Utopias & Dystopias

So the scene where the neighborhood was burned down was pretty chocking. Most of the people Lauren knew and grew up with died, yet it seems like she hasn't really addressed it. Sure she expressed shock when she first learned Zahra saw her family members dying, yet it seems like there was no grieving or anything for all the people they lost. And this makes sense - it seems like they're a little too preoccupied with not dying to even think about it. But I wonder if she'll ever come to terms with it or think about it - maybe if she finds some place North to settle down? Or is she already so accustomed to death and the people she knows disappearing that it doesn't have that big of an effect on her? I talked about this a little in a previous blogpost - this world must completely change relationships and how people see other people. Nobody's a constant fixture in anybody's life and you can't get attached to anyone for fear of them disappearing. Seeing so much bad ...

I found the family's reaction to Keith leaving the neighborhood pretty interesting.  I think it shows something about the situation that they're in. Lauren's dad did get really mad after Keith left and they tried to look for him and everything, however it just didn't seem like they made as big of a deal about their child disappearing as I would expect, but maybe that's just from the frame of our society. Also the father dying didn't seem like that big of a shock either. That makes a lot of sense, considering there's people constantly dying and disappearing from their neighborhood. It probably kind of infiltrates your life and changes the way you think about people in your life and death. What were Lauren's dad and Cory expecting from their children? Did they want them to just stay in the neighborhood and maybe take over their jobs? Marry, have babies, etc.? Or did they think the world would go back to how it used to be? Or, more probably, were they just ...

 I wanted to talk about what Lauren's father said about teaching - that "It's better to teach people than to scare them." I think that scaring is one of the most effective way of teaching, especially in this situation where we're talking about survival skills and even just talking about what could happen would be enough to scare people. However I also agree with Lauren's dad that if nothing happens after you scare people they'll pretty much stop listening / believing you. I think they need to strike some sort of balance. And I'm not sure whether just teaching people things without telling them why is the solution - less people will be engaged or retain any of the information if they think it's just for fun. Maybe they could bring up the possibility of something happening to neighborhood in the future without making it seem like a pressing issue, then emphasize the fact that they should learn how to survive outside of the neighborhood anyway. This c...

The neighborhoods in the Parable remind me a lot so far of our ideal utopian communities we were discussing. They're almost completely separated from the outside world, and use a lot of their own resources to survive, only going leaving occasionally to do things they can't within their walls. That seems like the setup a lot of groups wanted to accomplish except surrounded by actual walls. Except that the people within the neighborhood don't have a choice on whether to stay there - they can't leave for fear of being shot or facing some other danger.  It seems like the people in the neighborhood are living a pretty good life, that is aside from the occasional deaths. Lauren talks about how in the evenings they're usually just playing games or lounging on their porches, and although they talk about some food scarcity it seems like everyone has enough to survive. At the same time most of the inhabitants don't seem happy. Is it because they're worrying about the ...