Word of the Week: Dystopia
[Gk. Dys-, “bad” + topos “place”, after UTOPIA] an imagined society or state of affairs in which conditions are extremely bad, especially in which these conditions result from the continuation of some current trend to an extreme; the genre of fiction set in such a society.
First recorded use: 1868. J.S. Mill Hansard Commons (March 12): It is perhaps, too complimentary to call them Utopians, they ought rather to be called dys-topians, or caco-topians. What is commonly called Utopian is something too good to be practical; but what they appear to favour is too bad to be practical.
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2 comments:
Cool word. Would the Terminator movies (especially the parts set in the future) be considered dystopian?
dbackdad said: Cool word.
Isn't it just? One of my favourites actually.
dbackdad said: Would the Terminator movies (especially the parts set in the future) be considered dystopian?
The Post-Judgement Day - Definitely. I guess that pretty much every post-apocolypse would be a Dystopia. Of course 1984 is *the* classic Dystopia but there are many examples both in SF and in wider literature too.
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