The Mutopian Manifesto

The way we talk about the future is broken.

Dystopian fiction has dominated the landscape of our collective imagination, especially over the last twenty-five years. The most widely recognized sci-fi depicts worlds where technology is primarily used for surveillance and suppression, worlds dreamed up decades ago as cautionary tales of authoritarianism or cyberpunk adventures. As our ability to produce these technologies accelerates, these stories cease to be futuristic and become reflections of our present-day lived experiences.

In the very recent past, the idea of a globally connected supercomputer was confined to the realm of science fantasy; we now carry them in our pockets and bags, transmitting words and images around the globe instantly, as a matter of routine. We can tell our stories, as individuals and as communities, with unprecedented ease and reach. These narratives are non-fictional but the language and structure of social media encourages the curation of truth and the sharing of an individual’s day-to-day life as a Story in and of itself. The internet is a record of happenings but is also a record of the transformations these happenings can undergo as people attempt to distort them or assimilate them into a chosen narrative. On top of this, there is a constantly updating feed of news and current events, accessible to anyone with an internet connection or television; political minutiae and civil unrest can be monitored by the minute and every week, there is a new report or scientific paper released that shows us an approaching century of profound environmental disruption. This is the present from which we are supposed to create a future.

In the face of this wave of information and confusion, we often reach for narratives that feel familiar and comforting. Nostalgia is a powerful sensation; it’s no wonder we find ourselves watching reboot after reboot. These types of stories, both dystopian futures and the remaking of well-known plots and characters, have value. They can act as coping mechanisms, using abstraction and the distance of the page or screen to articulate how we feel about living in a world that is changing faster than we can process. Sometimes they bring catharsis; when we see or read tales of people standing up against a familiar injustice, it can inspire us to make changes in our own lives and to be brave in the face of uncertainty. Escapism has its uses and its joys. But recent sci-fi narratives rarely seem to go beyond this. We never get to see a future on the other side of revolution, a future worth fighting for. Where is the joy in our future?

Perhaps more so than any generation before, the people alive today are well-equipped to understand the power a narrative has to shape action. Thanks to technological advancement and increased literacy, we now absorb more information in a week than people centuries earlier may have encountered in their lifetimes. This is both a blessing of connectivity and a curse of overstimulation. The stories we have the ability to tell each other now can buoy us up and unify us in a cry for justice and solidarity. Equally, they can bombard and numb us with visions of pain, leaving us baffled as to who and what needs our support most urgently.

What we are absorbing from the stories we create, in a broad sense, is two-fold: first, worthwhile ideas must come from the past; and second, the future will be grim. In fiction, we remake and recycle and reboot so often that we are subconsciously telling ourselves that not only is the past worth repeating, but if we just make a few superficial adjustments, it’ll be even better the second or third time around. The reach of our repetitive storytelling bleeds into all other aspects of our lives, disempowering us from envisioning anything beyond what we already know. Examining history to learn from our ancestors and understand our present moment is necessary but the knowledge gained in that examination would ideally guide us away from the well-trod ground of our past mistakes. We have the benefit of hindsight but are refusing to use it to its full potential. As the line between fiction and reality continues to blur, the saturation of dystopian fiction, paired with both the sheer volume of media we consume and the lack of a visible positive counterpoint, gives us a vision of the 21st century that is as bleak as it is lopsided.

So how can we interrupt this narrative holding pattern?

We can begin by asking ourselves what would the world look like if:

• the act of migration was viewed as natural to humans as it is to birds or whales? What walls would crumble if the militarized enforcement of borders didn’t exist?
• governments meaningfully reckoned with both the past and ongoing damage of colonialism? How could we heal each other by ridding ourselves of the racist structures upheld by colonial mentality?
• people were no longer punished, excluded, and murdered for exploring and expressing their gender or sexuality? What knowledge of ourselves could blossom if we weren’t attempting to enact arbitrary roles that have very little attachment to sex/gender and policing those who transgress these imaginary boundaries?
• renewable energy and sustainable technology/practices were built into the infrastructure to suit the needs of both cities and rural communities to address the challenges of our dramatically changing climate? How could this be made available for all people? In what ways would green infrastructure improve jobs, quality of life, and mobility? How would this affect the use of land for agriculture or the aesthetic harmony of the home? How could we use it to create stronger connections within neighborhoods and across continents?
• weapons of mass death and Mutually Assured Destruction were ghastly concepts of the past and not agents of trauma fueling domestic and foreign policy across the planet?
• all spaces, both public and private, were meaningfully and compassionately accessible to Deaf people, to blind people or those with limited sight, to people who make use of a wide variety of mobility aides, to anyone disabled? How would schools, workplaces, restaurants, public transport, etc feel if everyone was able to use them and interact in these spaces together? What new uses of space, of sound, of texture, of structure would emerge if we committed to treating everyone who enters a room with care and dignity?
• money was no longer a barrier between people and the food, shelter, and care necessary to live a fulfilling life? What if people were not measured by what they can produce but instead viewed as whole in their own right, with innate value beyond money or productivity?

Obviously, these questions have no concrete answers but are basic stepping stones into examining the conditions we have been told are immutable in our world. The societies we live in are the products of our collective priorities. The future of our planet is not a tangible point we will eventually reach; the future is built, second by second, upon the consequences of our actions, our inaction, and the stories we tell ourselves about both these things. Dystopia is the language of our present and is seemingly the only language being given to us to shape our future. We want to walk the walk but talking the talk is impossible without the necessary tools. We can’t live in a future we don’t have the words to fully describe.

How about Utopia? This is the word most would use to describe any of the hypothetical worlds mentioned above. Yet, the word utopia is not doing the work, linguistically, that is necessary to help us get to a place that is better; it is vague, hollow, and formless. Utopia literally means “no place” and we wonder why we are left directionless and yearning when we try to walk toward its horizon. Utopia is not the antidote to dystopia. If dystopia is a miasma of hopelessness settling over the organism of our earth, utopia is the void left in the lungs when we try to empty them of the poison. We need language to outline not just the future we strive towards but the way in which we strive for it. We need a word, a whole vocabulary, to describe the air that tastes of freedom.

So, if dystopia feels like the inescapable outcome of the path we’re on and utopia is simply no place at all, where can we go?

OPTOPIA (op “to choose, wish”) Futures chosen and worked towards, not just passively accepting the faults and shortcomings of the status quo. Hopeful striving, betterment, deliberate actions.

TRANSTOPIA (trans “through, across”) A place of overcoming struggle or division. Bridging and connecting, the exchange of ideas, working through and emerging anew.

CRETOPIA (cre “grow, rise, thrive, increase, augment, come to be”) A place of thriving people and environments. All is cared for. Balance and growth are key, deprivation is non-existent, sustenance is a priority.

MUTOPIA (mut “change, motion”) Societies and futures that are receptive and responsive instead of resistant when faced with inevitability of change/evolution/shifting needs. Finding one’s place in that reality with joy and fluidity/flexibility.

APERTOPIA (aper “open, uncover”) An antidote to myopic cynicism. An expansion of knowledge, an uncovering of possibilities. An opening of minds, hearts, borders.

What worlds can we conjure up by simply reframing the language we use to talk about our daily lives? What perspectives will help us uncover our most heartfelt and nourishing priorities? What can be built on these new foundations?

We can use these words to shift our habitual ways of crafting narratives, constructing characters and perspectives, and solving conflicts. A new vocabulary like this can aid us in imagining futures, both near and distant, that are unexpected and vibrant. These words, and others waiting to be dreamed up, can find a home not just in storytelling but in daily conversation and political organizing. I have had countless conversations with loved ones in the process of writing this manifesto and seen their yearning for exciting futures full of compassion, wonder, and adventure. I have witnessed conversations between strangers online expressing longing for a language to describe these possible futures and to communicate a unified vision of hope. We can use these words to assess our communities and our place within them with deliberate care. We can use these words to refocus our relationships to our planet, to each other, and to ourselves.

This is not a miracle cure. Every day panic, distress, and misinformation spread with the tap of a thumb. We all feel a real weight in our chests when confronted with the work that needs to be done. But language cannot be used only to manipulate, to commodify, to vilify and to other. We must meet these waves of deception, doublespeak, and fascist propaganda with the language of a compassionate, humane future. We are facing unprecedented change and we need to shape our narratives in ways that uplift and inspire us. If it feels hard to maintain hope, it is because our societies, the ways in which we learn to speak about our future and each other, encourage competition, segregation, detachment, and distrust. We must build communities where it is easier to trust than to fear. To do this, we need to encourage ourselves and others to imagine what those communities can look like. To do that, we can adopt a language of deliberate and fierce tenderness where care — for ourselves, each other, our planet, and the future we won’t be around to witness — is the natural consequence.

All of us, as people, as future ancestors, have the privilege to imagine worlds beyond our own and the responsibility to use our time on this planet tending seeds that others will be proud to harvest. We are stuck in place, with the drive to create something better hammering in our chests, with the language of past futures drying up on our tongues and steering us in circles.

We must expand our sense of what is possible with mutable, joyous fiction to lead the way.

We must dare ourselves to imagine a future as unfamiliar as it is radiant.