Introduction
By Barbara Goodwin
Utopian studies is an eclectic, rather than an esoteric, field of study and its practitioner range from social and political philosophers, through literary critics to architectural theorists and planners - to name just a few. Scholars from many disciplines were present at the 'Millennium of Utopias' conference hosted by the University of East Anglia in June 1999, where the original versions of a number of these articles were presented. Over 130 participants attended from more than 20 countries, among them many of the leading names in utopian scholarship, some of whom have contributed to this collection. An encouraging number of doctoral students are also pursuing research in this area and they make a fresh and important contribution to utopia conferences; the work of three of these researchers is represented here. The collection as a whole is intended to give an overview of the current social and political philosophy of utopianism. The first four articles deal with the nature and theory of utopianism, while later articles relate to particular themes.
The central debate about utopianism in the second half of the twentieth century concerned the relationship of utopian thinking to totalitarian practice; major philosophers such as Berlin, Popper, Oakeshott and Hayek argued that utopianism raised the spectre of totalitarianism: utopian thinking was symptomatic of a totalitarian mind-set which was inimical to freedom. Several of the articles included here contend against this, as I also have done,[1] and advocate the importance of utopian thinking as a genre which transforms the parameters of social and political philosophy. In recent decades, postmodernist re-readings of texts have highlighted the polyvalent and 'porous' nature of famous works, and French thinkers in particular have re-examined classic utopian texts in this light: Louis Marin's playful Utopique: Jeux d'espaces (1973) is a notable example. The articles by Levitas, Stillman, Reis and Geoghegan incorporate aspects of this postmodernist direction in utopian scholarship. New political ideologies often 'raid' earlier utopian texts to find validation, and also create their own potent utopias: green and feminist theorists have been active in this way. The articles by Sargisson and Diamanti reflect some of these developments.
Utopias hold up a mirror to the fears and aspirations of the times in which they were written: in that sense, utopianism is always in fashion. Some of the preoccupations of the twentieth century, such as the meaning of national identity and the anticipated reprecussions of scientific and biotechnological advances (as well as the nature of totalitarianism), are discussed in the articles by Sargent, Palade, Stableford and Nate. But there is also continuing fruitful scholarly dialogue with past utopian texts: although their detailed proposals may now have been superseded, the fundamental values which they promote, such as equality or liberation, are still valid, as Geoghegan's article on re-reading the Bible demonstrates. Lastly, we should note the continued presence in the real world of many utopian experiments, some of them legaacies of the 1960s commune movement, some older, some younger. Sargisson and Kuhlmann analyse two such 'intential communities', which regularly attract new members eager for an alternative, better way of life to that offered in the capitalist world.
The arrival of a new millenium has stimulated new interest in utopianism, a mode of thought which has some affinities with the millanarian movements which challenged the established religious order in the West at the end of the last millennium, as Norman Cohn documented in The Pursuit of the Millennium (1957). there have been an unprecedented number of academic conferences on the theme of utopianism in the past two years and in 2000 an imaginative exhibition on 'Utopia: The Search for the Ideal Society in the Western World' opened at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and later at the New York Public Library. Two major utopian anthologies were published in 1999: The Faber Book of Utopias, edited by John Carey, and The Utopia Reader, edited by Gregory Claeys and Lyman Tower Sargent. So, in a period which has many dystopian features, scholarly and popular interest n projects for a better world and for the 'Good Society' is alive and well. I hope that this collection of articles will help to stimulate this interest among readers new to the philosphy of utopianism, as well as exciting those who are already utopian enthusiasts.
What is utopianism and how does it relate to political philosophy? In Peter Stillman's view, utopias are 'practical political philosophy'. they explore 'what is not', reflecting on norms radically different from those found in contemporary socities. What distinguishes utopianism from other political philosophy is that principles are 'displayed in practice', which leads to comprehensiveness of vision and 'express[es] the basic situated character of human existence'. Stillman explores the uses of utopian thinking through the analytical tradition, which views utopis as being like philosophical thought experiments or as counterfactual criticisms of the status quo. He contends (against Berlin-style criticism) that concrete utopias present a plurality of sometimes incompatible principles and do not erect monolithic value systems. He also makes a similar arguement from a postmodernist perspective: utopias focus on alterity (otherness) and thorugh their own 'contradictions, resistances and gaps' they provoke re-examination of the supposedly 'univocal or hegemonic' structure of utopia.
Ruth Levitas analyses the changes in utopian writing and the theorisation of utopia at the end of a century during which dystopian nightmares became more prevalent than visions of the ideal society. Her answer to the question 'What is utopia "for"?' is that its functions are compensation, critique and catalysing change. Postmodern thinkers have a negative view of utopia as a monolithic, totalising form of thought based on truth, morality and grand schemes. Recent utopias reflect the postmodernist 'turn', dwelling on process rather than on plans or blueprints for a better society; they are provisional, reflexive and pluralisitc. These features, Levitas argues, can lead to a 'pathological' pluralism which reduces the critical capacity of utopia and jeopardises its transformative power. As a defence against this disempowerment of the genre, she advocates moral commitment and substantive content as essential elements of utopia.
The relation between philosophical idealism and utopianism is explored in the article by Jose Eduardo Reis, who emphasises the role of utopianism as a 'state of mind'. Ernst Bloch's major work, The Principle of Hope, has stimulated fresh analyses of utopianism in Anglo-American scholarly circles since its translation into English in 1986 and Reis relates Bloch's account of utopian hopes as the omnipresent 'noch nicht' (the 'still not' or 'not yet') to the work of earlier idealist thinkers such as Hertzler and Schopenhauer. He distinguishes the narrative and practical project of improving society from the wider, spiritual and ethical aspiration to perfect te Self , and he concludes, as did Bloch, that utopian thinking is eternally present and eternally relevant.
Laurence Davis takes on Popper, Kolakowski and Berlin in his defence of utopian theorising against the charge that it equates to totalitarianism. He examines, in particular, the pluralist, liberal arguements of Berlin, whose critique of the 'value monism' inherent in utopianism has been so influential. Not only, according to Berlin, would inhabitnats of utopia lack freedom, but the transition to the ideal society would require violence against those unwilling to live there. Davis uses William Morris, normally regarded as a libertarian socialist, as the yardstick by which to measure Berlin's claims. He finds some justification for the anti-utopianism of the value pluralists; for example, Morris favoured the value of pre-modern socieites, where public disagreement over values and beliefs was thought symptomatic of social disorder. Such a vision courts Berlin's criticism of value monism. Furthermore, Morris countenanced insurrection as the means to achieve socialism. Davis concludes by offering a spirited pluralist defence of utopian thought as 'the vivid exercise of ethical imagination'.
Identity is currently the subject of much political and sociological debate and the study of utopias throws new light on the construction of national identity. Lyman Tower Sargent argues that the utopianism of a country reflects, but also creates, its national identity and contends that colonies, in particular, produce utopias. He examines the utopian traditions of four former British colonies in this light and finds five relevant historical stages, from the first discovery to settlement and immigration, colonial rule, seperation from the colonising sountry and, lastly, the establishment of new institutions. Each stage is marked by different utopian images; for example, the El Dorado and 'land of milk and honey' images were used to promote settlement. After seperatiton from Britain, the creation of new institutions and a new national identity promoted differing utopian traditions in the four countries, including opposed eutopian and dystopian themes, particularly in the USA. Sargent also discusses national identity in realtion to intentional communities (real community experiments) which, being deliberately sequestered from the wider community, may represent a rejection of national identity or else the intensification of a circumscribed notion of what that identity should consist of.
Brindusa Palade gives an example of how a unique, living, nationalist utopian mythology was born. She describes how during the late socialist period in Romania (1957-89) the intelligentsia, including dissenters, was co-opted, in exchange for personal benefits, into producing a nationalist myth based on the pure, ethnic-Romanian philospher-hero. The tension between pro-western, leberal thought and ethnocentric Romanian stereotypes led to a paradoxial, but compelling, doctrine of Romanian cultural superiority which supported the communist regime until its collapse and which wtill persists as a 'comfortable' utopian retreat for contemporary Romanians in turbulent times. The article provokes a reassessment of Mannheim's classic distinction between ideology, as a form of thought supportive of the status quo, and utopia as a disruptive force.
In the past three decades in particular, feminist aspirations have been explored and illustrated in utopias written by women such as Marge Piercy, Ursula Le Guin and Joanna Russ (and women's dystopias have also been produced, such as Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale). But proposals for the liberation and equality of women have recurred throughout the utopian tradition - starting with Plato's radical suggestion that male and female Guardians in the Republic would be equal. Filio Diamanti demonstrates that, although earlier male utopians commited to socialist principles such as equality, most notably Fourier, attempted to devise models of gender-equal societies, they were unwilling or unable successfully to eradicate patriarchal attitudes to women. Diamanti argues that their genuinely radical thought was marred by a dualism which accept's women's 'public' emancipation, by and large, but supports private (domestic) subordination or role stereotyping, or both.
Community experiments have been central to the utopian tradition and are, indeed, political theory put into practice. Two articles here, by Sargisson and Kuhlmann, are based on empirical research in contemporary intentional communities. Lucy Sargisson argues that a key function of utopianism is transgression; postmodernity challenges the divisive dichotomy of Self and Other which is, some say, at the heart of human discontent and conflict. Some contemporary utopian movementsattempt to transgress this oppositional relationship. In this context and the context of developments in 'green' theory, she discusses the ethos of the Findhorn community in Scotland and compares its doctrines with the implied utopia of deep ecology. Both promote new images of the Self. But Sargisson shows the danger of the Self-Other relationships proposed: in deep ecology, the expanded Self may colonise or 'consume' the Other (Nature), while the individualistc, new-age conception of responsible Selfhood may lead to denial of responsibility for others and hence a reactionary politics. Despite their imperfections, she finds these two utopian movements important as 'spaces in which we can be different'.
Hilke Kuhlmann has researched one of the longest surviving 1960s intentional communities in the USA, Twin Oaks, as a participant-observer. Her article focuses on one of the most interesting questions about such communities (and about imagined socialist utopias): what could motivate people to work when personal incentives and the profit motive have been abolished? She found that the flagship innovation of Twin Oaks, its obsessively elaborate labour credit and work quota system, was also the main source of disillusionment among its members. Her analysis of how the community has survived a regular turnover of members is revealing, and the article stimulates thought about how a non-capitalist community, or indeed a wole society, might organise itself around work without monetary rewards.
Although many utopias are based on a return to the simple (and therefore good) life, many other utopians have had a love affair with science and have posited their ideal socieites on imagined or real scientific progress. At this point, the utopian genre often shades into what is conventionally thought of as science fiction. Richard Nate considers the relationship between two of the most famous 'scientific utopians', Francis Bacon and H.G. Wells, and draws parallels between them. Both were scientific optimists with a faith in a scientific elite and a belief in that in the scientific utopia both the natural world and the inhabitants would be controlled through scientifc knowledge. He cahrts the historical fluctuations of attitudes to science in the past four centuries (optimism is succeeded by skepticism or pessimism and then the cycle recommences) and concludes that the optimism of Bacon and Wells found no sympathy in the late twentith century, when sceince-dominated dystopias were the norm.
By contrast, Brian Stableford argues for the moral commitment of utopian writers to scientific optimism in the field of biotechnology. He demonstrates how J.B.S. Haldane's 1923 scientifc 'future history', predicting a horrified reation against biotechnological developments, stimulated controversy and reaction which was reflected in the development of utopian and dystopian science fiction. he offers an authoritative survey of twentieth-century futuristic literature based on viotechnological advances such as tissue culture and synthetic food, and argues (as a practitioner of science fiction) that authors should avoid the shock-horror, knee-jerk reaction to such advances and should create imagined societies where biotechnology is used for the betterment of humankind.
The scholarly reading of texts which are not explicitly utopian in intent has long formed part of utopian studies and the contemporary hermeneutic movement has caused the re-evaluation of many familiar texts and often, incidentally, a revelation of their utopian elements. Vincent Geoghegan advocates a re-examination of one of the world's great religious books, the Bible, arguing that secular inhibitions against reading the Bible simply waste the utopian potential of a text which is 'created out of hope, rich in utopian tropes and a catalyst for yet further speculation'. His analysis follows Ricoeur's influential model in reading behind the text, in the text and in front of the text. The historical approach (beind the text) reveals the utopian project of the nation of Isreal's return to its homeland after exile, while reading in the text uncovers the themes of deliverance and new life which have been incorporated into contemporary liberation theology. Geoghegan offers a critical account of modern 'in front of the text' readings of the bible by writeres such as Bloch, Derrida and the feminist Pippin, and sets an agenda for further exploration of the Bible's utopian dynamism.
The idea of society without law, an anomic society, may seem to be a natural aspiration for perfectibilist utopians. If human beings can be morally perfected, or if the natural world can be transformed to supply our needs abunfantly, what need would there be for laws, especially property laws? But, as Miguel Angel Ramiro Avilés shows, many classic utopian thinkers, starting with Thomas More, actually based their ideal societies firmly on law and reformed legal institutions. Although their whole enterprise was posited on a scathing critique of oppressive contemporary laws and their dissociation from justice, paradoxically these utopians also had faith in a perfected legal system which would suffice to cope with the remaining imperfections of human nature. Ideal law was viewed as an instrument to create 'negative freedom' and security, and was strongly to be preferred to anomia, which invites the irrational use of power, or tyranny. Ramiro argues for the positive function of law in the utopian model and its role as an antidote to anomic and totalitarian solutions for political problems.
