**smacks head into wall repeatedly**
Starhawk pleas stop generalising about what utopia is. You keep getting it wrong. As has been eloquently stated by AT the Feddies are far from being Utopia and almost no-one thought they were. Hell you could put a better argument for Klingons than the UFP!
I didn't write the list so the terms aren't perfect, but the thrust was and is accurate:
Hierachacal society. Well is anyone but the Praetors family ever going to lead the empire? Can anyone less senior than a noble question their actions? If a nobles son/daughter is competent they are assured of the job aren't they?
Democracy: So they've been so brainwashed they don't even
want to influence how their country is run!
State propaganda is still propaganda. And supressing other news sources and view points, either actively (kill 'em) or passively (shunned by society and no radio/TV/xxxx transmissions)
Given that dissent can be just questioning the status quo and wanting change the difference is in how they're treated by the goverment. In the west are disliked but tolerated (they want to stay in goverment) and dissidents in, say Iran are shot, beaten or tortured. Or all three. Icara appears to be in the Iran camp on this one.
Personality Cult not religion! You know like Mao or Stalin had?
Quasi-religious cult based around how xxx is beyond question, wonderfull in every way and is the only person to lead them.
Quote:
A common view of traditional life, particularly organized religion, as primitive and nonsensical complete domination by a state religion, e.g Death-Worship in the Eastasia of 1984
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Makes perfect sense. Most people think that Traditional life (ie. before the party/preator/dictator) took over and "improved" life for all was primitive and rubbish. The religions of that time were also nonsensical. However the state religion your 'Path' is what everyone should follow. (If the state disdains any who don't follow one religion, it is a state religion. You don't need the goverment enforcing doctrine for it to be a state religion.)
* The "memory" of institutions overriding or taking precidence over human memory. - History is what is written down and what the goverment says it is, not what happened (or you remember). This one may or may not apply, I've seen no evidence either way.
* Insistence by the forces of the establishment that
it provides the best of all possible worlds. - Well when a society has been instituionaly (not technologicaly) stagnant for millenia and enforces the status quo with instant vicious reprisals I'd say they're 'insisting' the establishment can't get better.
The entire education system is based on making sure no-one wnats change and to produce malleable citizens who don't question orders. Think about it you're brought up to put others first and serve the common good. But who decides the common good? Nobles and Praetor of course! And the praetor's orders are final. You can't question the great leader, this systems worked for generations don't question it!