# Can Big Brother, Handmaiden's Tale, Brave New World happen? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 5, 2013, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750 "2013-07-05T20:48:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/41 "2013-07-06T04:12:21Z")
Start with affordable government daycare. Add “appropriate” education, media and entertainment. Social enhancement for everyone who emulates the correct attitudes. Should this not move people along fast enough include subtle and then not-so-subtle penalties for non-compliance. In a couple of generations a structured program could make strides in altering the behaviors and thoughts of vast numbers of people. Fortunately nobody in the US is capable of devising a structured program of anything. Heh. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/42 "2013-07-06T04:36:50Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > … warning against TOTALITARIANISM, whether it came from the right (Nazi Germany …) That will be quite enough of that. I too want to call the NSDAP right-wing, but then the right-wingers want to call it left-wing, solely because it was the paragon of evil, so it must be more like those other guys who are not like me. Of course, if you want to consider the vile-topian _Turner Diaries_, that one sure read like right-wing to me, and it is much uglier than the 3rd Reich. ---
**Author:** ![Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/43 "2013-07-06T04:55:38Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Were _all_ women treated as property in _Handmaid’s Tale_, or just the handmaids? The handmaids were IIRC all women who’d been convicted of crimes under the new regime. While serving as a handmaid would be considered cruel and unusual punishment under our current legal system, we do allow for convicts to be denied certain freedoms. No, the handmaids weren’t specifically criminals. The criminals (and women who completely refused to be handmaids) are sent to the colonies to work. The colonies are described as places where toxic waste needed cleaned up and they worked people there until they died. Later in the book we find out there is also an option for some of criminals to work at what is essentially a whorehouse where the high ranking men can go and unwind. Fertility is so desired that a woman _could_ have committed a crime and still be a handmaid, but it would depend on the crime. The handmaids are simply women of childbearing age who are given a chance to bear children for the higher ranking men whose wives are unable to provide children. Offred states after so many chances (3 or 4 different officers?) if conception isn’t achieved the handmaid is sent to the colonies. IIRC the women are broken down as: Handmaids (as above) - wear red Marthas - wear green and are maids/cooks/household staff who are usually older women beyond childbearing age. Offred is among the first wave of handmaids and she indicates that in the future the handmaids will eventually become Marthas after childbearing age if they bear children for the officers and shipped to the colonies if they did not. Wives - they wear blue and are married to officers. They are given the child to raise (with the help of the Marthas) if a handmaid produces a child. They’re present when the husbands attempt to conceive with the handmaids. Econowives - (I think they wear stripes?) - are wives of poorer men who don’t “rank” enough to be given a handmaid. IIRC their wives are most likely not able to conceive or they’d be handmaids as well. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/44 "2013-07-06T05:04:00Z")
And also Aunts. They trained the handmaids; re-educated them. Aunts were infertile. They wore brown. ---
**Author:** ![Purd\_Werfect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e47c2d/32.png) [@Purd\_Werfect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purd_Werfect)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/45 "2013-07-06T05:13:04Z")
Nothing can be told quickly except after the fact. Having said that, no. Herding cats and political pandering protect against such decisive shifts. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/46 "2013-07-06T05:32:59Z")
> [@For You](#): > > That will be quite enough of that. I too want to call the NSDAP right-wing, but then the right-wingers want to call it left-wing, solely because it was the paragon of evil, so it must be more like those other guys who are not like me. The Nazis were indisputably of the political right. The only people who claim otherwise are the sort of idiots who imagine Ayn Rand was a genius. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/47 "2013-07-06T06:19:09Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Exactly. No dystopia has ever had a believable pathway. Again, a pile-up of ridiculous calamities could happen in theory but they are not believable in reality. > > Dystopias have a legitimate place in fiction by portraying one aspect of society grown in hypertrophic fashion to make a point. The real world never moves one aspect of society ahead in that way without also affecting a million other aspects. That’s why fictional dystopias never occur in the real world. They simply cannot. :rolleyes: Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, Khmer Rouge Cambodia… and a whole lot of older societies. History disagrees with you. And under the right circumstances I can certainly see something like _The Handmaid’s Tale_ happening. America is a deeply religious, overwhelmingly Christian country, and the hatred of women has always been a central feature of Christianity. A large religious revival could easily cause a major rollback of women’s rights in America; coupled with a large enough disaster that could let the fanatics seize control. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/48 "2013-07-06T06:23:48Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > I have a very good hardcore feminist friend and she is convinced that Handmaiden’s Tale is happening NOW as we speak. She told me flat out, “the phrase abortion riots keeps popping into my head. I don’t want to riot, but I will.” If so she is roughly as delusional as Tea Partiers who think Obama is turning this country into a Sharia Moslem theocracy. A society that banned abortion still exists in places like Ireland to-day and within the lifetimes of many still living in pre-1973 United States (with the exception of the handful of states that legalized abortion beforehand) and none of them were insane sociopathic theocracies like the one described in _The Handmaiden’s Tale_. Considering the said theocracy in the book even forbids the education of women it is not even comparable to actual theocractic or theonomic Christian governments such as John Calvin’s Geneva but a knockoff of Taliban Afghanistan. I’d say 1984 is slightly more likely in the real world (see North Korea) although I doubt “thought crimes” will be detectable anytime soon nor will historical records be so easily changeable while Brave New World overall is probably the most likely (although still very unlikely) considering the sentiments of many transhumanists. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/49 "2013-07-06T06:27:08Z")
> [@Sam\_A.Robrin](#): > > I just re-read it recently, and was mentally casting Newt Gingrich in the role the entire time! I always (jokingly) thought Windrip resembled Dubya and Sarason was a gay Karl Rove. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/50 "2013-07-06T06:44:26Z")
> [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](#): > > No, the handmaids weren’t specifically criminals. The criminals (and women who completely refused to be handmaids) are sent to the colonies to work. While I haven’t read the book since high school, it’s my recollection that handmaids were all women who were considered criminals by the new regime (although mostly for things that aren’t crimes today). IIRC, Offred’s crime was adultery. The information on the [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale#Women) seems consistent with my memory: > [@](#): > > Handmaids are produced by re-educating fertile women who have broken the gender and social laws. Owing to the need for fertile Handmaids, Gilead gradually increased the number of gender-crimes. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/51 "2013-07-06T06:48:29Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > . But women as property? That’s where it gets ridiculous. Taliban taking the working female population of Afghanistan and putting them back into purdah. Sounds like women are property there. Africa with the refusal of men to use condoms and the rape statistics - doesn’t sound like women are respected as anything other than a screw, free labor and a convenient way to keep the food cooked and the house clean for a sizable segment of the population. And Handmaids Tale - try getting an abortion in a lot of countries in the world, and how many Planned Parenthood offices have been closed, and ‘abortion clinics’ closed in the US - how many states is it effectively impossible to get morning after pill or regular birth control because the pharmacists refuse to honor the prescriptions? That woman in Ireland dying because she was refused a theraputic abortion? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/52 "2013-07-06T06:54:18Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > If so she is roughly as delusional as Tea Partiers who think Obama is turning this country into a Sharia Moslem theocracy. A society that banned abortion still exists in places like Ireland to-day and within the lifetimes of many still living in pre-1973 United States (with the exception of the handful of states that legalized abortion beforehand) and none of them were insane sociopathic theocracies like the one described in _The Handmaiden’s Tale_. Ireland, the nation that rounded up women for use as [slave labor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_laundry) and has been willing to condemn women to slow death with its “pro-life” stance? They may not have gotten as bad as the story, but they certainly were headed there. And really, the Republic of Gilead isn’t that far off from what most Christian societies were like towards women historically. Consider such practices as using the [Scold’s Bridle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scold%27s_bridle) on women for speaking their minds. A rabid, insane hatred towards women is as I said a central feature of Christianity. I’ll also point out that as a “pro-life” person who has called for women to be forced to go through pregnancy as punishment, she’d consider your expressed beliefs as evidence of her position. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/53 "2013-07-06T07:00:41Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Considering the said theocracy in the book even forbids the education of women it is not even comparable to actual theocractic or theonomic Christian governments such as John Calvin’s Geneva but a knockoff of Taliban Afghanistan. The Taliban didn’t gain power until about a decade after the publication of _Handmaid’s Tale_, so unless she’s psychic then Margaret Atwood couldn’t have been inspired by Afghanistan under the Taliban. ---
**Author:** ![Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/54 "2013-07-06T07:03:16Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > While I haven’t read the book since high school, it’s my recollection that handmaids were all women who were considered criminals by the new regime (although mostly for things that aren’t crimes today). IIRC, Offred’s crime was adultery. The information on the [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale#Women) seems consistent with my memory: Some of the handmaids were those who were guilty of the newly instituted gender crimes, but any seemingly fertile woman who was otherwise unmarried was a handmaid by default. So some were but not all. Wombs weren’t going to be wasted while a woman waited to be wed. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/55 "2013-07-06T07:05:52Z")
> [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](#): > > Wombs weren’t going to be wasted while a woman waited to be wed. Nifty alliteration! ---
**Author:** ![DonLogan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/56 "2013-07-06T09:06:02Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > No, it’s impossible. > > There’s a reason all dystopian novels/movies either or open with a short “present day” montage and fast-forward to a future where things are bleak with no mention of how they got that way or they just skip all that and start in the future. Well, they do that because things don’t go from A to Z overnight, and including B through Y takes a lot of time. So the OP specifically mentioned the U.S. and a single lifetime - who knows whether things could happen that fast, but I suspect sure they could. Look at the bad WMD claim. The guy who made it got reelected even after everybody knew it was wrong. Look how relatively fast Nazi Germany happened. It just takes the right combination of ingredients. I don’t think small scale dystopias are uncommon in history. And people who think that women, even in the U.S., would act as a 51% bloc to prevent their own subjugation need to take a better look around. There’s just as many women who would go along with it as men who wouldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/57 "2013-07-06T09:38:27Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > **Brave New World** – No, since that depended on complete government regulation of birth and eugenics. Eugenics appalls everyone these days. That was not necessarily the source of the tyranny. Some people interpret it as a society in which the masses were given bread and circuses until they were too lazy and complacent to question authority. Sort of like **Fahrenheit 451** : keep the plebes entertained, and they will not notice or care that you are oppressing the intelligentsia. I think that is quite possible. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/58 "2013-07-06T09:39:01Z")
> [@DonLogan](#): > > Well, they do that because things don’t go from A to Z overnight, and including B through Y takes a lot of time. > > So the OP specifically mentioned the U.S. and a single lifetime - who knows whether things could happen that fast, but I suspect sure they could. Look at the bad WMD claim. The guy who made it got reelected even after everybody knew it was wrong Starting a war on bad intelligence is not comparable to establishing a totalitarian dictatorship. > [@](#): > > Look how relatively fast Nazi Germany happened. It just takes the right combination of ingredients. I don’t think small scale dystopias are uncommon in history. Weimar was unstable from the start due to clashes between communistic and nationalistic factions, the aftermath of World War I, economic crises, and other factors. In contrast, Anglophone nations (including the United States) have long traditions of constitutional government-the United States has never had a government forcibly overthrown since the Revolution and England has seen one since 1688. > [@](#): > > And people who think that women, even in the U.S., would act as a 51% bloc to prevent their own subjugation need to take a better look around. There’s just as many women who would go along with it as men who wouldn’t. In what sense? It is true that women are equally pro-life as men if that’s what you mean by “subjugation” (:rolleyes:), but I don’t see a lot of women (or men) calling for a ban on the education of women as occurs in Atwood’s dystopia. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/59 "2013-07-06T11:02:34Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Taliban taking the working female population of Afghanistan and putting them back into purdah. Sounds like women are property there. Africa with the refusal of men to use condoms and the rape statistics - doesn’t sound like women are respected as anything other than a screw, free labor and a convenient way to keep the food cooked and the house clean for a sizable segment of the population. The Taliban gained a foothold in a backwater country like Afghanistan while The Handmaid’s Tale or The Hungers Games or Blade Runner or Fahrenheit 451 all take place in the US. That’s where it falls apart. There is no way to go from the US in 2013 to these futures without some fictional handwave. You see it a lot in apocalyptic fiction too: VAMPIRES!.. Something Something Something… The Military is Dead!.. Something Something Something… One Plucky Group Survived and Will Fight Back! No! If the vampires take out the entire world (including entire armies and trained law enforcement) and only a plucky group of survivors remain, they’re not going to be able to fight back. But you roll with it, because the books are entertaining. Just like dystopian fiction. ---
**Author:** ![DonLogan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750/60 "2013-07-06T11:24:42Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Starting a war on bad intelligence is not comparable to establishing a totalitarian dictatorship. > > Weimar was unstable from the start due to clashes between communistic and nationalistic factions, the aftermath of World War I, economic crises, and other factors. In contrast, Anglophone nations (including the United States) have long traditions of constitutional government-the United States has never had a government forcibly overthrown since the Revolution and England has seen one since 1688. > > In what sense? It is true that women are equally pro-life as men if that’s what you mean by “subjugation” (:rolleyes:), but I don’t see a lot of women (or men) calling for a ban on the education of women as occurs in Atwood’s dystopia. Bah. You didn’t refute anything I actually said, you just made up things to refute. (:rolleyes: :rolleyes:) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-big-brother-handmaidens-tale-brave-new-world-happen/662750.md?page=4)