Questions about Memory Hole: The Psychology of Dystopia from: Jessica Orrick, Patreon supporter

Why did you choose dystopian fiction to explore?

George Orwell’s 1984 had a huge impact on my worldview, as it did with a great many people. It helped me develop a sensitivity to tech companies gradually eroding individual privacy, but a ton of books are already written about that topic. It occurred to me that I could discuss the human side of it—the psychology behind it rather than the crushing totalitarianism. Plus, I realized one day last year that the book The Martian by Andy Weir has hundreds of thousands of reviews, while many of my favorite psychologists (even Nobel Prize winners) have just a fraction of that! It made me wonder if it would be possible to bridge the two worlds. That was how I came up with the idea of writing a psychology book based on fiction. Dystopian fiction is filled with controversy and conflict, making it a perfect genre to get the attention of people who might not read it otherwise.

Can you walk us through your writing process?

Regardless of what I am writing (e.g., book, article, essay), I like to compile a bunch of potential resources and quotes first with a quick citation so I can quickly find it again. When I write academic articles, it is often ideas or psychological concepts jotted down in a list. Then I can go through and group them by subject, and soon enough I have an outline. For this book, I did the same thing, but with direct quotes from each book. So I reread We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (We is the springboard for my first chapter) and copied down a page or two of interesting quotes that might serve my exploration of the story. I also noticed in the introduction a mention of Pavlovian conditioning (my copy of We is the 2006 edition with a new introduction). I did not end up using that specific example from the intro, but it was encouraging. Once I noticed that I could break the first chapter into three parts, Memory Hole started to take shape. I settled on three parts per chapter—one for the story, one for some social dilemma, and the last for a psychological phenomenon that I could explore. Then by chapter two, on Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, I had an outline for how to approach it! I reread that book as well, collected quotes, organized them into subject, and repeated the strategy for the rest of the writing process.

Was writing Memory Hole a different process than Dichotomies?

Wildly different! Dichotomies took me 10 days in October of 2019 of blasting through the chapters while I was in Canada. I had my story already written in my head, but I heavily referenced the Psychostick show list calendar that Rob (Psychostick singer) made for the website all those years ago. Without that calendar to reference, the book would probably not exist. In contrast, Memory Hole took 15x as long to compose. Funny how writing a book that is not a memoir takes a whole lot more work! But to be fair, I did the foundational work for Dichotomies from 2011-2017, I just never thought I would be writing a book about it.

How do you get your work published?

I decided to self-publish Dichotomies through the company IngramSpark so I could retain absolute creative control. It worked out beautifully because their platform allows “just-in-time” printing, meaning printing on demand. They have printers on five continents, so when someone orders my book in Australia, it is printed in Australia. This cuts down on shipping costs monumentally. For Memory Hole, I was at first interested in finding an official publisher to reach a broader audience. I shopped it around to some of my favorites, such as The MIT Press and a few others who specialize in semi-academic works. Every single editor I spoke to said basically the same thing. “This is a really interesting idea for a book, but it’s not quite what we’re looking for.” In the end, I opted to go the same route as I did for my first book and just self-publish. The end product is probably closer to my original vision of it (and is not hacked and censored by editors), so it is probably a good thing! There are some pretty controversial ideas I present, which might not have made it past the editorial chopping block.

How would you describe your experience creating a Patreon to follow your progress?

This whole process was a bit unnerving because I generally prefer to wait until my work is presentable before sharing it with others. But it was rather gratifying to share my progress along the way. It was quite interesting to observe how I became a better writer as I went along as well. Once I reached the chapter on The Handmaid’s Tale, I started to notice what I believe was a distinct improvement in my writing. So when I went back to the previous chapters to rework them a bit and make it more readable, I thought “How the hell did I think this was good enough to share?!” The first chapter on We was so dense, I couldn’t believe it. The sentences were complex and way too long. So by writing this book, I became a better writer and went back to the earlier chapters to make it actually readable.

Of all the books you chose for Memory Hole, which is your favorite and why?

I would probably go with The Giver. It has a special place in my heart because it was the first story I ever read of its type when I was a kid. I still read it every few years, so it was great fun to expand on it in my chapter.

Who is your favorite voice/teacher/thought leader in modern psychology and why?

There are of course many. But Daniel Kahneman (2002 Nobel Laureate) and Richard Thaler (2017 Nobel Laureate) are two of the big ones to me. They pioneered behavioral economics (along with a lot of other great people, of course). Their work is just so interesting to me, and it is greatly amusing to explore the weird quirks of human beings.

Historically, any voice/teacher/thought leader in psychology you think is totally full of crap?

Thanks for the balance here (instead of just asking about who I don’t like). Personally, I think Sigmund Freud is massively overrated. Everyone knows his name, but he didn’t do much to actually support many of his ideas with actual evidence. He would come up with wacky ideas and just argue that this is how the mind works. Good scientists attempt to falsify their claims. If they can’t prove them wrong, the idea survives another day. Freud’s strategy is reminiscent of these lunatic conspiracy theorists in our modern day. Anyone can come up with silly ideas about the world and find anecdotal evidence to support their flimsy claims. Why should I care? Let’s see the evidence, kids.

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Questions about Memory Hole: The Psychology of Dystopia from: Mats E. Eriksson, author of Another Primordial Day

Why were these specific books chosen? Some/all are modern classics of course, but I assume there are others that could have been used to characterize a decade? In other words, are there other dystopian novels you like and would recommend?

I chose some because they are irrefutable classics (e.g., 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale) and it would be absurd to ignore their influence. I chose some of the others because of key words in the synopses! For instance, I wanted to discuss conformity, so I looked up “Top 10” and “Best of” lists for dystopian novels and found This Perfect Day. I had never heard of it until then, but its summary included the phrase “Uniformity is the defining feature,” so I gave it a read.

Which one of the books is your personal favorite?

I would probably have to go with The Giver. Many of the books have incredible prose (especially Fahrenheit 451, Never Let Me Go, and The Handmaid’s Tale), but The Giver is a lot less soul crushing to read.

Which one of your dissections/analyses are you most pleased with?

I might have to go with my analysis of Never Let Me Go. Everything seemed to really come together quite nicely.

Which one of the books made the most "accurate predictions" of our future, if any?

Two come to mind. The Handmaid’s Tale is a close runner-up due to modern sexist politicians, abortion bans, and the like. This makes sense to me because Margaret Atwood did not put anything in her book that was not based in history. But I think The Circle is probably the most representative of the modern world as a whole. It’s really wild to observe how quickly the whole globe became ensnared by tech and digital devices without even noticing the potential pitfalls.

If you would do anything differently with your book, what would it be?

If I was more patient, I would have read a few more of the classics—Ursula K. Le Guin, in particular. I see her name pop up a lot and several friends have recommended her work, so I bought one of her books but have not read it yet. Perhaps I’ll add an extra chapter to my book at some point!

What were your greatest challenges?

Composing the Never Let Me Go chapter was probably the most challenging from a research perspective because biology is not my specialty. I had to do quite a bit of additional research to get the content accurate and compelling. As far as writing, The Handmaid’s Tale chapter was without a doubt the hardest to compose. I procrastinated for two solid weeks before writing the first paragraph of the chapter. I had no idea how to argue the merits of a brutal theocracy without coming across as a misogynist maniac. But then it occurred to me that the characters committing the many atrocities in the book justify their actions with biblical passages, so I could do that too! That mindset shift made it come along pretty quickly, although I had to put myself in a pretty dark place to come up with lines about execution on the Wall like “it is less pleasant to smell criminals than it is to see them.”

What gave you most pleasure/was most rewarding during the whole work process?

I really love the “aha!” moment of connecting disparate ideas. I doubt that will surprise anyone considering my last book was called Dichotomies. For instance, while writing my chapter on The Giver, I knew I wanted to discuss the neurophysiology of memory because that is what the whole book is about. So the idiom of riding a bike came to mind. Then while I was researching H.M. (the guy who had his hippocampi removed and could no longer form new explicit memories) I found out that his brain injury was due to a bicycle accident! It was a pretty wild coincidence, so I am really pleased with how that chapter turned out.