[Note: This was written without referencing to the source material. If I misremembered anything from the works cited, let me know. I of course welcome disagreement with the statements and thesis as well. Also this was written on a phone so let me know if you see any grammatical errors.]
Debate about how and why Power (that is, the people organisations, et al which make up the central stations through which the city, country, and world are governed by whatever means) should view the governed (aka sheep/pleb/peasant class) abound. In media I've seen two speculative scenarios which prove to be both very similar and yet not. Their similarity comes from their cynical views, their differences being their severity and their subtlety.
Those works are Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (TV) and Brave New World (book).
DS9 provides probably the most cynical view, exemplified by the Founders, the Jem'Hadar, and the Vorta.
Some context: The Alpha Quadrant is invaded through a newly discovered wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant, a hitherto unreachable expanse of the Milky Way galaxy. The invasion is masterminded by the Founders, an ultra intelligent hive-mind of shape shifting beings who, for the most part, exist in gelatinous form in a huge lake hidden from even their own subjects who seem them unequivocally as gods. They own the Gamma Quadrant and covet the Alpha.
The Founders view the solids (i.e., everybody) in a similar way humans view mosquitos or ants. The main difference being that the Founders' require the solids to do their bidding and carry out their plans. The ambitions, feelings, conceit, and dramas of the solids which span entire civilizations are seen much the same way a parent views the melodramatic teenager, without the temperance and benefit of love.
Their solution is one befitting their utterly disinterested disposition: Genetic modification and cloning.
The Jem'Hadar are bred as a class of disposable, untiring, ferocious soldiers with just enough intelligence for adapting combat strategy and following orders. The Vorta are their commanders, bred to be weak but highly intelligent, suited to their roles as commanders, diplomats, advisors, and politicians.
In BNR the traits of all people are predetermined through rigorous pre-natal conditioning, genetic manipulation, and cloning. Additionally their childhood is subject to daily and nightly conditioning to create a strict hierarchy not only by class and standing, but of mental and sexual capability.
The behaviour of the populace is positively enforced with the drug soma and a deeply reinforced culture of pleasure and conformity. The conditioning is so deep that when a woman who was deprived of soma and the luxurious, pleasurable life for decades (For those who haven't read, imagine the luxuriant life of the inner circle people in Hunger Games movies) she immersed herself so utterly in drug-induced gaiety and fantasy that she died shortly after returning. BNR seems to keep to the assumption that the lives of the citizens matter to some degree. The citizens are kept pleasured and alive.
In these I see comparison to the modern world. As usual reality is a little more strange and grey than fiction. The dominant mantras which we hear repeated from the cultural centres of power which, given time, will change us and our ideas, can be summed with one phrase, one which is the encapsulation of all the hippies and their progeny wish to impart: "Don't judge, bro."
This to me is the popular dogma of any politician who wishes to indulge his constituents, and any who deviate are nearly always allocated to the laughing stock.
It is this lush's refrain through which the centres of Power inculcate an oddly similar yet dissimilar cultural belief system.
The apparent similarity begins with drugs. As we lurch into the 21st century, drugs are now as never before seeing a wave of normalization. Whereas Power once worked diligently to defeat and suppress drugs (I'm talking back in the Reefer Madness days), today drugs are viewed far more positively. The modern drug war has essentially been an almost toothless free pass for people who wish to engage in the activity. In Canada, our current Prime Minister ran (and will continue come 2019) on a platform of drug legalisation. He was hailed for his ability to get young people out to vote.
Similarly, the drug-like rush of sexual activity, in BNW practiced and normalized to such a degree that human bonding and monogamy are strange and frightening, is likewise depicted in real major, influential works as a liberating, fulfilling and especially conducive to happiness, pairing happiness with the physical feelings of pleasure to such a degree that sometimes to distinguish the two is seen as "deep."
In modern society Power seeks to engender the idea of individuality through the normalization of once deviant behaviour, centering on the pleasures of the flesh as a means of reinforcement. Individuality (don't judge bro, what I do with my body is my business bro , you can't control people bro, it's my life bro) is a subtle weapon used as means of weakening the lower classes cohesiveness and enhancing their obedience while leading them to be believe they have freedom, always seen as a good in and of itself, more than ever before. It's result has been divorce, single-parenthood, rising rates of addiction, and other empowering situations in which people feel depressed, alone and suicidal.
In DS9 and BNR, this obedience is enforced in more overt and less creative means. Moderns feel unhappy without pleasure and centralizing its importance helps ensure their seeking it. In BNR the citizens feel ill, depressed, isolated, and horrible when kept from soma, and the Jem'Hadar from DS9, who are fed a drug called Ketrazine White by their commanders, literally die when deprived. Moderns get rid of problem citizens by sabotaging their jobs and likening them to Hitler and Alex Jones. BNR could get rid of problem citizens through banishment. The Founders, should the situation even arise, can just forget about them.
I wonder if presented with the abilities of the Founders, to generically engineer your subjects, how long it would take to tempt a Trump, a Clinton, or a Trudeau?
Debate about how and why Power (that is, the people organisations, et al which make up the central stations through which the city, country, and world are governed by whatever means) should view the governed (aka sheep/pleb/peasant class) abound. In media I've seen two speculative scenarios which prove to be both very similar and yet not. Their similarity comes from their cynical views, their differences being their severity and their subtlety.
Those works are Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (TV) and Brave New World (book).
DS9 provides probably the most cynical view, exemplified by the Founders, the Jem'Hadar, and the Vorta.
Some context: The Alpha Quadrant is invaded through a newly discovered wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant, a hitherto unreachable expanse of the Milky Way galaxy. The invasion is masterminded by the Founders, an ultra intelligent hive-mind of shape shifting beings who, for the most part, exist in gelatinous form in a huge lake hidden from even their own subjects who seem them unequivocally as gods. They own the Gamma Quadrant and covet the Alpha.
The Founders view the solids (i.e., everybody) in a similar way humans view mosquitos or ants. The main difference being that the Founders' require the solids to do their bidding and carry out their plans. The ambitions, feelings, conceit, and dramas of the solids which span entire civilizations are seen much the same way a parent views the melodramatic teenager, without the temperance and benefit of love.
Their solution is one befitting their utterly disinterested disposition: Genetic modification and cloning.
The Jem'Hadar are bred as a class of disposable, untiring, ferocious soldiers with just enough intelligence for adapting combat strategy and following orders. The Vorta are their commanders, bred to be weak but highly intelligent, suited to their roles as commanders, diplomats, advisors, and politicians.
In BNR the traits of all people are predetermined through rigorous pre-natal conditioning, genetic manipulation, and cloning. Additionally their childhood is subject to daily and nightly conditioning to create a strict hierarchy not only by class and standing, but of mental and sexual capability.
The behaviour of the populace is positively enforced with the drug soma and a deeply reinforced culture of pleasure and conformity. The conditioning is so deep that when a woman who was deprived of soma and the luxurious, pleasurable life for decades (For those who haven't read, imagine the luxuriant life of the inner circle people in Hunger Games movies) she immersed herself so utterly in drug-induced gaiety and fantasy that she died shortly after returning. BNR seems to keep to the assumption that the lives of the citizens matter to some degree. The citizens are kept pleasured and alive.
In these I see comparison to the modern world. As usual reality is a little more strange and grey than fiction. The dominant mantras which we hear repeated from the cultural centres of power which, given time, will change us and our ideas, can be summed with one phrase, one which is the encapsulation of all the hippies and their progeny wish to impart: "Don't judge, bro."
This to me is the popular dogma of any politician who wishes to indulge his constituents, and any who deviate are nearly always allocated to the laughing stock.
It is this lush's refrain through which the centres of Power inculcate an oddly similar yet dissimilar cultural belief system.
The apparent similarity begins with drugs. As we lurch into the 21st century, drugs are now as never before seeing a wave of normalization. Whereas Power once worked diligently to defeat and suppress drugs (I'm talking back in the Reefer Madness days), today drugs are viewed far more positively. The modern drug war has essentially been an almost toothless free pass for people who wish to engage in the activity. In Canada, our current Prime Minister ran (and will continue come 2019) on a platform of drug legalisation. He was hailed for his ability to get young people out to vote.
Similarly, the drug-like rush of sexual activity, in BNW practiced and normalized to such a degree that human bonding and monogamy are strange and frightening, is likewise depicted in real major, influential works as a liberating, fulfilling and especially conducive to happiness, pairing happiness with the physical feelings of pleasure to such a degree that sometimes to distinguish the two is seen as "deep."
In modern society Power seeks to engender the idea of individuality through the normalization of once deviant behaviour, centering on the pleasures of the flesh as a means of reinforcement. Individuality (don't judge bro, what I do with my body is my business bro , you can't control people bro, it's my life bro) is a subtle weapon used as means of weakening the lower classes cohesiveness and enhancing their obedience while leading them to be believe they have freedom, always seen as a good in and of itself, more than ever before. It's result has been divorce, single-parenthood, rising rates of addiction, and other empowering situations in which people feel depressed, alone and suicidal.
In DS9 and BNR, this obedience is enforced in more overt and less creative means. Moderns feel unhappy without pleasure and centralizing its importance helps ensure their seeking it. In BNR the citizens feel ill, depressed, isolated, and horrible when kept from soma, and the Jem'Hadar from DS9, who are fed a drug called Ketrazine White by their commanders, literally die when deprived. Moderns get rid of problem citizens by sabotaging their jobs and likening them to Hitler and Alex Jones. BNR could get rid of problem citizens through banishment. The Founders, should the situation even arise, can just forget about them.
I wonder if presented with the abilities of the Founders, to generically engineer your subjects, how long it would take to tempt a Trump, a Clinton, or a Trudeau?
