Stagnant Societies in Storytelling

With so many good movie and book themes and story lines it isn´t always easy deciding the new editorial topic of the month. Since last month´s editorial dealt with the lynching archetype or a group of people colluding to commit a serious crime against an innocent person(s) I think it is only fitting to follow that theme with the one of the collapsing, stagnant society. The theme of the stagnant society has been told so well in so many books, movies, graphic novels, paintings and other forms of expression. There really is a wealth of storytelling sources on this subject and the list keeps growing. For example, in 2012 the release of “The Hunger Games” films (taken after the books) was just brilliant storytelling with a good message.

The message of the stagnant society theme is a cautionary one. It is a place we do not want to go to. Sure it boasts technological advances and claims of solving some of society´s ills but we must understand that the price paid for those solutions is too high. These societies almost always involve a loss of basic freedoms and living under constant surveillance. They are always rigidly stratified and punish offenders brutally. Most importantly, these are societies turned cannibal, were a large part of industry makes its profit from the suppression and punishment of the lower castes within society. The higher castes live in comfort and are not burdened by unfair laws and hence try to maintain the status quo, refusing to solve immediate problems of the entire community. The ruling body becomes the dominant predatory class and does everything it can to control the minds of people in society. Members of society are lied to and told that criminals in the lower classes are the dominant predatory class. This is not true.

The best examples that come to mind are George Orwell´s “1984”, Aldous Huxley´s “Brave New World”, Ray Bradbury´s “Fahrenheit 451” and Margaret Atwood´s “A Handmaid´s Tale”. These are just a few of many brilliant works out there. They can be a bit disturbing and grim at times but the stories are just fantastic.

The problem with the stagnant societies portrayed in these works is that they spend their energies fighting change and not solving their problems or even planning for the future past the next rebellion or intellectual movement that has to be suppressed. These are places where the ruling bodies solve their problems with lies and oppression of their people. These are places where an individual does not have the basic rights or freedom to grow, prosper and be happy and healthy. In my opinion, the purpose of any society is to increase the odds of survival of the individual while providing a nurturing community to live in. The key word here is “nurturing”. If an individual is not in an nurturing community then chances are they are in a prison of some kind whether they admit it or not.

All these books and films are worth seeing and owning. I highly recommend them.

(Commentary by www.ink2quill.com )
I2Q

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