Our dystopian hegemony?

[MadJohnShaft]

You can have some 'fun' with the dictionary. The examples under dystopia sure hit home, no?



Hegemony
("heh-JEH-muh-nee") is the dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force, to the extent that, for instance, the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its advantage; more broadly, cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the dominant group. Hegemony controls the ways that ideas become "naturalized" in a process that informs notions of common sense.

That would be your republican party - for example, the Vice President shoots a man on a drunken weekend with his mistress, and only is accountable to the state controlled news organization - Fox News.


Dystopia
A state in which the condition of life is extremely bad as from deprivation or oppression or terror



A dystopian society usually exhibits at least one of the following traits from the following non-exhaustive list:

* An apparent Utopian society, free of poverty, disease, conflict, and even unhappiness. Scratching the surface of the society, however, reveals exactly the opposite. The exact problem, the way the problem is suppressed, and the chronology of the problem forms the central conflict of the story.

* Social stratification, where social class is strictly defined and enforced, and social mobility is non-existent (see caste system).

* A nation-state ruled by an upper class with few democratic ideals

* State propaganda programs and educational systems that coerce most citizens into worshipping the state and its government, in an attempt to convince them into thinking that life under the regime is good and just, e.g. Alan Moore's V for Vendetta

* Strict conformity among citizens and the general assumption that dissent and individuality are bad

* A state figurehead that people worship fanatically through a vast personality cult, such as Nineteen Eighty-Four's Big Brother, We's The Benefactor, or Equilibrium's Father

* A fear or disgust of the world outside the state.

* A common view of traditional life, particularly organized religion, as primitive and nonsensical

* Alternatively, complete domination by a state religion, e.g Ingsoc in the Oceania of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Sisterhood of Metacontrol in FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions, the Technopriests in The Incal or fundamentalist Christianity (with elements of reconstructionism) in Escape from L.A.


* The "memory" of institutions overriding or taking precedence over human memory


* A penal system that lacks due process laws and often employs psychological or physical torture, e.g. Alan Moore's V for Vendetta


* A lack of the key essentials of life for many citizens, like food shortages

* Constant surveillance by government or other agencies, e.g. Alan Moore's V for Vendetta

* Absence or else total co-option of an educated middle class (i.e. teachers, journalists, scientists) who might criticize the regime's leadership


* Militarized police forces and private security forces

* The banishment of the natural world from daily life


* Construction of fictional views of reality that the populace are coerced into believing


* Corruption, impotence or other usurpation of democratic institutions


* Fictional rivalries between groups that actually operate as a cartel


* Insistence by the forces of the establishment that:
o It provides the best of all possible worlds
o That all problems are due to the action of its enemies and their dupes


* An overall slow decay of all systems (political, economic, religion, infrastructure. . .) resulting from people being alienated from nature, the State, society, family, and themselves. Yesterday was better, tomorrow will be worse.


* Everything tends towards zero sum gain relationships rather than non-zero-sum relationships in a slowly decreasing system.