When modernity itself seems to be tearing apart at the seams, best to turn to J. G. Ballard.
The English novelist, who died in 2009, retains his prophetic edge; while the West has yet to become an actual Orwellian nightmare—the elections still free and the deracinated super-states still a globalist fantasy—it is easy to find traces of Ballardian horror everywhere. Dead-eyed consumerism, soul-less high-rises, and climate-related catastrophes, all made up the stuff of Ballard’s near-term dystopias. Violence looms, but it is not Big Brother imposing it from on high, nor a gang of droogs menacing us from below. It’s in all of us.
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