Dystopian fiction - warnings of what might come but also already happened

 The famous Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin once stated that ”where there is power, there is no freedom”. A child of his time, he dared to envision other societies than what existed in his own life at the turn of the century. His notion that power always lead to a limited freedom was relevant back then, and it is relevant today.

For the past week I have read Jessamine Changs brilliant debute ”The school for good mothers”. The plot is set in a not far from know America, where a mother is charged for child abuse since she left her two year old daughter alone for two hours. Whilst this is a form of neglect, she is punished much harsher than we can see is fair. Instead of a slap on the wrist, she is sentenced to a one year education in a prison-like school, aiming to learn how to become a good mother. If she fails, she will loose custody forever. 

Changs debute have been called a ”future feminist classic” and is in many ways compared to the handmaids tale by Margaret Atwood. A couple of years ago I visited a lecture by Atwood were she said that the handmaids tale were not a dystopian work of fiction since the gendercide like aspect already has happened in for instance Iran, and continuous to happen all over the world. Returning to Kropotkins statement in the beginning, this actually invokes a rather relevant point of origin for people studying social politics across the globe.

Atwood and Changs stories are fiction, and bizarre, but they also serve as a warning example of how power operates. Kropotkin envisioned a society where individuals should enjoy the greatest amount of autonomy possible. The only problem is that sometimes individuals does not always act according to plan, thereby creating a need for society to intervene. Thereby, social politics ineviditly means that society utilise power over the individual, which from a radical view means that it also challenges the very belief of freedom.

In this aspect it is clear that what Atwood and Chang wrote is not something that possibly could happened, or have not happened in the western world. If we for instance think of how both the US, Sweden and Greenland have treated their native minorities it is clear that social politics - often in the name of progress - were utilized in a manner much similar to that of fiction. And from a historians view, their work should not only be described as warnings, but also reminders of what has happen when the exercise of power transgressed into oppression.

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