Utopianism

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In ourselves alone the absolute light keeps shining, a sigillum falsi et sui, mortis et vitae aeternae [false signal and signal of eternal life and death itself], and the fantastic move to it begins: to the external interpretation of the daydream, the cosmic manipulation of a concept that is utopian in principle." — Ernst Bloch a b Martha A. Bartter, The Utopian Fantastic, "Momutes", Robin Anne Reid, p. 101 ISBN 0-313-31635-X This is a list of utopian literature. A utopia is a community or society possessing highly desirable or perfect qualities. It is a common literary theme, especially in speculative fiction and science fiction.

Winston, David (November 1976). "Iambulus' Islands of the Sun and Hellenistic Literary Utopias". Science Fiction Studies. Neither author is blind to the shortcomings of his subject. Jennings is attuned to the latent “terror and repression” in the utopian project. Reece has a sharp eye for the contradictions of communities that condemn the capitalist economy but are sustained by vibrant commercial enterprises. The founders of these communities—a colorful cast of prophets, dreamers, and narcissists—preach against private property and possessions as they jealously guard their own. “One thing we can say about the seductive visionaries who led the utopian movement in America,” Reece notes dryly, “is that they did not lead the most self-examined lives.” However, utopianism is not specific to Anarchism, any ideology that seeks to create a perfect and harmonious society can be described as utopian. Socialism and more specifically Marxism are also utopian as within these ideologies we see an attempt to construct a model of what a perfect society is. This seems close to the perspective taken by Reece and by Jennings, and by at least some of their fellow-travellers on the new left. Jennings writes that “the mere contemplation of an ideal polis . . . is a civic act.” Reece approvingly quotes a man who tells him that utopia is “always a disappearing horizon.” In this view, utopia is “less a blueprint than a direction,” as a recent article in Jacobin put it. We live in unjust and uncertain times, utopia’s contemporary enthusiasts seem to be saying. Surely these nineteenth-century communities have much to teach us about daring to imagine alternatives, about interrupting what may seem like the ineluctable march of history. Bobonich, Chris; Meadows, Katherine (21 March 2013). "Plato on utopia". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Retrieved 9 December 2015.A Crystal Age (1887), by W.H. Hudson – An amateur ornithologist and botanist falls down a crevice, and wakes up centuries later, in a world where humans live in families, in harmony with each other and animals; but, where reproduction, emotions, and secondary sexual characteristics are repressed, except for the Alpha males and females. [26] Walden Two (1948) by B. F. Skinner – A community in which every aspect of living is put to rigorous scientific testing. A professor and his colleagues question the effectiveness of the community started by an eccentric man named T.E. Frazier. [ citation needed] Hypothetical utopias focus on, among other things, equality in categories such as economics, government and justice, with the method and structure of proposed implementation varying according to ideology. [2] Lyman Tower Sargent argues that the nature of a utopia is inherently contradictory because societies are not homogeneous and have desires which conflict and therefore cannot simultaneously be satisfied. To quote: Utopian Socialism". www.utopiaanddystopia.com. The Utopian Socialism Movement . Retrieved 14 May 2017. Marx, however, was aware that there are two kinds of starry-eyed idealist. There are those like the French 19th-century thinker Charles Fourier, who looked forward to a future in which the sea would turn into lemonade, and whose ideal social unit consisted of exactly 1,620 people. Then there is the other bunch of wild-eyed idealists who hold that the future will be pretty much like the present. Those with their heads truly in the clouds are the hard-headed pragmatists who seem to assume that Mars bars and the International Monetary Fund will still be with us in 500 year’s time. Our system is run by a set of dreamers who call themselves realists. To expect the future to be different is not of course to maintain that it will be better. It might be a great deal worse. The point is that history is malleable enough for us to choose. No sooner had the political theorists of the 1990s proclaimed that history was at an end than two aircraft slammed into the World Trade Center, and a whole new historical narrative began to unfold. History may not have been improved by this development, but it certainly didn’t stand still.

In 1905, H.G. Wells published A Modern Utopia, which was widely read and admired and provoked much discussion. Also consider Eric Frank Russell's book The Great Explosion (1963), the last section of which details an economic and social utopia. This forms the first mention of the idea of Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS).Pinheiro, Marilia P. Futre. (2006). Utopia and Utopias: a Study on a Literary Genre in Antiquity. In Authors, Authority and Interpreters in the Ancient Novel. Groningen: Barkhuis. (pp. 147–171). ISBN 907792213X. Oneida, and especially the manner of its ending, is worth revisiting. Reece and Jennings largely cover the period from its founding until its incorporation, in 1880, but the story doesn’t actually end there. A fuller treatment of Oneida’s history, stretching over more than a century, can be found in another recent book, “Oneida: From Free-Love Utopia to the Well-Set Table,” by Ellen Wayland-Smith, who also happens to be a descendant of Noyes. (Owing to the community’s principled promiscuity, he had many descendants.)

Noah Berlatsky, "Imagine There's No Gender: The Long History of Feminist Utopian Literature," The Atlantic, April 15, 2013. https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/04/imagine-theres-no-gender-the-long-history-of-feminist-utopian-literature/274993/ a b c Tierney, Helen (1999). Women's Studies Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 1442. ISBN 978-0-313-31073-7. There is nothing like a dream to create the future. Utopia to-day, flesh and blood tomorrow." — Victor Hugo The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993) by Starhawk – A post-apocalyptic novel depicting two societies, one a sustainable economy based on social justice, and its neighbor, a militaristic and intolerant theocracy. [ citation needed]

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There are many examples of techno-dystopias portrayed in mainstream culture, such as the classics Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four, often published as "1984", which have explored some of these topics. a b Longxi, Zhang (2005). Allegoresis: Reading Canonical Literature East and West. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. p.182. ISBN 978-0-8014-4369-5.