“Plato’s Republic and More’s Utopia paint elaborate pictures of life in utopia but share with Marx the presumption that in the absence of conflicts of material interest, administration will be necessary, but politics will not” (2012: 771, original emphasis). Any examination of utopian political thought must address the clear tension between politics and anti-politics.
Jameson says that “utopia is either too political or not political enough.” He claims that “in utopia politics is supposed to be over, along with History, Factionalism, parties, subgroups, special interests … the one thing that cannot be challenged or changed is the system itself.” But, and perhaps paradoxically, utopias often feature “eternal squabbling and bickering … never ending debates and discussions … interminable airing of differences” (2004: 42–3). Utopian thought is hyperpolitical and anti-political. This is not a particularly original observation, but it is one that should always be kept in mind. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed focuses attention on this paradox. Anarres is at once anarchist and organized, lacking an “official” political structure but riven by power struggles. No space can be walled off and declared free of conflict. Unless a utopia is a benevolent dictatorship, such as Plato’s Callipolis (“beautiful city”) in Republic, or, like More’s Utopia, it takes extreme measures to ensure that political debate is curtailed, there will be discussion and disagreement about its management. The expectation of most utopian authors seems to be that the inherent goodness of the community will be self-evident to its citizens. This will serve to limit contestation to relatively minor matters or technical questions of administration. But Jameson’s main point is clearly correct: we should expect that utopian politics will narrow and become focused on administration while simultaneously insinuating itself into all aspects of life.
Whether political or anti-political, utopia must be plausible. Magical powers or the actions of benign aliens that lead to the creation of a perfected society belong to the realm of fantasy. Utopian plans may push the limits of the possible, but they must be real enough to be seen as plausible within their own context. Utopian thought and action are the products of actual human beings, not gods or superheroes.
Are Utopia and Utopian Political Thought Western Manifestations?
Kumar emphatically states that “the modern utopia – the modern western utopia invented in the Europe of the Renaissance – is the only utopia” (1987: 3). Sargent disagrees and claims that utopianism, defined as social dreaming, is a universal human phenomenon (1994: 19). Dreams of an earthly paradise, of places of plenty and of justice, appear across all cultures. A crucial difference between Western and non-Western visions of utopia, Sargent suggests, lies in the fact that non-Christian traditions lack the fundamental break represented by the Fall in the Garden of Eden and the idea that the Fall taints all humanity with original sin (2010: 68). In many ways, the debate over whether or not utopia and utopian political thought are products solely of the West turns on how one defines a set of terms. But what Sargent called “social dreaming,” the “desire for a better way of being in the world,” is universal (Dutton 2010: 250).
Recognizably utopian ideas can be seen in various forms of Chinese thought that stress the creation of harmonious societies. They can also be seen in anti-colonial liberation movements, particularly those of Gandhi in India, and in many African independence struggles, that sought new forms of social, economic and political life uninfluenced by the colonizing power. Some of these movements might be understood as retrotopian, since many of them stressed the restoration of a time before European imperialism disrupted traditional indigenous ways of life.
In this book I focus on Western thought about utopia. I do so for several reasons, the quality and persuasiveness of which the reader is free to judge for herself. First, the main development of utopian political thought has been in those places commonly identified with “the West.” If students want to develop an understanding of the main tendencies of this tradition of inquiry and activism, they will need to examine its key exponents, from Plato to More to the present. Second, while utopian aspirations are universal, the systematic articulation of utopian political thought begins with Western sources. Third, I expect that the students who use this book will be concentrated mainly in the English-speaking world. An understanding of the ideas that are foundational to one’s own context is absolutely necessary before trying to grasp the beliefs and dreams of people from other cultures. This statement should not be taken to mean that a student will judge other traditions solely in light of their own. It should be taken to mean that students will be better able to develop necessary critical tools and methods in an idiom that is familiar to them. They will then be able to move on to the much more challenging task of understanding ideas outside their own cultural context.
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