Post-Utopia: The Long View

David Konstan

doi:10.3390/h10020065

Abstract

The present article is divided into three parts. The first discusses the nature of utopias and their hypothetical anti-type, dystopias, and also disaster scenarios that are sometimes assimilated to dystopias, with reference also to the idea of post-utopia. An argument is made for the continuity of the utopian impulse, even in an age when brutal wars and forms of oppression have caused many to lose faith in any form of collectivity. Representations of social breakdown and its apparent opposite, totalitarian rigidity, tend to privilege the very individualism that the utopian vision aspires to overcome. The second part looks at examples of each of these types drawn from classical Greek and Roman literature, with a view to seeing how utopias were conceived at a time before the emergence of the modern ideology of the pre-social self. Finally, the third part examines several stories from the collection A People’s Future of the United States which imagine life in the near future. While most illustrate the failure of confidence in the social that has encouraged the intuition that a utopian future is passé, one, it is suggested, reconceives the relation between the individual and the social in a way that points to the renewed possibility of the utopian.

Highlights

While most illustrate the failure of confidence in the social that has encouraged the intuition that a utopian future is passé, one, it is suggested, reconceives the relation between the individual and the social in a way that points to the renewed possibility of the utopian
I sketch the nature of utopias and their hypothetical anti-type, dystopias, as well as disaster scenarios, that is, representations of the total collapse of social order that are sometimes assimilated to dystopias or to post-utopian fictions
My argument takes the form of a defense of the social, and the continuity of the utopian impulse, even in an age when brutal wars and various forms of oppression have caused many to lose faith in any form of collectivity, for representations of social breakdown and its apparent opposite, totalitarian rigidity, tend to privilege the very kind of individualism that the utopian vision aspires to overcome

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. I look at examples of each of these types drawn from classical Greek and Roman literature, both the ecological catastrophe situation and the utopian systems that imagine maximum solidarity among citizens This glance at earlier visions of an ideal world is intended to see how utopias are conceived at a time before the emergence of the (Wenglinsky 2020); I dedicate this article to Marty Wenglinsky, a dear friend and unfailing source of wisdom. Today’s global capitalism bears little resemblance to the Athenian city-state or the imperial Roman republic Nor again is this the place to attempt a comprehensive typology of utopias and their negations, and to indicate to what extent modern categories are applicable to ancient forms. If it is true that one of the most characteristic features of the modern genre is absent in the ancient, we may be able to draw some lessons from the contrast as to the nature of utopias as such

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