Philosophy | Utopianism

Utopianism is Not Dead

Idealism is often criticised as impractical, naive, or even utopian. When did ‘utopia’ come to carry negative connotations? Is utopianism mere wishful thinking? In Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), utopia is derived from eu (no) and topos (place). Together, utopia means ‘no place’. Taken literally, utopia suggests the implausible and it is easy to see how critics may dismiss utopianism.

More recently, the term utopia has been employed to describe the spread of communism ending with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the failures of universal democracy evident from the Iraq War in 2003, and even the Islamic State has been likened to a utopia. Instead of allowing critics the liberty of labelling what they deem unfavourable or impossible as utopian, I argue that utopianism should be recast as the language of hope.

In Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (2008), John Gray equates “the project of universal democracy” to a form of utopianism and that “the blood-soaked streets of Iraq” spelt “the death of utopia”. Gray argues that in attempting to democratise the world, western universalism can be classified as a utopian project. The devastation of the Iraq War in 2003 and the backlash against democratisation since reveal the futility of utopian thinking. The validity of this reasoning is questionable and should not be accepted at face value. Can utopianism be reduced to a handful of ‘failed’ projects deemed as utopian? By interpreting these events as constituting the “death of utopia”, Gray may have arrived at a hasty conclusion.

Perhaps, utopianism should be freed from the trappings of the real world. The emphasis of utopian thought should shift away from realising utopia and instead focus on the process of envisioning utopia. In other words, the means matter more than the ends. Rather than to constantly hold utopian ideas to a feasibility test, utopianism serves as a starting point to reflect on the status quo. Ruth Levitas explores utopianism as a tool for social critique in Utopia as Method (2013):

It requires us to think about our conceptions of human needs and human flourishing in those possible futures. The core of utopia is the desire for being otherwise, individually and collectively, subjectively and objectively. Its expressions explore and bring to debate the potential contents and contexts of human flourishing. It is thus better understood as a method than a goal. (xi)

Since utopia by definition is a ‘no place’ or an unachievable state, construing utopianism as an end “goal” may turn out to be self-defeating. Instead, Levitas argues that utopianism is a “method” that enables reassessments of the human condition and thus hopefully propel social advancement. Utopianism then becomes purposeful in guiding and even empowering change.

With Levitas’ suggestion in mind, utopian novels should not be regarded as blueprints for an ideal society. Individuals who have tried to replicate utopian works of fiction have discovered the difficulty of implementing utopian ideas. An idea floated in B.F Skinner’s Walden Two (1948) is communal child-rearing:

After spending most of the first year in an air-conditioned cubicle, and the second and third mainly in an air-conditioned room with a minimum of clothing and bedding, the three- or four-year-old was introduced to regular clothes and given the care of a small standard cot in a dormitory. (107)

Walden Two is a fictional settlement that strives to revolutionise the upbringing of children by dispersing the responsibility of raising children from their biological parents to the community at large. The adjectives “minimum”, “small” and “standard” underscore that by raising children collectively, Walden Two reduces the resources needed for child-rearing. These arrangements are therefore logical from a strictly utilitarian standpoint. When put into practice, Twin Oaks, an intentional community modelled after Walden Two, discovered the undesirability of communal child-rearing as biological parents demonstrated a natural inclination towards personally raising their children.

No matter how alluring utopian ideas may seem, they are ultimately ideas enshrouded in fiction. There are numerous considerations when endeavouring to translate utopian ideas from fiction to reality. Rather than accepting the ideas raised in utopian novels as policy prescriptions, perhaps it is more prudent to interpret utopianism as a mindset. Utopianism as a mindset means readers will consider the underlying assumptions and motivations instead of the practicality of utopian ideas. In the case of communal child-rearing, possible takeaways could be whether parents always know what is best for their children. And if communal child-rearing is impossible, what then are the alternatives that can improve parenting?

Utopianism is not about whether utopias are realisable but about whether individuals are compelled to ask the pertinent questions. With the world gripped by a pandemic, the situation seems dire and a better future appears out of reach. Under such circumstances, utopianism can provide the hope that we need.

I would even venture to say that the world needs more utopian thinking and not any less. As Jia Tolentino writes in The New Yorker, Covid-19 has pushed the boundaries of what we once considered as impossible as recently as January. It is the belief that the world will emerge from this pandemic stronger and better that individuals are organising at the grassroots level to tutor students impacted by school disruptions, to collect and distribute masks to healthcare workers, to donate generously to NGOs despite financial uncertainties and so much more. Perhaps, Gray’s pessimism is unwarranted for Covid-19 has demonstrated that utopianism is not dead.