«Mecanópolis»: a dystopia of Miguel de Unamuno

Abstract

This article, dedicated to the story by Miguel de Unamuno entitled Mecanópolis, analyzes the content and meaning of the writing and its relation to the intellectual evolution of its author to explain the worrying consequences of a world ruled by machines. The author warns about the growing idolatry of mechanization and a sense of progress and scientism that are wrong in his conception of the human condition. It also highlights some of the features of technological and scientific dystopias, of which Unamuno will echo in this story, comparable to the speculative utopian thought. Through images and symbols with recurrent poetic value in his work, among others, the desert, the oasis, the thirst and the orchard, Unamuno bets to recover the centrality of the anthropological question.

Keywords

• Miguel de Unamuno
• cientificismo
• progreso
• máquinas
• distopía
• utopía