This article argues that sociologists have much to gain from a fuller engagement with dystopian literature. This is because (i) the speculation in dystopian literature tends to be more grounded in empirical social reality than in the case of utopian literature, and (ii) the literary conventions of the dystopia more readily illustrate the relationship between the inner life of the individual and the greater whole of social-historical reality. These conventional features mean dystopian literature is especially attuned to how historically-conditioned social forces shape the inner life and personal experience of the individual, and how acts of individuals can, in turn, shape the social structures in which they are situated. In other words, dystopian literature is a potent exercise of what C. Wright Mills famously termed ‘the sociological imagination’.

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反乌托邦文学与社会学想象

本文认为，社会学家可以从更全面地研究反乌托邦文学中获益良多。这是因为 (i) 反乌托邦文学的思辨往往比乌托邦文学更基于经验社会现实，以及 (ii) 反乌托邦的文学习俗更容易说明个人内心生活之间的关系以及更大的社会历史现实整体。这些传统特征意味着反乌托邦文学特别关注历史条件下的社会力量如何塑造个人的内心生活和个人经验，以及个人的行为如何反过来塑造他们所处的社会结构。换句话说，反乌托邦文学是 C. Wright Mills 著名的“社会学想象力”的有力实践。