Page - 74 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

In challenging capitalist power and conservative rules Moylan sees hope and not resignation. Common dystopia is characterised by its creative capacity, but it renounces changing the world: “Formally and politically … the dystopian text refuses a functionalist or reformist perspective.”23 Moylan establishes a clear separation between the optimism of the 1960s and 1970s, which gave rise to a utopian wave, and the 1980s and 1990s (the Reagan Era), when globalist capi- talism flooded the world with inequality and pessimism, causing the return to dystopian narratives. Lorna Jowett assumes critical dystopia as “active hope”; within her perspective the TV series Angel (US 1999–2004) was not intended “as helping the helpless but as helping the hopeless”.24 Why did dystopia grow especially in the twentieth century? Two world wars, the arms race, technolo- gies considered as alienating and threatening human freedom, and capitalist excesses had an influence. But especially in the modern apocalyptic discourse, the motive of a third world war is constant, as many protest and rock songs reflect. Hence utopias turned into dystopias, “the product of the terrors of the twentieth century”.25 In fact, the concepts of utopia and dystopia are inextri- cably connected: “Utopia functions as warning to humankind … which delib- erately reminds us that what is at stake is nothing less than our future itself … [T]here can be no deliberations on dystopia without regarding utopia”.26 Some social and intellectual reactions to the universal threats of human- kind are close to critical dystopia, although they take a different perspective, encompassing interrelated meanings and formulas around the fear of massive destruction, with or without biblical reminiscences. Alternative Salvations, ed- ited by Hannah Bacon, Wendy Dossett, and Steve Knowles,27 deals with that trope, distinct from conventional salvation in orthodox religions; this volume stresses – in a theoretical framework of post-Christian spirituality – the opposi- tion between religious and secular salvation, affirming that the latter is achieva- ble independently of the former. Thomas Coleman and Robert Arrowood also advocate for a secular salvation;28 their guiding principle is atheistic, relying on the well-known assertion by Paul Kurtz and Edwin Wilson in their 1973 second Humanist Manifesto: “no deity will save us; we must save ourselves. We are re- sponsible for what we are and for what we will be.”29 There is a tight connection between the concepts of secular salvation and critical dystopia, because both 23 Moylan 2000, xii. 24 Jowett 2007, 76. 25 Moylan 2000, xi; Bendle 2005. 26 Farca and Ladevèze 2016, 2–3. Emphasis original. 27 Bacon/Dossett/Knowles 2015a. 28 Coleman/Arrowood 2015. 29 Generic Manifesto of the American Humanist Association, 1973, https://americanhumanist.org/ what-is-humanism/manifesto2/ [accessed 14 September 2019]. 74 | Javier Campos Calvo-Sotelo www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 69–94