In this episode, I speak with Professor Jessica Hooten Wilson about her writing and research on literature and totalitarianism. We discuss how both violence and entertainment and distraction are used a tools of state control. We discuss Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, some of the writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and Julia Alvarez's novel, In the Time of Butterflies, about life under the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. We also discuss Victor Frankl, Josef Pieper, Michael O'Brien, Tocqueville's idea of "soft despotism", and Neil Postman's argument in In Amusing Ourselves to Death about Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984. Wilson notes that these novelists take evil seriously, but are also careful not simply villainize the opposition so as to increase our understanding and self-awareness, and help prevent us from falling into the trap of another ideology.
Visit https://www.themoralimagination.com/episodes/jessica-hooten-wilson-phd for show notes and resources.
Resources
Books discussed in interview are listed below.
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By Ray Bradbury
By Wilson, Jessica Hooten
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
By Solzhenitsyn, Alexander
The Family & the New Totalitarianism
By O'Brien, Michael D.
Learning the Good Life: Wisdom from the Great Hearts and Minds that Came Before
By Wilson, Jessica Hooten, Stratman, Jacob
In the Time of the Butterflies
By Alvarez, Julia
The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints
By Wilson, Jessica Hooten
By Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation
By Josef Pieper
University of Notre Dame Press
Ep. 35: Jessica Hooten Wilson, Ph.D.: Literature and Totalitarianism