they have Utopia, and you don't. Misery loves company. It's time to change some things.
Go to section 10.
Rows of smiling identical people sing a patriotic anthem in perfect tune. In Utopia/Dystopia, you are never alone.
Your society is happy, or it's not. Someone else has it better, or they don't. But you're sure about one thing: other people are different from you. And that's dangerous.
Everyone else must share in your happiness or unhappiness. Everyone else must be just like you. Like Jane. Like John.
Oh boy, it's war again!
Go to section 11.
I hope you're not surprised. It always comes back to war. The details change, but the patterns remain the same.
The last war was just for fun, but this one is serious. You're blowing the left arms off babies and burning 10, 000-year-old monasteries. You perfect the technique of keeping a soldier alive despite mortal injury; the technique is quite helpful for spies on suicide missions. Your soldiers pray to God in the field, but you don't have time to answer. You're busy making military decisions. This war is serious, and hard choices must be made. John marches off again, and someday will return to Jane. Or he won't. that's war.
The question is, did you win? Will you dominate these not-like-you people and rule them with an iron hand? Or did you lose, and now face the destruction of your society?
If you won, go to section 12.
If you lost, go to section 14.
You're mad at these people, these pathetic creatures you conquered. They started that horrible war! Now you must teach them a lesson.
You make them build bigger stadiums and better fast food restaurants. Perhaps it's tyranny, but it's oppression with a smile — because you love them. That's why you want them to be like you.
Unfortunately, your smiles aren't enough to convince them of your love. There's always room for assassination.
Go to section 13.
Oops! Someone got crabby and killed your leader, in the shower. It's terribly messy, with brains splattered on the bathroom wall.
Who do you blame? Why, it's obvious. It's the vice-president secret police Communists students Boy Scouts Mothers Against Drunk Driving anyone who isn't you. People not you are responsible! People not you must pay!
Retaliation is swift and effective. You kill their leader. And the other leaders. And some people who aren't leaders. And they kill more of your leaders. And non-leaders. the streets flow with blood.
Is this war again, again? No, it's just collapse. Government structures tumble.
Schools are boarded up. Garbage piles up because no one removes it. People burn textbooks for warmth. John and Jane live on scraps from their neighbors. Maybe someone finds an atomic weapon, and maybe they use it. Maybe they don't need to.
Whichever way it happens, you've reached the apocalypse.
Go to section 14.
Oh no! Your civilization is destroyed. No more fast food. No more sporting events. No more two-for-one buffalo wing specials.
It's a mushroom cloud, billowing away in the breeze. Or a plague where everyone's skin explodes with toxic pustules. Or intense radiation that boils the brains of 98 % of the population.
All of the nice families with 2. 5 children (maybe happy, maybe not) are vaporized like rain in a volcano. Or the corpses pile up like ants that ate poisoned bait. The survivors walk among The Living Dead — stealing granola bars from their purses but leaving the wallets, because who needs money anymore?
Nuclear winter sets in. Or a biological disaster. Or just sheer depression.
But there are a few survivors. there always are. And they can start over.
Go to section 15.
Groups of ragged survivors struggle across the wasteland, or rubble, or abandoned cities. John and Jane take things one day at a time. Their challenge is to live until the night — then to live through the night, and to live another day.
Food and shelter are scarce. Many people don't make it. With time, the population balances so that it can support itself on the meager resources. This takes months, or it takes years. But when enough time passes, a small tribe sits in a cave, or at an oasis, or by a river. John (or Jane) says, 'Remember how much better things used to be?' the others throw rocks at him or her, and demand not to be reminded. they want to forget the dead times that can't be revived.
But Jane (or John) watches, and waits, and remembers.
Once the others have truly forgotten — and the past has become myth — s/he has an idea. S/he says to the others, 'I will lead you to happiness and freedom! Everyone follow me!' John (or Jane) unifies the tribes. Jane (or John) thinks that s/he has a new idea, better than anyone's ever had, something that will work. As always, certain choices must be made. But Jane and John are no different from you, in the end. they aren't smarter or wiser. they're just someone else.
Go to section 16.
Did you think the choices were terrible? they were.
Are you disappointed in where your choices have led you? Don't be. Other leaders have tried, and failed. The future is full of the same choices as the past. Nobody likes the choices, but civilization keeps moving.
Do you feel that you're at the beginning, again? You are. It's a circle. But there's always hope for change — hope that the circle becomes a spiral staircase.
Look, here, see this. A room, with a table. It's evening, or night. Look closely at the three people sitting around the table: John, Jane, their child. John smiles. He needs a shave, or perhaps he is bearded. Jane serves lasagna, or chicken casserole, as she tells her family about her day. The child is a girl, or a boy. The child sits in a highchair and gazes adoringly at John and Jane. After they eat, the parents take the child upstairs, singing a lullaby. It's been a good day.
Their world is radical, or traditional. They vote like responsible citizens, but they're more excited by the child learning to walk. The child grows up in revolution, or not, and marries a man, or a woman, or no one at all. S/he raises a family in Utopia/Dystopia or a world that is neither. When the apocalypse comes, s/he stays with the kids, who are grown up themselves and having a child. Despite the destruction, a baby is born.
You have a civilization.
FOR FURTHER READING compiled by ROSS E. LOCKHART
What follows is a selected bibliography of noteworthy Dystopian and Utopian fiction. Dystopia and Utopia are often considered to be opposing sides of a coin, but perhaps the two lie closer than one might at first suspect. Orwell's
