English 67

The struggle for social control through economic and political manipulation has been a problem that all great civilizations have had to deal with. To gain a level of control sometimes the legitimacy of some regulations or policies have to exaggerated a little bit by those in power for the “benefit” of society. This is where [...]

I just had a thought about another possible example of an Ideological State Apparatus. I think it might have surfaced from Alison’s presentation with the hugs and middle schools. Could the prototypical cliques in such middle schools be an example of a type of cultural ISA? They function beneath the “ideology of [...]

I agree that it is unlikely that a war on “terror” could ever be won, but I would like to play devil’s advocate for a moment. As stated in class, terror is a method, not something concrete which can be located and destroyed. However, there are offensive security measures that can be taken [...]

The Prisoner is stylistic precedent for later dystopian films: especially Brazil. The last episode of The Prisoner reminds me a lot of the end of Brazil. I am thinking of making this the final exam: watch the last episode of The Prisoner. Literary Interpretation? Interpret this: number six and the little butler guy machine gun [...]

I mentioned the Republican Party’s “God, Guns & Gays” strategy for instilling what I see as a false consciousness, which in Althusserian terms is the ideology of the Republican “base” (i.e. “values” voters). When middle and lower-income people vote “values,” they are also voting for an economic agenda that favors the wealthy. There are [...]

One of the many common threads of the dystopian materials we’ve looked at is that they involve an invaion of the mind. Societies cross over from utopia to dystopia when the government attemps to control the thought and ideas of its people. This may be obvious to everyone, but this particular aspect of dystopian text intrests me. In [...]

Susan, in an older post, wrote that science fiction seems to lack strong females, much less strong femaleprotagonists. This post brought to the surface of my head my own observation that runs sort of counter to hers: science fiction male characters may be “blatantly male,” but in the dystopian fiction I’ve encountered, the male protagonists are in [...]

Two streams of our discussion today peaked my interest, and both seemed to fall into the theme of channeling. 
Desire, some of us decided, is never satisfied in humans.  I agree with this decision.  Just as, in a biological sense, our bodies are constantly adjusting in order to achieve homeostasis, I think that we are always [...]

In the other dystopian novels and short stories we’ve encountered, the government is in control and they are proud of that control. They don’t try to play their power off as something it isn’t. However, I found it interesting that the people in the government in control in The Prisoner, always tried to claim that [...]

Here are some half-formed thoughts:
Desire and Dystopia in Dick’s “Wholesale” and LeGuin Lathe of Heaven
If Utopia is largely political, then politics is about competing narratives. Competing narratives are different instantiations or competing outgrowths of desire.
How is desire expressed as possible existence(s) in PKD, “Wholesale”:
The desire or will to live (the narrative about the aliens [...]