Tinkering Our Way Out Of Dystopia
At first glance, the recent boom in dystopian fiction for young adults might suggest that many adolescent readers in North America fear the future or enjoy wallowing in macabre contemplation of our coming demise. The Hunger Games. The Divergent series. The Maze Runner series. The 100. (For context on the genre, see Laura Miller in The New Yorker, Marcela Valdes at NPR, Gann & Gavigan at the American Association of School Librarians, and Scholes & Ostenson at the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English)..
Technology misused, technology run amok, societies thrown back to neolithic levels due to nuclear winter or global climate change, or alternatively hyper-advanced societies where an (artificially intelligent? robotic?) elite uses technology to oppress and enslave the masses, and so on unto a very bleak horizon.
Happily, after many trials and much angst, a doughty band of teenagers — typically strangers from many backgrounds randomly thrown together, often with a young woman emerging as the leader –overcomes the oppressive order and saves the world made miserable by the adults. Hence the genre’s appeal in part, at least for the younger readers (and presumably for the many older readers who defy the genre category and enjoy these novels too — perhaps out of a sense of rue, remorse and desire to make amends vicariously). What shines through the gloom and despair is the firm belief in the ability of small, diverse groups to improvise solutions quickly and under duress in chaotic conditions, to prototype rapidly, to fail forward, to meet community needs.
The tributes for the Hunger Games live or die on their ability to use the tools the Gamemakers and inspired onlookers provide, tools that may or not suit an immediate challenge. They also rely on cobbling together alliances to meet common, if short-term, goals. Invent and collaborate…or die first, is the unspoken motto of the Games. Who doesn’t cheer wildly when Katniss and Beetee identify and exploit the flaw in the Gamemaker’s forcefield in Catching Fire, jury-rigging electric tackle to get the job done? Or when Thomas and his small band scrounge for the materials they will need to make it through The Scorch Trials? Or when The 100, returning from their failing space station after nearly a century to an Earth depopulated by nuclear war, begin to figure out how to devise new tools and processes, even as their numbers dwindle in the face of constant threats?
What these novels and teleplays describe is essentially start-up culture. And in the best possible way: flamboyantly, empathetically, at blitz pace. When faced with mutant cannibal hordes or nefarious scientists who hide their agendas or simply a lack of potable water, our heroes and heroines forge their own way, using their own plans and tools. They know they have razor-thin margins for success, and no safety net. They make their own playbook from scratch, they enforce their own rules and create shared norms for performance. And then they execute, from dawn to dusk, for a worthy pay-off.
So, while some observers might worry about the prevalence of dystopia in young adult lit or fret that the fascination with imminent destruction will sap the will of our young, I see the genre as another indicator of our abiding faith in self-determination and the power of making. As young John Connor learned from his mother Sarah in The Terminator series: “The future’s not set. There’s no fate but what we make for ourselves.”
by Daniel A. Rabuzzi
Executive Director, Mouse
