If words like censorship, misinformation, political polarisation, mass surveillance, and artificial intelligence give you the heebie jeebies, you are not alone. Every day, we scroll through unsettling headlines about politics dividing populations, corporations collecting our data, and AI becoming more powerful. Somewhere between waking up, opening Instagram, and checking the news, we feel frustrated, overwhelmed, and anxious. It all starts to feel quite… dystopian.
Well, I am here to tell you that you are not crazy. This is not to say that you should don a tinfoil hat, but your concerns are not new. Long before smartphones, algorithms, and superintelligence chatbots existed, writers were imagining worlds haunted by these same anxieties.
Dystopian literature becomes especially important during these periods of uncertainty because it reflects social fears and forces us to think about the world around us critically. Here are four classics that I encourage you to dust off and crack open. These books are old, but you might find that these once far-fetched stories have re-entered the zeitgeist because they ask difficult, relatable questions about power, freedom, and society.
- 1984 by George Orwell (1949)
George Orwell’s 1984 follows Winston Smith, a man living in a society where the government constantly watches its citizens. Ever heard of the phrase “Big Brother” (no, not the reality TV show, although there might be a link considering contestants are also monitored 24/7)? This novel coined the phrase.
1984 was written by Orwell after witnessing the rise of totalitarian governments in the 20th century. Almost eight decades later, it remains relevant as concerns about our privacy and the manipulation of truth by mass media are heightened. Although surveillance is no longer overt, it now looks more like social media tracking our online behaviour, targeted advertisements, and apps asking, “Allow access to location services?” for the fifth time this week. Orwell’s ideas encourage us to ask how much control is too much, and how or if we can stop it before it is too late.
Bonus! The audiobook is narrated by Andrew Garfield. If Orwell cannot convince you, perhaps Spider-Man can.
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
This book is a complete 180° flip. In complete contrast to Orwell’s world of fear and punishment, Huxley’s fictional society controls people through comfort and pleasure. Citizens are kept entertained, distracted, and emotionally satiated so that they never question the system.
This feels eerily familiar, does it not? We live in a world of endless scrolling (“doom-scrolling,” if you will), personalised content (literally “for you” pages), instant gratification, and an over-saturation of entertainment to fill every quiet moment of the day. Hey! Focus. Do not check that notification.
Scholars often compare Brave New World and 1984 as two different versions of control. Both resonate with audiences today because aspects from both novels can be seen in our modern-day society.
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
Ray Bradbury’s novel follows Guy Montag as he questions why knowledge and independent thought are considered dangerous. In this society, books are banned and burned by “firemen”. Although censorship today may not always involve literal book-burning, debates around banned books, online censorship, and information control still exist. Bradbury’s warning, and one I want to reiterate, is about the dangers of societies becoming less interested in reading and critical thought.
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)
Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale explores Gilead, an authoritarian society where women do not have control over their own bodies.
Atwood notably claims that this is not entirely a fictitious imagining, but rather is drawn from real historical events and systems that existed and persist today. The truly terrifying monsters are rarely invented ones. The current polarising discussions around reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, and gender politics bring me back to this novel, which reminds us that rights may often feel permanent, until suddenly they are not.
Why Should I Care?
It is not entirely true that these books predicted the future. Orwell did not predict smartphones, and Huxley did not predict TikTok or “screen-time” notifications that we immediately ignore. They were simply writing about their own societies and the fears of their own time. However, these stories certainly offer a looking glass… or perhaps a magnifying one. Those fears of insurmountable power, helplessness, and concerns about freedom and autonomy appear in eerily similar forms across generations.
Read. Read because it forces you to ask yourself whether we are paying enough attention to the present. And that is the most uncomfortable truth of all.
