Dystopia

Myths, as part of human's life since ancient times, continue to be depicted in novels, movies, and TV series with the advent of technology. The dystopian theme much favored in the book market receiving international attention and appreciation is present in a large number of novels for the adult and the adolescent. Dystopia, as a sub-genre of science fiction, has strongly affected young adult (YA) literature. The Maze Runner trilogy (2009-2011), written by James Dashner, is a popular dystopian fiction with almost all-male supporting heroes. In the present paper, quest in Dashner’s trilogy is investigated in order to analyze the adventure in terms of Joseph Campbell’s views of hero’s journey, including the steps from the very first volume to the third in order to explore the archetype of journey in an adventure taking place in the future fictional world. Characters in this trilogy go through many difficulties to survive, and they pass through the rite of the passage each facing a crisis. A major conclusion the research arrives at is that there is more of an inner change in the young characters than an instant effect on their environment; however, they will be ready for the future. 

Contemporary Hegel scholarship either defends a theological metaphysics in which history is a teleological unfolding of cosmic Geist; or, the evolution of Geist represents the absolutization of human subjectivity, which undergoes a Bildung that prescinds from any reliance on metaphysical givens. The dilemma is between presenting Hegel as an absolute monist that is outmoded in light of modernity’s skepticism towards a teleology of history; or, of reducing Hegel to the terms of modernity, as defending the absolute self-grounding of the human subject, in history without ontology. I argue that co-opting Hegel for modernity is a mistake. The post-Kantian interpretation of Hegel, that rejects any metaphysics of the absolute, leaves the human subject in a state of alienation that the dialectic process in Hegel is supposed to resolve. I argue that PKI’s account of the self-grounding subject is too similar to absolute freedom that Hegel views as a dangerous fruit of the Enlightenment. Absolute freedom, having relegated God to deistic irrelevance, and stripped nature of any telos, seeks to make its own categories sovereign over those of reality.