Utopia — The Dream Nightmare

Written by Anusha YG

Picture this: You’re the creator of a universe. It’s a regular day of your job, but today you have the most important task of all: creating a species. It doesn’t have to be a human species, just beings with intelligence and consciousness, which can further the society you build for them.

So, you begin. You carefully choose habitable terrains, chemical balances are made, acids neutralized, weather reports pored over multiple times — you know the drill. You map out the road of their evolution (they can’t start out all mighty and strong, duh) when you suddenly hit a roadblock.

Society.

Image from YouTube video ‘history of the entire world, i guess’ by YouTuber Bill Wurtz.

How is society supposed to look for them? Do you carefully plan out the societal development for them and leave it in their hands? There are so many types of society too, so maybe you decide to do some research first. It’s at this point that you discover there is a certain popular idea humans seem to be fond of — the utopian society.

You’re a being of research, after all. Looking up utopia gives you the following result:

Dictionary definition of Utopia, taken from Oxford Languages.

Hmm, while Thomas More might have meant that when he coined the term in 1516, that definition is a bit too short to suit your tastes. Moreover, you’re pretty sure More was being satirical when he coined the term as a dig on the then political parties. Fortunately, there’s a whole list of characteristics to be considered to classify a society as utopian:

• Peaceful governance
• Equality for citizens
• A safe environment to live in
• Healthcare and employment for all

To cut to the chase, a perfect society is what it means to be utopian.

But here’s this problem, a problem that would definitely present itself at some time, if not at the start, and that’s this: people don’t really like to be told what to do. Sure, you could just force authority on them for it, but do you really want to do that? Feels a bit icky, you think, so push that thought away from your mind.

But the problem doesn’t vanish. You feel a headache forming at the back of your head. Of course, you can’t just impose something totally on a species. There will always be someone who doesn’t want it and someone who will spark a butterfly effect series of events against it. There is no ‘perfect’ society for an imperfect species; all that can be possible are near ideal versions of the same. Utopias are thus especially likely to crumble when collective ownership, authoritarian rule, and communal work collide with an individual’s expression and personality. This, complete with differences in ability and interests, make a utopia a perfect recipe to be burnt at the stove.

The Giver by Lois Lowry depicts a seemingly utopian society that slowly unravels itself to be more sinister than it is, as we follow 12 — year old Jonas, who is set to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory. The Community follows ‘Sameness,’ where all color, memory, climate, terrain, etc., are lacking so as to preserve structure, order, and a true sense of equality. Image from IMDB.

The headache at the back of your head grows and has reached your temples. You rub your temples absentmindedly while clicking on some more links. Surely there must’ve been some studies done, some thought experiments or the like, that must’ve held fruition.

Ah ha, very handily there’s a small number of cities who have tried to be planned utopias, so you waste no time and read about them.

Auroville, in India, seems to be a popular one. Established in 1968 by a woman named Mira Alfassas (now called the Mother), Auroville is a city that notes, “Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future”.

An overhead view of Auroville in Tamil Nadu. While the Government of India has a share in the town, the major share lies with the residents, who take care of everything. Residents also make use of ‘aurocards’ instead of cash and are expected to contribute to the town. Image from Anadolu Agency.

At present, Auroville seems to be functioning well, albeit with some crime allegations here and there, with some creepiness mixed in for garnish. Interesting, you think. There are some other cities mentioned as well, so you quickly read through them.

And of course, literature is filled with visions for utopia everywhere. Thomas Moore aside, Plato (it’s always Plato, the guy’s everywhere) had envisioned an ideal city — Kallipolis — which hugely backfired in pushing the ideas of a utopian society due to its totalitarian nature.

As such, every and any attempt to attain utopia ends up in setting up the other side of the coin — dystopia. Heck, there are so many utopian dystopias imagined — from the Hunger Games to the Giver to Omelas — that it makes your mind reel.

‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’ is a 1973 work of short philosophical fiction by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. With deliberately both vague and vivid descriptions, the narrator depicts a summer festival in the utopian city of Omelas, whose prosperity as ‘the perfect city’ depends on the perpetual misery of a single child. Image visualizing Omelas by artist and author Andrew DeGraff in the book ‘ Plotted: A Literary Atlas.’

Why even call it a perfect world when it’s not? You grumble as you search for other alternatives, something to replace utopia while ignoring the increasing urge to procrastinate. It does not take long for you to find one of the alternatives, a protopia, a society that takes incremental steps towards improvement and not perfection.

A stack of resources similar in size to the ones you read for utopia loom at the table. With a sigh, you pick up your cup of tea (you’ll end up drinking three more) and get back to work.

Sources :

• Thomas Moore’s invention of Utopia: From thought experiment to manifesto | Critical Utopias.
• Seven planned Utopian Cities that you can visit today | Smithsonian Magazine.
• Auroville: India’s famed Utopian community struggles with crime and corruption | Slate.
• Plato’s Utopia and why you don’t want to live there | Big Think.