Dystopia

I just finished watching Michael Bay's 'The Island' yesterdsay. It's a story of a futuristic world where the rich can afford to live longer by buying clones of themselves and swapping out organs when the time comes. It was interesting, and very much in line with my recent literary pursuits. I have been reading and watching a fair nummber of dystopian literature and movies lately: classics such as 'Brave New World,' 'Farenheit 451,' 'and 1984,' and movies such as 'The Island,' 'Children of Men,' and 'A Scanner Darkly.' It is intriguing to think that some of the greatest creative minds of this and last century all seem to have similar opinions of the potential of the human race. In most of the futuristic art that I have seen or read, there are always extreme abuses of power, disregard for the sactity of life, and the complete and god-like rule of men over other men. In American Lit in my junior year of high School, my teacher Mrs. Singer rold me that she believed that the human race was evolving, and that some day we would find that utopian balance of love and peace that could set everything right; that we could someday eliminate wars and famine and tyrany and pop music, etc., just by obligaoy social evolution. Popular opinion of the world's greatest social commentators holds to a far more pessimistic future, however. According to them, we may never achieve the cultural euphoria that we seem to believe ourselves capable of. It's all fascinating, either way. And it will be interesting to see how close society comes to these futuristic, control driven anti-utopias that authors and filmmakers envision.