On Dystopian Novels and Political Divide

As a children's bookseller at a fine independent bookstore, I get to have the increasingly rare experience of ‘hand-selling,’ that is to say, actually talking to my customers’ faces about the books I enjoy and recommend. It’s a dying art in a post-Amazon world, and I’m grateful to accept my paltry wage in exchange for doing something I’m passionate about.

As booksellers and YA readers know, one of the hottest trends on the YA shelves these days is the dystopian novel. The Hunger Games triggered a slew of grim, futuristic copycats in the same way Twilight began an onslaught of paranormal romance. When these trends hit, a big question in the minds of readers everywhere is always: why?

I thought long and hard about the Twilight effect, and spoke about it at some length in my recent graduate lecture at Vermont College of Fine Arts. In the same way, after finishing the first book in the best-selling new dystopian trilogy, Divergent, and having some interesting chats about it with customers, I found myself thinking about the whys of dystopians.

A quick skim of internet news editorials and the blogosphere provides a plethora of answers. Most have to do with young readers wanting a safe imaginary space to deal with horrific things, or the need to face the uncertainty of the future with a sense of readiness for the worst. Others touch briefly on the logical progression of the world we live in now plausibly ending up as a real-life dystopian, Stepford sort of society, where everyone falls in line, nobody asks questions, and those who have or seize power are always unrelentingly evil.

My real fascination lies in why this progression seems so frighteningly possible. How did we get here, as a nation? Why is there so much hatred and painful tension around every difference in political and social thought? You can blame technology increasingly replacing real human contact, the two-party system, 9/11 and the resulting war and recession, aggressive partisan rezoning of congressional districts, massive numbers of lobbyists. I am suspicious of all of the above, but reluctant to lay the blame down in front of anybody but me. And you. We’re LETTING “them” do it.

But when I imagine our founding fathers hanging out, creating a foundation on which to build a country, for crying out loud (much more important work than you are doing debating taxes with your friend’s sister on Facebook), I like to imagine that there was a healthy separation between the judgment of one’s political ideas and his personal character. I can imagine our white-wigged ancestors ripping each other to shreds, red-faced and blustering, as they hammered out the wording of the Constitution, and then in the evening coming together to share a brandy and sing pub songs. Okay, so maybe that’s a touch idealistic, but my point remains. I think we are willing to type things we would NEVER say, and that we are in grave peril of losing the art of making real, personal connections with those we disagree with.

Say what we all will about colonial society’s flaws, these wealthy, white, landholding men had nothing but time. Literally. Mundane daily tasks were completed by wives, servants and slaves, and there was no such thing as email. The only option our forefathers had was spending hours upon hours sitting in each other’s presence, speaking and listening. I imagine that there were genuine friendships there, in spite of differences of opinion, that there were passionate defenses and real listening, growth of mind and the resulting brilliance of compromise. I have to believe when I look at the Constitution, which most everybody—Democrat and Republican—wants to lay claim to, that it was born of that kind of challenging yet very possible relationship.

In our two-party country, a mentality of condescension and disgust, superiority and judgment, and above all, fear—the kind that makes your heart squeeze and your blood boil, that makes you feel like being in the very presence of a vocally opinionated conservative/liberal is going to make you ill—seems to lead us to quickly dismiss each other and put up impenetrable defensive walls. Whether we have the courage to acknowledge it or not, most of us write off the side we see as the enemy as stupid, lazy, ignorant and fearful. I do it all the time. Against my own will, I still think I’m right, even as I write this. It has become the poison that runs through all of our veins, and we must battle our very selves in order to stop it.

A prominent feature of the dystopian novel is the division of society into factions or sectors or states, separated by some major difference in priority or values. The solution we will eventually settle for, these novels predict, is one in which we choose to completely cut ourselves off from the discomfort of living with the Other, deciding that the only possible route to peace and prosperity is total avoidance of that which conflicts with our selves. Yet inevitably, in the stories, this system is always on the brink of backfiring. Those of truly evil nature take advantage of a society made up of groups of people who do not communicate, and in their cleverness find a way to turn each group against the others, deflecting the evil of the few onto the supposed goodness of the masses.

There are already seeds of the desire to build this kind of world, in our times. Right now. On a recent trip to Portland, I found out that there is a strong-willed minority leading a movement for Portland’s secession from the Union. They want to build a small Utopian nation where trade is always fair, food is always sustainably grown, community bonds are a primary priority, and goods are always conflict and cruelty-free.  To me; a progressive, co-op loving, DIY, recycling kind of girl, this sounds impossibly tempting on the surface. How nice to be able to build a world for yourself where you would never have to feel guilty, never have to stop and wonder if a starving seven-year-old Vietnamese child sewed the shirt you’re putting on in the morning. If your father maybe killed her grandfather, 40 years ago. To not have to worry about dangerous chemicals and hormones invading your children’s growing bodies, to know that everyone is getting their fair share and nobody is allowed to have so much wealth and power that they can keep someone else in a powerless, subservient position by force.

My problem with it, though, is that it would be an illusion. My problem with it is that I’m not willing to give up on my country and my world. I’m not willing to accept that personally opting out of being part of the problem absolves me of the responsibility to be an active part of the solution. Or if the problem can’t be solved (and I honestly don’t think it can be, not totally, and certainly not quickly), neither do I accept the invitation to live a guiltless life. Sometimes it is very important to be uncomfortable, to feel small and powerless, to cry with the frustration of your own limitations. In his powerful book of the same name, my pal Jeff Goins calls this becoming Wrecked. I call it simply choosing to remain human.

My biggest problem with the idea of the nation of Portland it is that it might work beautifully, and that others might be inspired and look to it as an example upon which to build their own tiny countries based on their own ideals. Or sectors. Or factions. Do you choose the Nation of Portland or the Nation of Birmingham? Abnegation or Erudite?

It’s easy. It’s a cheap thrill to imagine how plausible it could be to cut yourself off from contributing to the world’s problems and those you see as Other, and living in blissful ignorance, deluded into believing you are no longer responsible. Who doesn’t love the idea of a quick fix? But our human frailty will always find the way to creep back in and poison everything, as dystopian stories remind us. There is simply no way around it. There is no such thing as a quick fix. Any real progress will be painfully slow, and it is our responsibility to endure the pain. Every structure we could conceive of will fail us, except for one, and we can find the answer in every single great story that has ever been written: Love. Jesus, Ghandi, Aslan, Gandalf, Harry Potter and Katniss all teach us the same lesson in different clothing.

You have to find a way to not only ‘tolerate’ your gay or Republican neighbor, but to love and respect him as dearly as your own family.  You have to find a way to lower your heart rate and listen, carefully considering your liberal cousin’s passionate thoughts about military spending, no matter how counterintuitive they seem to you. You have to find a way to head over to your Jewish friends’ home after church to enjoy a meal in the Sukkah and stumble through the Hebrew prayers feeling like an idiot outsider, you have to push aside your disgust over a homeless man vomiting on the city bus and find compassion to replace it. You have to pick up a book you don’t want to read and read it anyway. We have to find a way to choose being in relationship over being right.

In short, we all have to do things that are really, really hard. Things that involve putting our self-worth in our capacity to love, rather than our politics, education, religion, philosophy or need to be accepted by others. We have to not be selfishly afraid of being hungry or uncomfortable or even going to hell. We have to hit the brakes hard if we’re going to save our country from breaking off into factions, from becoming filled with zombies.

I can’t exactly say I’m optimistic that this will happen, but I do know that in the end I can only control myself. And I’m going to act as I believe. I’m never going to let go of hope and faith in my fellow humans. I choose to believe that teenagers are thinking so much about a dystopian future because something deep inside of their still wide-open minds is begging them to make themselves aware of where we’re heading if things don’t change; to grow up to be stronger and braver than their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. I’m going to continue to let myself feel exasperated with my country sometimes, but I’m also going to let myself feel that pride that washes over me when I stand in front of the White House or our Liberty Bell or read the words: United We Stand, Divided We Fall. 

May Love guide our way into the uncertain future.

ETA: I just read this story and it is feeding my thinking about divisiveness and how we see the Other... it's hilarious and tragically depressing at the same time. Check it out: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2007/05/28/070528fi_fiction_saunders?currentPage=1