The dystopia of dystopias

An American guy started chatting with us today at the gym, partly about the sad state of things in the world. After a few minutes, I had a bit of an epiphany: one distinctive trait of the dystopia we live in is that everyone lives their own personal version of it.

One person’s insurrection is another person’s deep-state coup d’etat. One person’s push for gender equality is another person’s disavowal of gender fluidity. One person’s fight against Ukrainian Nazism is another person’s fight against Russian aggression. One person’s admiration for decentralization of currency is another person’s dystopian funding of terrorism and whatever the “dark web” is. And so on.

On a positive note, it seems most people can agree we’re living through some sort of dystopia. I suppose “the COVID years”—another multi-faceted dystopian reality—have made that much clearer for most of us.

On a negative note, different versions of the dystopia seem to make mortal enemies of the subjects of other versions, as if dystopianism were a zero-sum game. We seem too eager to deal with our reality as if it were a soccer game.

Maybe there are no good guys. Maybe there are many good guys. Maybe things aren’t binary. Maybe my dystopia and your dystopia can coexist.

The other day, I was sitting at a coffee shop with a friend when an older Canadian gentleman started chatting with me, uninvited. He kept going and going, mostly voicing his displeasure at his version of the dystopia. I didn’t say much and just listened, wondering if I could return to the conversation with my friend.

At some point, he decided to praise his country—which he’d been bashing throughout the conversation—regarding its treatment of the poor. I pointed out that his country was part of an empire that extracted resources from poorer countries, using those resources to provide necessities like free medical care to its own citizens.

He suddenly became deranged, shouting and pointing a menacing finger at me. I thought he might get up from his chair to start a fight. He then paid the bill while shouting and making a scene, stood up indignantly, and walked away. As he left, I muttered, “It was you who started the conversation with me, friend.”

Strange, strange world we’re living in.