A Collectivist America Where Choice is a Burden and Free Will is Feared?

wow

Thanks, all! These responses have been very helpful for narrowing down my focus--and, for confusing 1984 even more for me :p

Based upon the discussion, I am leaning far more toward a communitarian/collectivist society (John Stuart Mill and Ayn Rand's Anthem) than any type of communism-becomes-totalitarianism setup (1984). My goals are far more philisophical and psychological with this story than anything political or economical. However, I am finding it rather difficult to wrap my head around an extreme collectivist society that doesn't result in some singular Big Brother figure...any thoughts?

I found the response that referenced Rousseau to hit the nail right on the head--Emile does an excellent job of summarizing the antagonizing ideals of my dystopia. Trotsky is also an excellent avenue of research, should I want to take a more forceful and violent approach toward a group achieving this type of society.

As for whether or not the government is drugging its citizens, the answer is no--I want this to be strictly psychological indoctrination via decades of change in the educational system (think Brave New World, minus geneticism...although I haven't finished that book, no spoilers please :rolleyes:). Whereas 1984 was based on force (look at Winston's fate), I want a society that almost runs itself on its "brainwashed" (for lack of a better word) ideals. They aren't necessarily evil people, it's just how they were taught.

Much like an extreme religious man may believe with full conviction that the Earth is 5,000 years old, the citizens of my story believe with full conviction that free will and choice (particularly choice in one's direction in life i.e. profession, love, hobbies, even faith) are too powerful for them to face alone--that choosing by one's self is abhorrently selfish and an act made against the community. Furthermore, a choice (a real choice, not what type of Pop Tarts to eat) made alone will almost always be the wrong one--man is doomed to such failure by the very flawed nature of humanity.

In other words, this is a society that actively and purposely seeks out the blissful ignorance of animals--go to work, go home, enjoy a life free of the burden of choice. In the words of Don Draper from Mad Men, "People just want to be told what to do."

I guess what I'm trying to figure out now is the historical catalyst for all of this. I can't just Bioshock/Atlas Shrugged it and make up a city underwater, in the sky or in a cave or something.

Either WWII or the Cold War (someone/everyone pressing the button) are my first inclinations. Any thoughts?
 
Are you seriously proposing to create an authoritarian soceity based on the ideals of John Stuart Mill? He's entire philosophy was based about preventing the things your talking about and is probably still one of the best anti-authoritarian arguments. Unless your proposing to base your society on the descriptions he wrote of how tyranny would spread... which he opposed.

If you want some ideologues who really fits what your talking about, I suggest HG Wells when he wasn't inventing science-fiction he was drawing up implausible plans for authoritarian utopias and vainly trying to get world leaders to adopt them. Georges Sorel, with his idea of the myth as a desirable force to delude people into being anti-Capitalist (Sorel is an interesting case, he was a Syndicalist who believed that Capitalist economics were entirely correct, he just wanted to destroy the system anyway), might also be interesting.
 
Are you seriously proposing to create an authoritarian soceity based on the ideals of John Stuart Mill? He's entire philosophy was based about preventing the things your talking about and is probably still one of the best anti-authoritarian arguments. Unless your proposing to base your society on the descriptions he wrote of how tyranny would spread... which he opposed.

If you want some ideologues who really fits what your talking about, I suggest HG Wells when he wasn't inventing science-fiction he was drawing up implausible plans for authoritarian utopias and vainly trying to get world leaders to adopt them. Georges Sorel, with his idea of the myth as a desirable force to delude people into being anti-Capitalist (Sorel is an interesting case, he was a Syndicalist who believed that Capitalist economics were entirely correct, he just wanted to destroy the system anyway), might also be interesting.

Yea, I probably should have left John Stuart Mill out of that post. I like how communitarianism was an influence for the society of Bioshock 2, which seems to be similar to the collectivism I'm going for (but certainly very different from everything else in the ways you mentioned). My aim is to make the entire society believe in this--not just everyone except the ones pulling the strings. In other words, there is no Big Brother. Still trying to figure out how that works exactly, but this would negate the submission factor of authoritarianism...which leaves me with...I'm not sure.
 

Meerkat92

Banned
You could always go with the Hitler Option: have an obscure cult gradually gain power during a period of economic turmoil, then get freely elected to office. The difference would be that instead of blaming minorities and having the people see them as something to be feared, the party turns the blame on the freedoms of society as a whole, saying something along the lines of "There, you see how the economy collapsed? That was because human beings are too flawed to make individual choices. Join the collective and we shall decide our nation's fate as ONE!" or some such nonsense. Sound plausible?
 
Hey all,

I'm interested in writing a dystopian alternate-history novel in a collectivist America where citizens freely relinquish their free will because they find themselves unworthy of using it correctly--in this alternate universe, choice is a burden, something to fear, and selfish individuality is a crime against the State (for every man is an important gear in the communal system). The setting is basically Ayn Rand's nightmare and the anti-Rapture from Bioshock (though the themes are the same).

I want this to be an alternate history piece that allows me to play with the culture and aesthetic of the early-to-mid 1900s time period.
1) What historical events in the early-to-mid 1900s could have realistically stemmed a more collective and less capitalistic America, one hundred or more years later?

2) As I understand communism and communist leaders, the inclination was never to forcefully spread the ideals to the rest of the world. However, were there ever any communist extremists (preferably a communist equivalent of totalitarianist Hitler) who might have gone this route if given the chance?

3) Does extreme collectivist/communist society clash with my intentions of building a world where the common citizen believes individuality is evil--that because we are human, only a "wise" few of us are worthy of making hard life choices for all the others?​

1) Have slavery take over the entire US system by Handwavium. The Slave South was very collectivist in ways that it's hard for Americans to fathom and was quite adept at really what was evolving to totalitarian policies to perpetuate itself. Communism in a Leninist form in any variant descended from that is unlikely to spread in the USA, for no other reason at the crudest than that the US Army is a tiny little thing for most of that time and 100,000 troops with weaponry that to put it bluntly is obsolete aren't going to take over a US state against resistance, let alone the entire USA.

2) This was always the intention, the disagreeement was one of means, specifically between a Trotskyist/Maoist variant that basically advocated an Orwellian perpetual war to foster the Revolution, and Stalinism which advocated building powerful citadels of the Revolution as examples to export it elsewhere. That Communism took over a significant-sized chunk of the world when Stalin rode over half of Europe in US trucks seems to validate Stalin over Trotsky in this regard.

3) In a sense, yes, because Communist ideology was utopian and even when it believed such things would never have said them thus or phrased them thus.
 
I'm not sure about the plausibility of the rest of your specifications, but Communism, depending on who you talk to, does in fact believe in 'spreading the ideals'. 'World revolution' and internationalism are a big part of early Communist thought, and it was only Stalin and his ideas of 'Socialism In One Country' that became de facto Communist Law when he took complete control of the world's only Communist state that made Communism seem isolationist.

If you want an internationalist Communist leader who wants to spread their ideals, look no further than Leon Trotsky, famed nemesis of Stalin who was exiled after being outmanouevred in the Soviet Union. He wanted world revolution and wrote about the value of invading and imposing/instating communism by force extensively.

However, I should warn you that there's a consensus on the board that Trotsky could never have led the USSR - one that I'm not enough of a Sovietologist to dispute, and one that does make a great deal of sense. But, if you're asking if it's possible for a Communist leader to want to 'export the Revolution', then absolutely, it's more than possible. If it's a more modern leader, Trotsky would almost certainly be this person's idol.

On a side note, have you played BioShock 2? The system imposed in Rapture during that game is very much the anti-Rand, drawing ideas of communitarianism from John Stuart Mill rather than from political ideas like Communism. I thoroughly recommend it if you've not played it (the gameplay is much better than BioShock 1, but the story not as compelling).

Socialism in One Country tends to be misunderstood. What Stalin wanted was to build a powerful state that would serve as a Communist version of a City on a Hill and would either create crises or profit from them to spread a new variant of global Communism the instant opportunity asserted itself. The nightmarish bit of this vision is that it arguably actually worked given the result of WWII for Communism as an ideology. Of course it worked in a fashion that carried the seeds of its own destruction, but eh.
 

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
As far as fiction goes, I'd actually recommend the lesser known Vonnegut short story, Harrison Bergeron or the telefilm which elaborated much more than the short story. It's about an America that fears intelligent choice and places intelligence inhibitors on its citizenry to ensure their happiness in a perpetual 50s Americana pastiche. It's more Brave New World than 1984. Those whose intelligence can't be suppressed become part of a secret technocratic elite a la Brave New World. The ending is very powerful. My favourite telemovie, which might not be saying much, but still.
 
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