes a high tech
stage set, actors and scripts for life. |
The inhabitants believe this
is the way life should be. They believe their government is nice, as well, when they are
being manipulated. |
|
The Eloi can't imagine
asserting themselves against the Morlocks or lifting a finger to do anything. They are
hypnotized by the air-raid siren into herding themselves into the Morlock den. The human
hero also suffers from an illusion -- that the future will be better than the present and
that humanity will have conquered its destructiveness. |
Pike and other human beings
mistake Talosian illusions for something real. |
The people believe they live
in a world of prosperity and technology when everything is in a state of collapse. |
|
|
What are the means
used to control the inhabitants and keep them out of forbidden domains? (Some of this
repeats what is said in categories above.)
(The primary means of control are illusions, pleasures that legitimize the system and
distract people, and force and barriers. In this, these works embody basic perceptions of
how social systems control their inhabitants.
Physical barriers and sensory illusions; force; altered beliefs that make people believe
this is the best and only world, and cause them to mistake ideology, illusion and
technology for nature. Also pleasures are provided to make these seem like a good world,
and the inhabitants desires are manipulated, so their desires serve the system.) |
Barriers, force. |
Enclosing walls; force
applied by the machine, altered desires and beliefs of the inhabitants, pleasures that
make life seem good. |
Enclosing walls; altered
desires and beliefs of the inhabitants; virtual realities that offer simulated pleasures
in place of genuine experiences. |
The computers controls the
inhabitants with enclosing walls and a police force of assassins, who kill those who try
to run to avoid death at 30. It also controls them with their altered desires and beliefs
and by providing a life of pleasure that makes life seem good. |
A fear of leaving the
enclosed city and going over or on water to leave it has been induced in him. Physical
barriers block his escape and stop him from seeing back stage areas. Scripting and staging
ensure he won't see anything he isn't supposed to see. At the same time, the illusion is created of a genuine life, with lifelike
scenes, situations, interactions, emotions and experiences. |
Technology; the PC Police,
their beliefs. |
|
The Morlocks use force, when
necessary but are aided by the passivity of the Eloi. Walls block entry to the Morlock's
underground world. |
The Talosians try to control
the inhabitants of their prison with enclosing walls; with illusions that trick people
into believing they are trapped or in danger when they are not, and by offering illusory
pleasures to make life seem good. |
The dictatorship controls
people with an all-encompassing illusion that falsifies people's perception of the world,
combined with illusions that offer pleasures, to keep people satisfied. |
|
|
| FALSE
UTOPIAS -- THE PLOTS |
Metropolis |
The Machine Stops |
The City and the
Stars |
Logan's Run |
The Truman Show |
Demolition Man |
Brave New World |
The Time Machine |
The Cage |
The Futurological
Congress |
1984 |
|
Where does the hero
come from?
(The heroes or protagonists in these works come from within the society or else they come
from the past, by being taken out of suspended animation or traveling by time machine, and
they have more conventional means of transportation, such as a space ship.) |
He comes from the ruling
class. He is the son of the dictator. |
He is an inhabitant who
lives in the machine. |
He is an inhabitant of, and
was created by, the city. |
He is an inhabitant of the
city. |
Truman is adopted by a
corporation to become a human image. |
He hibernates from the past
and is "awakened" in the future. |
|
He comes from the past, via
time machine. |
He travels to Talos via a
space ship. |
He hibernates from the past
and is "awakened" in the future. |
He is an inhabitant. |
|
| How does the hero
become involved |
He follows a woman down into
the underground, where he encounters the horrors of the life of the workers. |
He has an inner urge to
escape and be free. |
He was programmed to want to
escape and learn the truth. |
He is recruited by the
computer-dictator to leave the city and find Sanctuary, a place where runners are believed
to escape to. |
he grows up in this fake
world. |
He is unfrozen to do a task. |
|
He chooses to travel into
the future in search of a better world and his time machine is then stolen by the
Morlocks. |
His ship is lured with a
false distress call and he is then imprisoned. |
He keeps trying to find out
the truth of the society. |
|
|
| What spaces and
domains does the hero travel through. |
|
He escapes outside but is
pulled back in. |
|
Logan and Jessica travel
through various domains, experiencing life's possibilities and various truths. They travel
from the ordered, mall-like spaces of the city, which is an inauthentic life of control;
through the wild untamed world of Cathedral; through the pleasure palace of the orgy room;
down through the labyrinthine world that is the roots of the city; out into exposed nature
where they suffer and enjoy being free; to the ruins of Washington where they learn the
truths about marriage, procreation, aging and death; and back to the city to free it. |
He escapes outside but is
taken back in. he escapes via boat through a storm and reaches the end of the world. |
The hero travels from the
present to the future when he is awakened and from the orderly surface world to the
underground sewers, where a disorderly but free rebel movement is hiding out. |
|
The hero time travels from
his present, a fallen world of violence he abhors; to various times in the future where he
sees progress and mass destruction, then to a pastoral paradise that is a false utopia,
then down into the caverns of the Morlocks, on his way to freeing the Eloi. |
The hero travels to the
planet; the devastated surface; underground, into illusions of danger, paradise,
recreational evil and hellish suffering, and then he escapes the illusion and the
underground complex. |
The protagonist travels from
the near future to the more distant future where he is inside an illusion; then out of the
illusion so he sees the world as it is; then he awakes and realizes it was all a dream. |
|
|
| What is the bridge
between domains. |
|
He finds an escape route. |
|
A labyrinthine underworld to
a cave opening is the way out. |
A physical bridge; a boat on
water and a doorway to the outside. |
He is unfrozen and travels
physically down into the sewers. |
|
A time traveling
device. |
He takes a spaceship to the
planet; and the power of the mind transports him into illusory worlds. |
Drugs reveal the truth
beyond the other, drug-induced illusions. Ultimately, he wakes up. |
|
|
| What do the
characters do that brings this world as it is to an end or what do they try to do, if
anything? |
|
He tries to escape to the
surface. in the end, the machine stops working. The machine and the mechanized
civilization it created are destroyed. |
He escapes to the outside
world, and learns the truth. |
He escapes to the outside
world, learns the truth about birth, marriage, procreation and death and tries to tell the
inhabitants. He reveals to the computer there is no sanctuary, causing it to short circuit
and destroying the city, so the people walk out into the world and are free. |
Truman sneaks out and
reaches a door to the outside. |
He brings together the
assertive but less ordered world of the rebels with the unassertive but ordered world of
the surface. |
|
He teaches the Eloi how to
defend themselves and together they defeat the Morlocks. |
Pike escapes, dooming the
Talosians since using him to breed a slave population to reclaim the surface was their
last hope. |
He wakes up. |
|
|
| What is the new
society that is created at the end? |
It will be a society no
longer based on oppression. |
. A new human society will
be born on the surface. |
|
Humanity is exiled from the
false timeless paradise and will once again work amid nature, build, procreate, and create
history. |
Truman will have a chance
for a genuine life and genuine love. |
The new society will have the
best qualities of both sides. |
|
Humanity must be exiled from
a timeless and deadly paradise or Elysium and begin to work and create history again. |
Pike escapes and resumes a
life based on exploration and progress. The Talosians are doomed. |
Humanity is doomed. |
|
|
| FALSE
UTOPIAS -- THE MEANINGS |
Metropolis |
The Machine Stops |
The City and the
Stars |
Logan's Run |
|
Demolition Man |
Brave New World |
The Time Machine |
The Cage |
The Futurological
Congress |
1984 |
|
| What is the
depiction of mind |
Officially Metropolis,
towering above, represents the head; the workers are the hands, and the two must be
brought together with the heart. More to the point, Metropolis is the ego; the repressed
workers, full of rage, teeming below, and trying to surge up and invade, are the repressed
unconscious. |
The contained world in the
machine is a neurotic mind, defended from the outside world, and from independence and
life. |
The contained city is a
neurotic mind, defended from the outside world and life. |
The contained city is a
neurotic mind, defended from the outside world and life. The open but contained, and
orderly mall-like spaces, are the world of the ego. Cathedral, the dark wild place where
violent children who can't be controlled are contained, is the personal unconscious. The
labyrinthine underground full of evidence of the city's past, which Logan and Jessica
travel through to escape, is the collective unconscious. They travel into themselves to be
free. |
The stage set is the
conscious personality lost in falsehood and childlike niceness. Back stage areas are the
unconscious. The producer is the internalized image of the father keeping his
son in a
state of childlike dependence and impotence. Truman is the aspect of the self that desires
to know the truth, grow up and genuinely know a woman. His mother is the internalized
image of the mother who also is trying to keep him a child. |
The movie is a Jungian
parable about a one-sided mind. The city is a conscious mind that has gone too far into
niceness and order. The rebel movement, underground, is the unconscious shadow. The hero
rebalances the personality by reincorporating the freedom-loving, assertive rebel movement
in the underground or unconscious with the conscious mind or surface society. |
|
The time traveler journeys
into a future that is a disguised depiction of his own mind. The park-like setting is the
ego or conscious personality; the Eloi are thoughts or aspects of his conscious self. The
Morlocks in the underground caverns are the unconscious, which persecutes and terrorizes
and destroys the conscious personality. More specifically, the Morlocks are the
internalized image of cannibalistic parents, persecuting and destroying the conscious
personality, and keeping it from being assertive and destroying it in punishment when it
is. The air raid siren is the effect of anxiety as an alarm, that goes thoughts to go
underground. The time traveler is disturbing thoughts and desires for independence,
perhaps caused by the influence of another person. In the end, the conscious personality
invades the unconscious and destroys the persecutory figures. Where the unconscious was,
the ego is. |
Pike is the conscious self
traveling into the underworld of dreams, where his internalized parents, the Talosians,
try to control his will. It is also traveling into the illusions of neurosis in which the
individual misperceives things. |
The future society trapped
in an illusion is a neurotic mind trapped in false ideas or illusions, refusing to see the
world as it is, and endlessly indulging in fantasy. |
|
|
| What is the
depiction of the family |
The father-leader is an
oppressive parent who keeps all the prerogatives for himself; the workers
are children in revolt. |
The machine is a smothering,
controlling parent -- a mother who spoils and infantilizes her children. |
The computer is a smothering
parent who ultimately knows that the children will have to grow up and leave, and so
plants the desire to do so in one of them. |
The computer is a smothering
parent. Given the female voice it is obviously intended to be a mother. |
Same as above, but here what
is depicted is a more mundane view of Truman, family, home and neighborhood. |
|
|
The Morlocks are parents as
bad objects, who keep their children from growing up, asserting themselves and being
independent. |
The Talosians are an effete
father trying to control Pike, a son. He offers the son the mother as a love object,
disguised as a young and beautiful woman. |
The pharmacological dictator
is a father who keeps his children controlled and imprisoned in false ideas. |
|
|
| What is the
depiction of birth |
|
Humanity is held in the womb
of mad technology. The protagonist slips outside, above ground, but is dragged back in by
the machine. |
|
The city is a womb that
contains the child inhabitants, in a mother who refuses to let them be born. Logan's
escape from the city re-creates the four stages of birth as described by Grof -- peaceful
union, disturbance without an exit, an exit becomes evident; birth into the world. |
Truman is being born from the
womb of dependence, niceness and inconsequential life into the world and adulthood. |
|
|
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|
|
| What historic models
are used: |
|
There are hints of the
middle ages and monasteries in the ordered, controlled world with an interest in cultural
pursuits. |
|
Ancient Greece and Rome, as
depicted in the movies. (See the essay on the movie for details on this.) |
|
|
|
Ancient Greece. |
|
|
|
|
| What from
contemporary society (contemporary with the writing of the story) is used as a model or
raw material. |
The movie is a fictionalized
depiction of capitalist decadence and the oppression of workers in Germany and elsewhere.
The depiction of the workers revolution is undoubtedly affected by Russian revolution. |
Life in the machine probably
embodies perceptions of communism, fascism, dictatorship, mass society;
large buildings, ships, hotels, and so on, that can hold many people at once, and
universities and intellectuals who are viewed as replacing scholarship for real life. Also
the existence of political dissidents. |
Computers, television,
enclosed malls, planned cities and developments, consumer capitalist society. Dissidence. |
Malls, Disney, singles
complexes, the 1960s counterculture and 70s popular culture; dictatorship, manipulative
politicians and leaders, propaganda from politicians and corporations. Dissidence. |
Television, reality
programming, theme parks, perhaps Internet voyeurism. |
This future society embodies
the qualities of standardized, corporate "McDonalds" culture, planned
developments, political correctness, liberal do-goodism and government as nanny. |
|
The caverns are a
fictionalized depiction of factories. |
The Talosians are a
depiction of television addiction. |
This future society is based
in part on ideas about television addiction, drugs, dictatorships, capitalist consumer
society. |
|
|
| What does the story
take from ideology and political philosophy |
The story presents the
communist-socialist view of capitalism as based on a rich ruling class oppressing the
workers and of workers being enslaved by being incorporated into the process of
technological mass production and turned into machines. |
The story expresses a
liberal-democratic view in which the machine society represents communism, fascism and
mass society, which are seen as stealing freedom, self-determination, and individuality.
The story also embodies the liberal idea that freedom and individuality are essential to
humanity and more important than comfort. And it expresses the fear that technology might
infantilize and trap us, and separate us from life and nature. Whereas in Metropolis,
technology enslaves humanity in its role as worker, turning it into a production machine,
here it enslaves humanity in its role as consumer and citizen, turning people into
helpless children and monitored conformists. The story also includes the view of ideology
as something psychological and cultural, in which people's needs and desires, and their
view of themselves, are transformed, so the illusion encompasses their self and mind. |
The story expresses the idea
that technology might infantilize and trap us, and separate us from life and nature. |
The movie expresses the idea
that technology might infantilize and trap us. and separate us from life and nature. It
also expresses the following ideas: the view of capitalist society as governed by
corporate ruling classes that infantilize the public and distract it with consumer
abundance while they steal its freedom; the belief that promiscuous
self-oriented lifestyles introduced in the 1960s are based on a failure to grow up;
the traditional, Judeo-Christian belief that a good life is based on hard work and
marriage and taking responsibility. The movie also expresses the view of
ideology as something psychological and cultural that transforms needs and desires and
alters people's view of themselves and the world, so the illusion encompasses their self
and mind and they live in an invented reality. |
The view of governing
classes as manipulating media to impose a state of false consciousness on people and
surround them with an ideology embodied in a constructed reality, |
The movie expresses the
conservative view of political correctness and liberal do-goodism as new forms of tyranny,
and the belief that an overly ordered world is a form of tyranny. |
|
The movies expresses the
view that one must assert oneself and fight for one's freedom, to build a better world, or
we will be destroyed. It asserts that, behind false paradises, there is usually a darker
side. |
This television story
expresses the fear that television addiction will sap our will. |
The story expresses the fear
that television addiction and drugs will destroy our will. It also expresses the view that
capitalist society offers a world of consumer abundance in which the goods are really
illusions -- images and distractions to cover up the truth. And it offers the view of
ideology as something cultural that places people in an invented reality. |
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| What are the
parallels from mythology and more ancient works of imagination? |
A race of humans who are
like mythic demigods live in a heaven of technology, while the rest of humanity is trapped
in an underworld of chthonic machines. The Christlike son of the ruler descends to free
humanity; and,, in one scene, is symbolically crucified on a machine, as he takes the
suffering of the workers on himself. The system is also depicted as Moloch devouring the
workers. In the end, he reconciles the upper and lower worlds. |
A race of people is trapped
by a malevolent mythic goddess in a chthonic underworld. The hero briefly escapes to the
surface. |
A race of humans is trapped
by a mythic god in a prison decorated as a pleasure palace and paradise. The hero escapes
and returns to free his people.... |
The city is a paradise;
Logan and Jessica travel through an underworld to the mundane world of the surface. They
are Adam and Eve. as described in the essay. Logan is
a savior figure, who tries to tell his people the truth but is crucified on a
"surrogation" (interrogation) chair by the computer..
The computer is a Goddess who devours human beings that are
sacrificed to her. |
Adam leaves Eden. As in many
other works, the message is that he must rebel against God, leave paradise and go into the
world to grow up and live. It thus involves a reversal of good and bad in the paradise
myth. (Perhaps there are echoes of Blake.) Also -- human beings escape from the underworld
and escape the clutches of evil gods. |
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Images of paradise, a
chthonic underground and monsters. The story includes elements of Beauty and the Beast.
The beasts die and the blond Eloi get the beasts' assertiveness and ability to build and
fight. It also includes elements of Hansel and Gretel -- the Eloi are innocent children
menaced by cannibalistic ghouls. |
The hero is trapped by
mythic beings with magic powers of illusion in an underworld. |
Humanity is trapped by a
magician with the power of illusion. |
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| What more recent
imaginative works appear to have influenced this? |
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Extensive similarities in
conception and details to The Machine Stops. |
Brave New World? |
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| What ironic
reversals are in the stories |
Human beings become like
machines, while a machine (a robot) is mistaken for being human. That obviously captured
something about what the future was going to bring. |
Humanity lives inside a
machine. Technology, which is supposed to free humanity, enslaves it. |
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Technology, which is
supposed to free humanity, enslaves it and, in one instances, freezes it for a dinner that
never arrives. A life of self-involvement, pleasure, and free sex, which is supposed to
free humanity, enslaves it. |
Television, which is
supposed to mirror and add to life, becomes life. Human beings, who are supposed to watch
television, end up living inside television. A Hollywood director becomes a dictator.
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Niceness isn't so nice. |
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The ruling class toils and
lives in darkness, under the exploited class, which lives a life of leisure in an apparent
paradise. Paradise turns out to be a killing field. The air-raid siren, once intended to
call people into the safety of shelters, is now used to call human cattle into the
underground, where they will be eaten. |
The Talosians are afflicted
by a curse -- their dreams seem to come true. Having wishes fulfilled ends up ruining
them. They end up slaves to their own power. |
Consumer abundance turns out
to be television-like images. |
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THE FUTURE
REPLAYING THE TAPE OF HISTORY
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