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Logan's Run and Intergenerational War

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Archive on 4: Logan's Run and Intergenerational War

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, Logan's Run and Intergenerational War

Ed Howker looks at the world depicted in the science fiction novel Logan's Run.

In 1967, the science fiction novel Logan's Run showed a world where human lives were terminated at age 21. Ed Howker looks at the how the themes are relevant today.

In 1967 the novel 'Logan's Run' proposed a dystopian solution to overpopulation and lack of resources- the (voluntary, willing) self-culling of those over twenty one years of age. 50 years on, the novel's themes of intergenerational war and the redundancy of the old have a particular poignancy. 

In this Archive on Four, Ed Howker looks at how the then futuristic themes of 'Logan's Run' have manifested themselves in the reality of 21st century society. Large swathes of the capitalist world seem to have adopted the novel's plot as policy, such as in Silicon Valley, for example, where hardly anyone is over the age of 30. At the same time there is a huge discrepancy in wealth and resources held by the young and old, often held up as the source of conflict in 'generational unfairness'.

Ed Howker looks at the state of the young and the old and asks if implementing a 'Sleepshop', where the 21-year-olds of 'Logan's Run' fade out in a narcotic haze for the benefit of those younger, seems such a bad idea after all.

Producer Mark Rickards

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