2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
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This article looks at the HULU series based on a book....a book that took it's inspiration from the Iranian revolution in the late 1970s........but of course.....they want you to think the U.S. could go this way...the author shows that Europe has more to fear than we do....
To Hell in a Handmaid's Basket - American Greatness
What makes any dystopian novel or movie compelling is its ability to draw parallels with―and act as a cautionary tale against―current social and political trends and events. Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale in direct response to a meditation on the Iranian revolution of 1979 where a society very quickly went from a relatively liberalized one with regards to women’s rights to one which demanded women be veiled and covered―with those mores policed by morality squads. Working off her knowledge of the Iranian revolution, Atwood’s novel is predicated on three things: The simultaneous and complete destruction of the executive and legislative branches of the United States government (think Designated Survivor), a declining birthrate, and a revolution that sweeps in to fill the power vacuum which then invalidates the entirety of the Constitution in favor of a theocratic and biblical model. In this society women’s rights are trampled upon as these women are forced to bear children against their will.
While Atwood presents her tale as occurring in the United States, and the buzz surrounding the release of the Hulu series implies that her vision is timely for America today, in truth, the dystopia she posits has a significantly higher chance of becoming reality in Europe. After all, Europe is the place where trust in and over-reliance upon centralized power, declining birthrates, and an appeasement of an unyielding worldview―the one that actually inspired The Handmaid’s Tale―are all threatening quickly to overturn what was once the font of liberalism and birthplace of the enlightenment into a religiously dystopian and morally bankrupt society.
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European governance, conversely, is generally more centralized and, as the European Union experiment has shown, there is an ever increasing move towards greater centralization. In what began as a purely economic union, the EU has expanded into all manner of political control. No counterfactual Handmaid catastrophe need occur to create the requisite centralized political structure in Europe, it already exists. If anything, The Handmaid’s Tale serves as a warning to Americans infatuated with European style, top down governance. It speaks to the threat of over-centralization and should engender a healthy skepticism of our apparent trajectory towards an ever more powerful Administrative State.
To Hell in a Handmaid's Basket - American Greatness
What makes any dystopian novel or movie compelling is its ability to draw parallels with―and act as a cautionary tale against―current social and political trends and events. Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale in direct response to a meditation on the Iranian revolution of 1979 where a society very quickly went from a relatively liberalized one with regards to women’s rights to one which demanded women be veiled and covered―with those mores policed by morality squads. Working off her knowledge of the Iranian revolution, Atwood’s novel is predicated on three things: The simultaneous and complete destruction of the executive and legislative branches of the United States government (think Designated Survivor), a declining birthrate, and a revolution that sweeps in to fill the power vacuum which then invalidates the entirety of the Constitution in favor of a theocratic and biblical model. In this society women’s rights are trampled upon as these women are forced to bear children against their will.
While Atwood presents her tale as occurring in the United States, and the buzz surrounding the release of the Hulu series implies that her vision is timely for America today, in truth, the dystopia she posits has a significantly higher chance of becoming reality in Europe. After all, Europe is the place where trust in and over-reliance upon centralized power, declining birthrates, and an appeasement of an unyielding worldview―the one that actually inspired The Handmaid’s Tale―are all threatening quickly to overturn what was once the font of liberalism and birthplace of the enlightenment into a religiously dystopian and morally bankrupt society.
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European governance, conversely, is generally more centralized and, as the European Union experiment has shown, there is an ever increasing move towards greater centralization. In what began as a purely economic union, the EU has expanded into all manner of political control. No counterfactual Handmaid catastrophe need occur to create the requisite centralized political structure in Europe, it already exists. If anything, The Handmaid’s Tale serves as a warning to Americans infatuated with European style, top down governance. It speaks to the threat of over-centralization and should engender a healthy skepticism of our apparent trajectory towards an ever more powerful Administrative State.
