It Can’t Happen Here (Anything Can Happen Here)

In this episode of Death in Numbers, we explore what it takes to make a dystopia.
I’m Caroline Baabda. And I’m Amy Vidar. Do you begin to see then
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what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic
utopias of the old reformers imagined. We have cut the links between child
and parent and between man and man and between man and woman. No one
dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future,
there will be no wives and no friends. Written during World War 2 and the Cold War,
British author George Orwell’s novel 1984 is a classic found on numerous
bestseller lists around the world. The novel reflects modern concerns,
preoccupations with government control, surveillance and freedom of speech and thought.
The Ministry of Truth. The governing body within the novel enforces the ideology that
war is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Orwell
believed that language can corrupt thought. And so he constructed the Ministry of Truth
to be a force that control through the language newspeak. By restricting individual
expression. The fictional government indoctrinates their people following President
Trump’s inauguration. Signet Classics reported sales of 1984 had increased nine
thousand five hundred percent. The publisher printed 200000 additional copies
to meet the demand. While it is only possible to speculate about why people’s interest
in the novel peaked after the inauguration. There are some parallels between the current administration
and the Ministry of Truth. During an unofficial White House press briefing,
Press Secretary Sean Spicer attacked media outlets that he claimed falsely represented
the attendance figures for the forty fifth presidential inauguration. Despite statistical
evidence such as a number of writers on the Washington, D.C. metro system proving
fewer people had turned out than in past ceremonies. In an infamous interview
on January 22nd, 2017, Kellyanne Conway, President Trump’s campaign
manager and current adviser, said that Spicer had offered alternative facts.
Conways alternative facts reminded those familiar with nineteen eighty four of the double
think policy of the Ministry of Truth. Double Think, which means the power
of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously and accepting both
of them is a concept designed to ensure no one questions the ministry should they realize
a contradiction exists. While Spicer may not be accused of trying to brainwash American
citizens like the Ministry of Truth, a presidential administration portray in fact as
subjective is certainly disconcerting. Nineteen eighty four isn’t
the only book people are revisiting. In fact, other dystopian novels such as Fahrenheit
It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis were on Amazon’s bestseller lists in spring 2017.
Unlike utopian novels, which feature an imagined place or state of things in which everything
is perfect, dystopian novels create an imaginary place or condition in which everything
is as bad as possible. Although the term utopia has been around since fifteen, sixteen
and a concept that really spans back to ancient Greece, the term dystopia was coined in 1952.
Dystopian authors are often inspired by contemporary politics for Orwell.
It was Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union in the 1940s. For Canadian
Margaret Atwood, it was the Iron Curtain only 40 years later. Reflecting
on the inspiration for her 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood wrote
I was living in West Berlin, which was still encircled by the Berlin Wall. The Soviet empire
was still strongly in place and was not to crumble for another five years. Every
Sunday, the East German Air Force made sonic booms to remind us of how close
they were. During my visits to several countries behind the Iron Curtain
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, I experienced the wariness, the feeling of
being spied on, the silences, the changes of subject, the oblique
ways in which people might convey information. And these had an influence on what
I was writing. So did the repurposed buildings. This used to belong to.
But then they disappeared. I heard such stories many times. I knew that established
orders could vanish overnight. Change could also be as fast as lightning.
It can’t happen here. Could not be depended on. Anything could happen anywhere, given
the circumstances. For the first time since perhaps the Cold War, the sentiment
that anything could happen anywhere. Given the circumstances is a concern for the United States.
But what exactly would those circumstances have to be? That is exactly the question David
Frum asks. And the March 2017 cover article of The Atlantic magazine
from a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and conservative policy specialist
details how to build an autocracy. Step by step,
the article begins. It’s twenty twenty one, and President Donald
Trump will shortly be sworn in for his second term. The forty fifth president has visibly
aged over the past four years. He rests heavily on his daughter, Volker’s arm
during his infrequent public appearances. Set four years from now after
the 2020 presidential election from develops a dystopian United States of America
exploiting the fears of many Trump critics. He explores how policies such as big tax cuts,
big spending and big deficits have affected society. But more importantly, he demonstrates
how simple it would be to achieve a modern state that protects the power of the guilty, primarily
because it’s hard work to ascertain what is true.
Not all dystopias have a moral as straightforward as fighting for the truth, but they do invite
readers to participate in a what if dialog. What if there was a nuclear
war and we survived? What if our government became a dictatorship? What if
we could no longer reproduce? Asking these questions can be uncomfortable
as they reveal our personal insecurities. Not only do we have to face the what-if, but
we have to consider what would I do in that scenario? What would my responsibility be
in the outcome? When authors answer these questions in their dystopian novels,
they are often seeking to disrupt or dissent from the status quo. For some authors,
this involves a risky call to action and agitation of the masses.
As David Frum wants to convince readers. What happens next is up to you
and me. Don’t be afraid, this moment of danger can also be your finest hour
as a citizen and an American.
This has been Death in Numbers, a podcast created and produced by the Humanities Media Project. The College
of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. And Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services.
We are Amy Vidar and Caroline Baarda. Notes for the show, including links and photos, can be found on
our Web site. Humanity’s Media Project Dawn. Our theme music is enthusiast
by Tourre’s. Thank you for listening.