The Utopia Problem

A society that needs an enemy to bring it together can never be a society of peace.

…but then, ask yourself, do you even really want peace. As a society do you want the chaos and honesty that must come for peace to be achieved?

In this age of vast amounts of dystopian fiction, I’ve been thinking a bit about why that’s so apparent to envision (not easy to flesh out in a decent literary way, to be sure, but certainly fitting very nicely with current sensibilities toward the future). I’ve also been wondering about what it would be like to build a Utopia, one where the plot didn’t include finding out how it was secretly so corrupt but one where the struggle was based in how it’s actually hard to keep a good, honest, healthy society working. We’ve seen writers speculate about “Utopia” wherein all is serene and problem-free. It’s all feasts and fun and dare I say divine. It’s a half-cocked day-dream with old ideas of what’s good, I think. I also think it’s a false Utopia because it denies the humanity of the citizens. 

I want a damn good Human Utopia. I want discussion and problem-solving through intellectual struggle and debate. I want growth and change and mystery and confusion. I don’t want easy answers.

A Utopia shouldn’t be the death of the big questions, but the garden in which those seeds we call big questions grow into mighty mountains of trees with roots and branch all intertwined and reaching out in every burdensome and inconvenient direction. 

I want a Utopia not built upon the pax romana of intimidation or the drunken complacency of cake and circus. I want a Utopia where peace means the utter and constant tension of recognizing the complexity of the other. 

I want a human Utopia. 

But then perhaps Utopia would be the wrong word. 

Perhaps there’s not a right word for it. 

I want a place where there doesn’t need to be a right word for everything. 

I want a place where there actually can be.