A Frightening World

The most frightening thing about dystopias is that while they are imagined and, in a certain light, fantasy worlds they are based on and build off of our modern world. Now, I've never been much of one to take to conspiracy theories and to distrust of the powers at hand, but of late I've been noticing a few similarities between your average 1984 world and the one we live in now. Don't get me wrong, modern life is wonderful; but, I wonder how much of it we're willing to take before we give up the idea of a "personal" life and give ourselves over to mass-marketing and technology-controlled lifestyles.

Right about now this all sounds like a bunch of garbled lingo, but in all honesty I think it is time we take a step back and realize how absurd our lives and our media and our government have become. For example: I was watching CNN yesterday--a well-respected news source, mind you--and as Wolf Blitzer raised the issue of Congress' proposal to dump nuclear waste in the deserts of Nevada, a reporter was called to comment on the political sentiment around the controversy at-hand. Nevada residents, of course, object to the dumping considering the potential health hazards and the general sketchiness of nuclear waste, while experts claimed it was the most appropriate, least populated area in the country. But, what was interesting was not the perspectives given, but they way the reporter presented them in a conversational tone, making the debate out almost to some sort of political farce with characters falling into the typical caricatures of their roles. The absurdity of the whole moment lies here: while it is a serious issue, it was presented almost jovially, and as a viewer I personally took it in almost as something that I could skip over on the way to another, more important issue--the Obama/McCain battle. And then I did a double-take...is this really minor news that should be summarized in 30 seconds? I mean, this is NUCLEAR WASTE we are talking about, something not to be treated like a local debate over a stop sign or speed limits.

But worst of all, later the show presented a debate between two senators relating to the recent questions over the Patriot Act (and Obama's potential support of the act...wtf?). I mean, it's pretty clear that the Patriot Act violates the right to privacy and probably the right to free speech as guaranteed by our Bill of Rights, but still a senator (or a president) can throw the War on Terror into anything and suddenly we have an acceptable piece of legislation. Our nation's fear of terrorism, while justified, seems to be turning a little towards the Big Brother style. Maybe this is why so many movies have been released of late questioning these sorts of ideas: Children of Men, V for Vendetta, or Minority Report come to mind, among others. It's right to take measures to protect ourselves, but how far should those measures go? Is it worth living a life when that life is lived in constant fear of attack?

So I don't know how we got here exactly, but I do know that it alarms me. If Orwell saw our modern world, I don't think he would be pleased of our progress. It's quite possible he would be even more fearful of life today than he was of Post-War Europe, which, while frightening, at least wasn't characterized by the constant risk of monitoring and tracking. That's the world we live in, though. What can we do, now that we've come this far? Progress is a tricky thing...