After the
end of Star Trek’s run, Gene Roddenberry pitched several projects to
the TV networks—to be honest, it was one idea, continually redressed. All were
set on a future Earth, in the aftermath of a planetwide war. The TV-movie Genesis
II aired in 1973, and starred a 20th-Century man awakening
in 2133 in an Earth populated by splintered outposts of mankind. A reworked
version, Planet Earth, aired in 1974. A third telefilm based on the
concept was broadcast in 1975. Its title—Brave New World.
Miranda is the daughter of the sorcerer Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. When some mariners are shipwrecked on their barren island, she begs her father to save them. She eventually marries one of the refugees, the prince of Naples. In the play’s final scene, she addresses the crowd who is celebrating the nuptials:
O wonder!How many goodly creatures are there here!How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,That has such people in't.
Some pop groups have given the phrase “Brave New World” a sarcastic spin. Jimmy and the Boys’ 1981 “Brave New World” narrates a society populated by genderless workers whose mindless activity feeds the machines of progress. “Brave New World” by the Tender Violent Chords, from 1982, looks forward to spaceships and satellite eyes that watch the world without emotion.
Some “new worlds” aren’t that great. Aldous Huxley’s dystopian look at a fascist future, the 1932 novel Brave New World, was a satirical riposte against the utopian dreams of H.G. Wells. In the future of Huxley’s tale, bottle babies and strict social castes are the norm. Technology’s sole aim is to keep the lower classes occupied so that the upper castes may indulge their government-sanctioned fancies. Huxley’s satirical title was a direct reference to Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
- Iron Maiden (heavy metal, 2000)
- Toyah (new wave, 1982)
- Styx (rock, 1999)
- Moskwa TV (synth-pop, 1987)
- Fuzzy Logic (jazz-funk, 1995)
- New Model Army (punk, 1985)
- Hawklords (space rock, 2018)
- David Essex (pop, 1978)
- The Bongos (new wave, 1985)
- Genetic Control (2005, punk)
- DDT (alternative, 1983)
- Ana Christensen (alternative. 1990)
- Steve Miller Band (rock, 1969)
Ray Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 foresaw a future in which independent thought is stifled through the suppression of books and learning. Bradbury originally said that the book was conceived in reaction to the McCarthy hearings’ chilling effect on free speech. In 2007, he revised his opinion to say that the book’s allegory also applies to mass media’s effect in reducing consumers’ interest in reading and literature.
Some of the current organizations that claim to be working on a wonderful future world are the World Future Society; the World Future Council (offices in Hamburg, London, and Geneva); and the Future Worlds Center (based in Cyprus). Don’t forget the Association of Professional Futurists, or the World Futures Studies Federation, founded in 1973. Or our own Future Society of Oklahoma!
