Dystopia

About: Dystopia is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2146 publications have been published within this topic receiving 15163 citations. The topic is also known as: cacotopia.

Problematizing the Human-Technology Relationship through Techno-Spiritual Myths Presented in The Machine, Transcendence and Her

Abstract: The fraught relationship between humans and technology providesmany a storyline within popular cinema. One of the most common ways the human-technology tensions are portrayed is through explorations of Artificial Intelligence (AI) from the female machine-human in Metropolis (1927) used to provoke an oppressed working class into protests to the cybertronic mecha child of A.I. (2001) abandoned by his adoptive mother just as he begins to express human emotions. Portrayals of computer technology in cinema have often been framed within dystopian narratives, showing the human relationship to technology as being adversarial. These tensions between humanity and technology are often linked to broad assumptions about what it means to be human, which I argue are grounded in quasi-spiritual narratives about the nature of technology.This paper focuses on the problematic relationship between humans and technology often portrayed within AI films. These films often focus on questions of human uniqueness and agency, which I suggest are essentially religious questions. One way to explore the core tensions arising from portrayals of the human-machine relationship is through unpacking the techno-spiritual myths that often underlie these framings. This paper explores three common techno-spiritual myths presented in three recent films. These techno-spiritual myths are drawn from recent philosophical work on the relationship between humans and computer, which highlights the roots of different conceptions of the perceived spiritual nature of technology. Applying these myths to recent films, focused on narratives about Artificial Intelligence, helps us identify some of the most common narratives used in cinema to depict an inherently problematic relationship between humanity and technology.In this paper we focus on the AI characterizations in The Machine (2013), Transcendence (2013), and Her (2013), where human-created computers are presented as initially offering salvation from human limitations, until these creations eventually overpower their creators and threaten humanity as a whole. Within each film we see the techno-spiritual myths playing an important role in justifying and shaping the marrying of technology with the human, and they also help us identify the common tropes regarding human fears about technology's ultimate trajectories that are portrayed within popular films. In The Machine British scientists produce cybernetic implants in order to heal brain-damaged soldiers, but these human-machine hybrids turn into unpredictable, volatile cyborgs. Transcendence focuses on artificial intelligence researchers who download the consciousness of their leader into a computer when he faces death, creating a sentient computer that eventually tries to control the humans around it. Her follows the life of a man who develops a relationship with an intelligent computer operating system personified through a female voice who eventually betrays his trust.I suggest each film is underwritten by a techno-spiritual myth including: "technology as divine transcendence" (where technology is shown to endow humans with divine qualities), "technological mysticism" (framing technology practice as a form of religion/spirituality) and "techgnosis" (where technology itself is presented as a God). Each myth highlights how the human relationship to technology is often described and framed in spiritual terms, not only in cinema, but in popular culture in general. These myths, which emerge from previous work highlighting how religious language and imagery are often employed to frame digital technologies as possessing spiritual characteristics, can often be easily seen in contemporary science fiction film narratives (Campbell & LaPastina, 2010). Here I explore how these three myths inform the storylines of several recent sci-fi films, and spotlight common concerns and debates about the outcomes of human engagement with new technologies. By identifying these myths and discussing how they are manifest in these films, we can also note that many current AI films are grounded in a "posthuman discourse. …

Hollywood, an American Factory of International Soft Law and Social Order

Abstract: Even if Hollywood is often represented as a liberal and progressive paradise, the liberal approach showed by the Hollywood star system is not present in the same proportion and degree in Hollywood blockbusters. Apart from some arguable contributions to the cause of minorities, in general, Hollywood tends to reinforce and perpetuate the establishment, the status quo and the structural causes leading to the Abyssal line and thus, it contributes to maintaining the social order. The Abyssal line (a mostly unknown and terrifying area of the ocean) is used by de Sousa Santos as a powerful metaphor to describe our ambivalent world, a world divided into two territories; on the one hand, the Metropolitan side, a world which is home to those human beings “fully human”, where human beings live in a decent world and enjoy rights in a set of social relations and; on the other hand the Colonial side, where human beings are not considered human neither are they subjects of the most fundamental rights. Hollywood does not explicitly show the Abyssal line and the existence of the two sides of the world: Metropolitan and Colonial. However, as this essays shows, many plots of Hollywood movies (both in liberal and neoconservative dystopian narratives) and TV series show in an indirect manner, some of the main features of the Abyssal world. In particular, the most intolerable and hurtful circumstances of today’s society are represented in scenarios and stories which take place in the futuristic, apocalyptic contexts.

Peter Pan and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: The Influence of Dystopian Elements on the Teaching of Morals

Abstract: 4 Introduction 5 Wonderland 9 Neverland 15 Morals and Morality 21 Dystopian Elements and Morals 28

Deconstructing the rhetoric of fear in post 9/11 young adult literature

Abstract: This study demonstrates how M.T. Anderson’s Feed (2002), Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies (2006), and Veronica Roth’s Divergent (2011) offer young adult readers alternative messages through tropes and rhetorical devices within a mediated reality. The outcome of these messages offers mixed messages about rebellion and conformity to young adults living in a post 9/11 global community. The development of this message begins with teens in Feed exploring a dystopian future where society is tied together through technology that eliminates boundaries. The teens within the story explore a world, for a week, where those boundaries are reestablished due to an act of terror, resulting in their being exposed to a new understanding—or clinging furtively to the old. In the second novel, Uglies, another dystopian society is deconstructed to examine the messages young adults are receiving when they are told that being pretty and compliant are safer alternatives to being an individual and taking risks to improve society. The third novel is Divergent, which further examines the rebellion motif prominent in contemporary young adult fiction, but, ultimately and ironically conveying a message that conformity is the only safe route. The text has been viewed through the theoretical lens of the works Kenneth Burke, specifically his theory of motives and identity, along with Ulrich Beck, a professor of sociology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, whose ‘risk society’ model compliments the ideas of Edmund Hussurl’s study into the field of phenomenology. The first chapter introduces my theoretical framework and the rhetorical laboratory, which includes socio-historical data about the concepts I use to establish my rhetorical analysis. I also have included secondary information about false memory syndrome and mediated reality to establish a baseline from which to explore third-party shared experiences in teenagers through literature. In the second through fourth chapters I have summarized the stories and offer rhetorical analysis that offers reconstructed alternative messages for readers. The fifth chapter offers my conclusion about the significance of the study. I also explore potential steps and other methods of research to help continue research in this field.