dystopia

Definition

A miserable, dysfunctional state or society that has a very poor standard of living or severe censorship, oppression, etc.

Etymology

From dys- + -topia, as if from Ancient Greek δυσ- (dus-, “bad”) + τόπος (tópos, “place, region”) + -ία (-ía), based on utopia being reinterpreted as eu-topia.

Example Sentences

• "As novelist, he knows, too, that when he sees the future, it will not work—he will automatically be creating a “dystopia” (no one creates utopias any more: even the utopias of the past look like dystopias to us)."
• "2. FEAR OF TECHNOLOGY/THE BOMB/THE FUTURE—Progress run amok, either in the form of cybernetic creatures that turn against their masters, or future dystopiae in which society is controlled by technology."
• "Erich Fromm, who has commented on 1984 and other dystopiae in postmodern literature discovers a mechanized dystopia in the text of existence itself in the ’50s and ’60s—a “technological nightmare” that had turned people into zombies and made the darkest alternative to “boring aliveness” seem attractive."

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