Defend the Indefensible--Utopia

A bad bad joke on ILM . . . a responseless thread on ILX?

Can we turn this into a thread about the book, coz I read it last week and a good deal of it sounded like a nightmare.

For one thing, the system for punishment of criminals reminded me of nothing so much as the gulag.

Talk about the book then. Chaining up adulterers seems a bit overharsh, too.

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If we want to talk about the idea of Utopia I would be more than happy to. Have either of you read Faber's Utopia edited by J Carey? It's really excellent. I like Utopian thought anyway - it has had, and continues to have a profound effect on modern political life blah blah. If we're talking about the book, well, I don't get it.

Dystopian novels suck fo realz. (I hold this sentiment partially because I've been forced to read so many of them throughout my education)

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As I indicated in my opening salvo I prefer to discuss the concept, particularly why people are so against it. But I don't want to be mean and prevent discussion of the nominal text, either, whatever edition anyone prefers. I haven't read Faber's Utopia, and cannot recall who translated whichever copy I read however long ago.

But on to Utopia. Does it really have a profound effect on modern political life--or I should say, does it have a REAL effect beyond lip service? Why for instance do we settle for ghettos and poor people going to jail and insufficient schooling when we could concentrate on ameliorating those problems? It seems to me in modern political discourse even to pose those and like questions is to commit an act of dismissable naivete.

heh, heh, I chose to do my english dissertation on dystopian novels. Hey, I really like them, though I can see why they might annoy people.
Sorry, Farber's book of Utopia is a collection of Utopian writing throughout history, from an early egyptian island to scientific extremists thoughts. It's really good. In the UK, anyway, utopian thought was very strong within the early Trade Union movement - even using communal funds to send off workers to create utopian colonies abroad. Marx may have decided he wasn't Utopian, but I think it's fairly clear he was, and Marxism was the most important force of last century. The Labour Party, in power in the UK (are you US, or not?) is an allegedly socialist party, of the Fabian persuasion, so there is this idea in our politics (and in the world view at the moment, because of the ideology of science) that we are on a slow path to utopia, that one day science will overcome all ills - presumably while leaving a class structure in place. But I think a great deal of people are trying to improve the lives of the poor, even if the system isn't interested in it. I don't think the goals of Utopia and those of capitalism go hand in hand.

I am an American. My impression of what we think over here of Utopian thought is that it is an insufficient response to the messy totality of human nature. We want to be mean, we even need to be mean, to have fun--and how could we have cowboys and Indians and gangstas and cops in a nice Utopia? Neither of our major parties deploy Utopian rhetoric, and when a guy like Ralph Nader tries to run for president, well, we're seeing what happens. For example in Rolling Stone magazine social expert Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead calls Nader "the most egotistical man I've ever met." Not that I'm pro- or anti-Nader (or would seriously defend his utopianism against an informed critique). I would defend the contention that we value a screw or be screwed dichotomy over what in comparison is characterized as utopian principles, adhering to which (*of course*) would get you screwed by the screwers.

Pardon--in the final sentence, "are" not "is" "characterixed as utopian principles . . . ."

I remember once talking to a friend's father, who was a reverand, about war. We were discussing the (I put it) Christian's duty to be a pacifist. When I mentioned that I was a pacifist he said that peace sounded nice, but where would be the room for heroism? That annoyed me, and fits in with you cops and robbers thing.

Human nature comes up a lot in Utopian thought, and they besically disgaree with the conservative viewpoint - human nature is unchangable. Utopians believe human's are perfectable, or already perfect but corrupted by the society we live in. And there is another form which works just by removing bones of contention. "men fight over women? Ok, we'll make sexual familiarity a social posession". Kind of thing. I do believe in a perfecatble, or a much improvable form of human nature, taking nurture to be the highest force in shping man.

You need to remember that Utopian can be used as a pejorative against people with radical or impractical ideas - I think this is what has happened to Nader - I don't believe he is a Utopian in any real sense; has he ever claimed to be?

I don't think Nader is a utopian. But he IS an asshole!

WHo are you talking about, Lysander? You? Your friends? Do you know how many people in Chicago work full-time on community and social projects in the Near West Side alone?? I'm not sure who calls these people "naive," either, give me a break. "Modern political discourse" is stuffed to the gills with solemn promises to help America's working families, blah blah. Maybe you're talking more about modern economic discourse. In any case, there are people who actually do things. Read a Studs Terkel column sometime. Or take a walk outside, you know, onto the street. Where people are. When you find these people, talk to them. Remind yourself of the way humans behave. Learn about what's actually going on instead of blaming everyone else for "settling" for things that actually you are settling for. The people who are working to improve their communities aren't going to come knocking at your door to explain everything to you!!@ You've constructed this weird world here that doesn't bear any resemblance to the one I know. Working to reduce poverty, increase literacy, get people off drugs, etc isn't "utopian" in any way that I understand the word, it's just what some people do, with part of their lives. It's right there. You can take ahold of it if you want. But to me, "utopian" is more like what Perle and Wolfowitz and Cheney are doing in Iraq. There are some profound fucking effects on modern political life from that one. Or flying cars. Flying cars across sand dunes in Mesopotamia.

I'm speaking from my experience, in which people who devote their energies to helping others unfortunately are at a premium. But maybe I do have a unique experience and just outside the places I live everyone's lending a helping hand. But I don't think that's the case, and in fact makes the efforts of your Chicago people all the more remarkable. I would call the efforts of Cheney & Co. dystopian.

An interesting aspect of the Christian perspective, or at least certain Christian perspectives, is the whole deferment of paradise until after death. Heroism and the rest in this life to be earned fighting wars for rich people--bunk.

Speaking of Iraq - I think the 'coalition' should do what any other invader has done for the past thousand years - commission a temple! Un this case a mosque. (Okay, all my ideas about diplomacy come from 'Civilisation'). They should build the biggest, grandest, most breath-taking Mosque the world has ever seen, build it in Baghdad. That would be cool.

That would probably be beyond their greedy little viewpoints, too. Why build a temple to *another* god when you can build an office building for oil people?

"If i was governing Jews I would rebuild the temple of Solomon" - Napoleon

Yeah, but it might stop people blowing stuff up, so Bush can say he won Iraq, and have four more years of access to the open register.

x-post Yes, well.

Maybe the problem with Utopian discussions is how easily Utopianist can seem not just naive but dumb, i.e., my oil people comment.

They really believe they can bring market-driven economies to the Middle East on the back of a tank. They actually think they can do that. And I think they really believe deep down that it's the right thing to do, and that history will thank them for it. What's dystopian about that?

You haven't seemed naive or dumb. There was a good Utopian Novel in the 19th century (I think) called 'the revolt of man'. In it a man travels to another 'dimension' type thing, where women run everything. The house of commons keeps turning into fights, with the members pulling each others hair and crying. They've turned industries over to making perfume and such, so people are starving. Eventually they beg the traveller how to return things to the way they are supposed to be, so the men have a bloodless revolution and sort it out. Pretty funny.

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What's Utopian about it? In the idealistic sense I mean. What's dystopian about it is the underlying belief that a shotgun, top-down reconstruction of a culture, to make it more conducive to a market-driven outlook, could ever improve it. I'm conflating Utopianism with Marxism here and totalizing capitalism with dystopianism, sort of.

Kevin, have you read much William Morris?

"Kevin, have you read much William Morris?"

A bit - I'm a member of the Scottish Socialist Party - I don't think they let you in if you haven't read something. Mostly I have read his poetry - Earthly Paradise might be the only of his novels I've read. Some friends of mine did a production of 'the table has turned'.

I've only ever read some of his poetry, from his first collection, and a few of his later fantasy epics, though I couldn't get through The Well at the World's End. I've wondered how his philosophical socialist writings are, Romantic like Blake and Shelley, as his fantastic aesthetic suggests, or more along the lines of John Stuart Mill.

Unfotunately he's a bit more 'steel and soot' than 'hill and brook', but that's good if you like that stuff, as I do.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/index.htm

This place has a lot, if not most of his political writings. It's a cool site.