The Republican Party is gathering in St. Paul, to put forth its vision of the future. [...] Which makes us wonder: what does science fiction, the literature of the future, have to say about liberal-run dystopias? And it turns out, there are plenty of horrendous futures blighted by the heavy hands of our zinfandel-spitting liberal elites. Here are the scifi stories John McCain should mention in his acceptance speech.

There there, it’s OK. McCain is everything but elected just yet. Let’s talk about the subject matter though, and let’s even ignore the three or four implied insults in “zinfandel-spitting liberal elites”.

Liberalism and the Americans

It’s funny how Americans use the word “liberalism”. As US Democratic politics are not actually (traditional) liberal politics at all. Liberalism is freedom from what liberals perceive as “oppression from the state”, it is the strive for maximum liberty for both individuals and corporations, and as such particularly not things such as the gouvernment of 1984, which allows no individual liberties whatsoever.

The context makes it clear that this is not the kind of liberalism the author is speaking about, but still I find it puzzling how the wide array of policies and agendas that call themselves (derivates of) liberal in one way or another is often thrown into the same pot, although they’re quite contradictory in important points.

Not even A Clockwork Orange should be seen as a work about liberal dystopia in this strict sense. Indeed it does start out with some kind of liberal dystopian world, in that law and order are overthrown and everybody does what they want. But it then goes on to show that even in such a society, too severe restriction of individual liberties (by restriction of the free will) can only lead to harm. And when Alex truly changes, it’s because of his inner drives and the free will the gouvernment nearly took from him, not because of the Pavlovian treatment.

Those Works and Social Liberalism

I think it’s correct to assume that the author knew this and talked about social liberalism, which is more or less the Democrat’s policies, instead. I’m actually rather convinced that’s true, in face of this comment of hers:

About half the works I’m discussing are by conservative commentators seeking to use science fiction to dramatize what they see as liberal ideas taken to their furthest extreme. The other half are all-purpose dystopian works that one could claim (and that people have claimed) represent an extreme view of liberal ideals.

Even so I’d disagree with some interpretations. Admittedly, I haven’t read more than half the works there, so I can’t analyze them all, and even if I could I wouldn’t want to because it’s not specifics we should be talking about.

It’s still important to note that political correctness is everything but egalitarianism: It’s realization of and respect for the fact that we’re different and the belief that it doesn’t and shouldn’t influence our judgements. It’s also important to note that redefining “discrimination” to include things like abilities and fitness for jobs doesn’t make a particularly convincing argument. And even social liberals don’t want to suppress religion, they just don’t want religion to suppress science. Finally, socialism is a different thing than liberalism (and “liberalism”) entirely.

Why This Kind of Propaganda is Wrong

Now, even with the works where the above reservations don’t apply: abusing them for pro-Republican propaganda seems just wrong to me. Which US party again was it that made Homeland Security (which is essentially utterly useless, but about as totalitarian as the western world gets) as powerful as it is now? Who made nationalism en vogue (via Stupid Evil Bastard) again? Whose current-day politics are the ones that are closer to totalitarian dystopias?

Swashbuckling aside, and acknowledging that republican policies are everything but politically correct or egalitarian, we’re getting to the core issue with using those books for propaganda. Yes, they’re warning signs, but they should warn us from something else than the ideas they take to the extreme:

Every “simple” idea taken to the extreme leads to implications nobody can want, and only fundamentalist indoctrination can reach. Just look at Utilitarianism, which is the idea of “everybody should be happy” transcribed to “the sum of all happiness combined should be maximized”. So you have two thirds of the population incredibly happy and the rest in slavery and not happy at all – strictly utilitarian speaking, that’s better than everybody half as happy as the two thirds served by slaves would be. Now, utilitarians of course don’t want that, and do everything to avoid that conclusion, but their idea taken to the extreme would lead there.

I’m carefully avoiding talking about the Islam in this context just yet, just want to make it clear that for Muslims, the same applies as does for Christians: Fundamentalism is wrong and exists. It’s just that western (US like European) media likes to portray Muslim fundamentalists instead of reasonable people when they’re talking about the evil east. Anyway.

So, taking “liberal” (or “Democratic”, both with the meanings Americans commonly apply to them) ideas to the extreme does nothing to show anything about their fitness for anything, bar the fitness for being taken to extremes that reasonable people (and presidential candidates) never mean to reach.