Love as a counter to Dystopia

Nikhil Marathe, 200801011

20th August, 2010

Dystopic soceities are a mainstay of science fiction, owing to the various ways that they can be represented, people educated about its implications and the way it can be brought down.

Despite this, most science fiction dystopia's are not waste-lands. A dystopia is a perfect world, a utopia, according to its leaders and believers. It is only the reader, from his vantage point and existing social situation, who realizes the truth.

Love is almost always an enemy of dystopic societies and the societal structure ensures that love is beaten down at every step. For example, in Brave New World, there are no families, children are raised to hate certain classes and pregnancy is illegal. Instead sex is reduced to a trivial affair, where two parties indulge in it and go their separate ways. There are no permanent liaisons.

The reason love is denied are manifold. Dystopia requires a person to have dampened emotions since any emotion strong enough, threatens to lead the person to take drastic steps which affect the "illusion" of the dystopia. Since a dystopia is a totalitarian state with a ruling elite, but most of the population being "imprisoned", it is important to not let the illusion drop. Love is a very powerful emotion, and can often lead to action taken to safeguard that love. In the seminal dystopia's Brave New World and 1984, love is the reason the protagonist realizes the fallacy of his life and ends up questioning the ruling party.

Dystopia is also based on social equality and stratification. Social equality requires every person to live, eat and act the same. Yet, from generations of cultural references, love has acquired the need to be unique, that love is individual and special, and love requires some things to be done for no reason. This is a tragedy in a dystopic soceity, where productivity is of utmost importance, since the economy usually lies on a fine line. Love also breaks the social stratification which is necessary to keep soceity running smoothly. It breeds compassion among the different classes among the distrust which has been bred into the society about mingling with other classes. As long as certain people are not aware of what they are missing they will not question their life. But imagine the case where two people of a higher and lower class fall in love. Knowledge exchange happens and sows the seeds of discontent. In Metropolis, Freder and Maria's relationship begins the movement which leads to "head and hand coming together". In Blade Runner, Deckard's relationship with an illegal Replicant leads to problems for him.

A very important point in 1984 is the constant writing and rewriting of history. Love provides a powerful imperative to cherish the actual past, which causes inconsistencies with what the rules require a person to "remember". This facet of love also proves dangerous to a dystopia.

Love has led to the death of various dystopias in fiction. It was personal love in Metropolis, which led to Freder first crossing across social strata and then realizing the impostor Maria. In V for Vendetta (lightly based on 1984) it is V's love for humanity and freedom which causes him to attack dystopia. In the Matrix, it is free humanity's pride ( a form of love ) which causes them to continuously search for the One and free humans. Neo, who will break the Dystopic cycle is awakened from the dead by love.

So love comes in many forms and in every form it poses a threat to Dystopia which relies on everyone behaving according to rules and not according to emotions. Thus it is truly the antithesis of Dystopia.