If you're a fan of literature like me, you are no doubt familiar with the term dystopia. Simply put, it is the opposite of utopia and it provides the setting for some of the great stories of twentieth century literature - stories such as Orwell's 1984, Huxley's A Brave New World, and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, to name a few. Read by themselves, these novels provide great, if not somewhat disturbing, entertainment. But when gathered together as a whole, novels such as these appear to be frighteningly prescient. Granted, we've all heard the term Orwellian applied to the current administration, but I believethere's more to things than that. On closer examination, I'm left asking the question I've posed in the title - Are we on the brink of dystopia?
(I know I may be treading close to tinfoil hat territory with this and I'm not asserting that there is any grand conspiracy at work in America today, but if you follow me over the jump I'll try to explain.)
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