Q & A: Do dystopian Stories like "The Machine Stops" have value to modern readers?
Dystopian stories are often inspired by the author’s fear of how changes in their world that they are uncomfortable with will ultimately result in society’s undoing. In reality, I believe that it is far more common for technology to be seamlessly integrated into our world without horrifying side-effects, and as such, we should not put too much weight in one author’s pessimistic view of a future they do not recognize. As such, I often have little patience for apocalyptic or dystopian literature. Too often, stories like “The Machine Stops” (or Brave New World , or 1984 , or any of the plentiful other examples of this style) cause modern-day readers to marvel at how much the author correctly predicted, thereby leading us to irrational fears that the world depicted in the tale is not far off. One passage of “The Machine Stops” that exemplifies this trend is Forester’s frightened depiction of Vashti’s lecture where “neither [she] nor her audience stirred from their rooms.” True, the t...