Utopias

 

"The Utopians therefore regard the enjoyment of life – that is, pleasure – as the natural object of all human efforts, and natural, as they define it, is synonymous with virtuous. " Thomas More in Utopia.

"Utopias all share one thing in common, " boomed Mr. Fitzsimmons. "They are infernally boring."

I was a junior in high school and clearly must have been in Utopia as the lecture itself was infernally boring. Still, sixteen years later, I remember that argument. If one believes strongly in a world of conflict, then a Utopia must be boring. If on the other hand, one looks for something else, then maybe they aren't so boring after all. But are they ideal? Or possible?

I liked reading Utopia when I was 16. In fact, on my personal mission to disprove the dullness of Utopias, I read Bacon's New Atlantis, and Gulliver's Travels and tried to tie together some notion of an ideal world coming out of a people who knew their world was too riddled with corruption. No one was ever proposing to design these worlds, they were only commenting on their own. Later, when I followed in the footsteps of the curmudgeony Fitz, I found the questions of Utopias to be one of the core themes of British Literature and it was possible to see the changing worldview of the inhabitants of that little island by reading Utopian literature.

The Utopia unit began the school year. There is nothing more disarming to high school students than to be greeted by a pile of play doh mixed with various bits and pieces found in my junk drawers and being told that they should create their own world universe and then provide a society for their little creations. I offered that lesson for eight years often four or five times a day and never once did I see a repeat of the same little world. From Penguania to worlds built out of dried spaghetti which resembled Flatland in more than just appearance, I never ceased to be amazed by the powerful creative forces that lived inside of my students.

When we went on to read Utopia or Gulliver, it seemed that each member of the class could relate to that feeling of having an idea and wanting to see it come to life. Our ideas never seem to come from a void, they are both a reaction to the world around us and to the materials with which we have been given to build.

Recently, visiting Egypt, it was so easy to see why they chose to build pyramids – the land formations all over southern Egypt are natural pyramids and it is a logical step to go from the natural to the constructed. We read More and Swift (even invented toys that would never be marketed, like "Squeeze and Pee" Gulliver), then looked at the effect of Darwin and the rising Industrial Age by reading Wells and Huxley. Everyone read a supplemental Utopian novel and there were no shortage of choices – from contemporary ecological science fictions like Callenbach's Ecotopia to Voltaire's Candide. We ended by reading the Unabomber's manifesto (which read like it had been cribbed from Huxley) and then Golding's Lord of the Flies. Some people even did the winter break reading and read Heart of Darkness. Most opted to fail the test instead. As Herbert Kohl, the educational theorist calls it – they were exercising their right to creative maladjustment by choosing to fail as a social statement. Ironically, some of those same students wrote the best papers of their academic careers in college on that very book! (ahem, Heather…)

What was important to me was that studying Utopias and Dystopias raised the question of what are our ideals for the world and then forced us to ask some important philosophical questions as to the ways people form societies or treat each other. Since my interest in Road Scholars is very much about building a community, I thought a day on Utopias would be a perfect opportunity to explore some of those questions. Luckily, in the fall of 2000, the New York Public Library put on a huge exhibit on that very topic.

The first time I went to see the exhibit, Jon had met me for lunch. I had been preparing for a course on science and spirituality for graduate school and I was having a terrible time writing my paper. It seemed that everything applied and that many of the issues that arose in Utopian literature were also questions about that intersection between science and spirit. A few weeks later, I met Brett and Jon for lunch to discuss ideal worlds. Jon, who was deep into his studies of local plants and birds was taking a Thoreauvian path and was seeing the wonder in that little patch in the back yard (or Union Square park). Brett was working on a film which involved a character who left earth because he didn't see how things could change here. I remember the three of us drawing our views of the world on the paper tabletop at our Indian restaurant. When the waiter wadded up the paper as we left, Brett looked back and laughed, "There goes the universe." Indeed!

I was eager to see everyone. It was the day after Thanksgiving and Manhattan was bursting with tourists. Playing on the steps of the library while we waited for people to arrive, we decided that one of our missions for the day would be to see into how many people's pictures we could be…I still wonder what the group of tourists who were taking pictures under the lions thought when they got home and realized that there were people climbing over the tops of the lions just to be in their pictures! No question that the members of this group leave their mark. Julie went on a walkie-talkie mission and had a wonderful time asking people in front of the library if they could point out some lions to her. In an ideal world there is much humor, of that I am sure.

It was a day for family, too. Julie and Jenny, Hiroko and Miwako, and the rest of us filled with stories about our family gatherings. Jesse had just been to a 12 tribes gathering in upstate New York, so he had the stories of an intentional utopian community to share with us. It was a good gathering and we cheerfully entered into the New York Public Library where we had to spend time divesting ourselves of jackets and hats, cell phones and pagers. Visiting ideal worlds don't require passports, but they do seem to require that we leave a lot of our world behind.

In the entrance to the exhibit we talked about More, and the idea of Utopias. I was so pleased to remember that people who had been my students still remembered that More wore a hair shirt and was known as a self-flagellator. Good to know that some things stick. I began to talk about the context into which Utopia was written – the idea that it was both "eutopia" – a happy place and "utopia" – no place when all of a sudden I realized that a small crowd was forming. Good god, these other people thought I was the tour guide! I quickly gave up my English teacher voice, told everyone to scatter, and made room for the disapproving librarian who came in to give the "real" tour. We all noted that there was no mention of hair shirts, flagellation, or even merciful beheadings, although she of course mentioned canonization. Bah.

Library exhibits are interesting because they are mostly books under glass. To me, the pleasure of a book is often in the ability to turn the pages, so I felt a little stifled by the trapped manuscripts. I would have liked to have touched the pages, felt the vellum and seen the way the hand written manuscripts made such creative use of space in a way we, bounded by the limits of the type media, have trouble doing.

In small groups we walked and talked. Looking into early illuminated Bibles, Heather talked about the notion of Paradise being in the afterlife – what does that say about how one behaves in this life? We talked about the belief in attaining enlightenment, versus the belief in a heaven (it is always helpful to have a couple of folks who study religion in our group! Thank you, Hiroko…). We talk about possibility and about what these books say about the times in which they were created, about the times we have now. I ask them where we find images of Utopias in our own world. It gets very quiet, so we go to look at drawings from the first editions of Utopia and Gulliver. As a recovering English teacher, I feel a twinge of validation as all of the books which I used to offer in the reading section of my Utopias course are represented, but even the New York Public Library did not think to include the Unabomber's Manifesto.

Upstairs there is a long hall devoted to images of Utopias in the modern world. We look at album covers from the 1960s and protest posters. We stare into the photos from Jonestown and Waco ( I realize that I am feeling much older than everyone else in the group when I talk about remembering Jonestown and how, at the height of my Kool Aid drinking, the kids in our neighborhood gave up Kool Aid in some kind of strange association with the pictures of the dead children.) Robots and films, Julie, Hiroko, and I talk for a long time about how does one find a middle ground in this world of so much technology and sometimes so little humanity. We talk about medicine – things considered advances, things which have ramifications we might not be able to understand now. What will they come to mean?

Walking through the cases which have the writings of some of the seminal voices of the 1960s, I remember the conversation Jon and I had shared when we were there. He wanted to know why there were always people who, following the visionaries, became the people who turned beautiful visions into rigid dogmas. He understood clearly the path of the visionary, but it was the question of why the acolytes of visionaries often became the very people who destroyed those images which worried him. It was one of my questions, too and I was so pleased to be able to put it out to the group and ask the inevitable, "Why do these things happen?"

We could talk about the image of the 60s and the realities; talk about Huxley and whether or not our world was becoming what he had predicted. Why had Huxley been more correct than Orwell? In discussion some of us believed in the potential in humanity, and yet there was no sense of wanting to start something new. Was this the result of an education steeped in cynicism?

All of that thinking always builds up a good appetite, so we decided to go on a food mission. Heather had yet another run in with the Felicitous guy, which led to some more questions about those ideal worlds! Many of us had tickets to see Ellis Paul, so we thought a trip down to the Village for dinner would be a good choice. Our merry band lost a few folks in transition so we were down to a one-table sized group which was just right.

Finding a great Thai restaurant (thanks to Julian and Hiroko), we settled into a good conversation. We were quite a mixture of social and political stances which always makes for a rich discussion. Jesse had just come from his retreat with the 12 Tribes and he told us about their warmth and acceptance, clearly explaining their beliefs and behaviors. I loved the combined strength of experience in our group which allowed us to talk about communities in which we have all participated – whether camps, or traveling in groups, being part of an intentional community, or being proud to not participate – if there were ever a lesson of the strength found in diversity, I think I felt it most strongly at our utopian dinner table. What are the purposes of Utopias? Are they possible today? Have they ever been possible? What do they mean? Can someone pass the Pad Thai? Who ordered the Thai ice tea? Is that your beer?

When my father was still alive, I used to host Thanksgiving dinners. My friends from college would drive the 12 hours from Ann Arbor to come to New Jersey to sit around a table which was a mixture of friends and family, people weaving in and out of past, present, and future. Gathered around our table at the Thai village reminded me of that same feeling – the warmth of people who genuinely enjoy each other's company, the quick exchange of ideas, good food, a large helping of laughter. How else could we go from talking about ideal worlds to trying to figure out what our names would be if we were exotic dancers? (First pet's name + street address name = exotic dancer name? Hello, I'm Friskie Florence…yikes!)

Julian invited us back to his apartment while we waited for the doors to open to the Bottom Line. He is a generous host and it felt good to be in an apartment filled with philosophy books and hats and comfy sofas that seem to absorb people completely. I am always interested to hear the conversation about how people in the group feel about the education that goes on at their Universities. One of my favorite parts of Utopia was that More believed that people, if given free time and free reign, would spent much of their leisure time learning. He wrote:

" In Utopia they have a six-hour working day three hours in the morning, then lunch – then a two-hour break – then three more hours in the afternoon followed by supper…All of the rest of the twenty-four hours they're free to do what they like – not to waste their time in idleness or self-indulgence, but to make good use of it in some congenial activity. Most people spend these free periods on further education, for there are public lectures first thing every morning."

I always credited that belief to More's understanding of the inherent inquisitiveness of people. Thoreau complained of so many people leading lives of "quiet desperation." Listening to the people in our small group talking in Julian's apartment, I would say that More was more accurate of this group, but when I heard them talk of their social frustrations with the attitudes which seemed to dominate the social environments of their schools it seemed Thoreau was right and that Huxley's soma, or it's modern equivalents were certainly alive and well. I always feel grateful to know these wonderful people as it is such a pleasure to be among folks who question and think.

We play in the street on the way to the concert. There is something magical about this early winter night and we are laughing at each other in the streets – catching snippets of conversation as our group walk in pairs, conversations coming and going up the block.

We get to the Bottom Line and settle into a collection of seats. We had seen Ellis Paul in October and I had interviewed him in August. Going to concerts in the city was common practice for me, but it was a real pleasure to see people taking in the setting, commenting that they weren't sure they'd be able to get in since they weren't 21. It hadn't even dawned on me that it would matter.

Lucy Kaplansky was the first act. I have never particularly liked her in person, although I love her singing voice. I was curious to see what the reactions to her would be. In the same way that Christopher Williams had brought together so much of what we had talked about in Massachusetts when he had opened the show in October, Lucy seemed to crystallize so much of our discussion about our current world when she introduced a new song by telling a longwinded story about how " AOL, Amazon.com, Macintosh and technology brought my mother and me closer together." I am often struck by the" God Bless the Internet" invocations, but it was strange at a folk concert to hear what felt like a collection of product endorsements. The end of the story was about a moment of validation that Lucy felt when her mother was online and could buy a book off of Amazon. It felt like such a story of longing for relationship and instead it was translated into something Lenina would say in Brave New World. "I'm so glad I'm a Beta. Everything's better for Betas." Sigh.

It was a strange juxtaposition to hear that story followed by a performer who sang songs about the possibilities of angels in Manhattan and who asked his question of faith around the idea of "Did Galileo Pray?" In his own time, what did Galileo wonder about? Or More? Or any of us?

Five hundred years after Thomas More, I am in the town where he attended university. I see the same river, walk some of the same cobbled streets, and wonder about those questions of whether or not the happy place is no place. Like More, I am an optimist and I always believe that as long as we are creative beings, and as long as we are willing to continue to ask questions and to wonder and to ask even more questions, then it is as Votaire's Candide so blythely said, " The best of all possible worlds." (LVG)

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In response to HM:

I couldn't agree with you more on your assessment of Utopias, especially the part about not appreciating where you are because you are always yearning for something else. That attitude in general always makes me really sad and yet I know so many people who live that way...always waiting to get someplace and never actually appreciating where they really are. don't they all know that all seats provide equal viewing of the universe?

I'm glad that you're so vocal in class, defending your opinions even if they're contrary to what the majority think. It's real bravery to take on the status quo when you know that the values it espouses are suspect. Hope Dr. Sheeplover backs you in some of your theoretical arguments because you are right on that question of hope.

There are two kinds of hope. One hope is merely an expression of faith. To be filled with a sense of hope is to believe in the power of possibility. I'm all for that. The other one, the verb, to hope, generally gets you in trouble because you are looking for something that isn't here or at least isn't here and now…

I got up in the middle of the night to walk Jasper the whining dog (you may recall him from his last performance on top of Mt. Tammany...he does a lovely three a.m. windy night bark). Anyway, it was incredibly beautiful out - the sky was that funky purple color and the stars were so bright that they looked like christmas lights in the trees. I was kind of overwhelmed by how beautiful it all was...how quiet...(how unbelievable cold for a person without socks on) I seemed to have gotten all caught up in the busyness of my life these last few weeks and it was so nice to stop, pause, and remember where things are that matter. I went back to my old game today of living as if this were the only day and it made it so much more fun. I don't know if you've been caught up in the same whirlwind of late, but if you have, I hope you can find some place to just get a quiet pause or maybe time to play the one day of your life game. (LVG)