Class Four - Utopia

Writing Class 08-11-17 # 4

Rick and Morty -> references. Because of these references they don’t go deep but fast. Because you already know the ‘back’ story. Conventions.

Notes on the radio show: Utopia -> Radio Show ABOUT:

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the concept of Utopia. Both the idea of, and the longing for a perfect society have been in our imagination for centuries, even millennia. Utopian dreams have driven fantasy, Fascism and fine feeling. Utopias, by definition, do not exist. The literal meaning of the Greek is “nowhere”. And yet, we are still enthralled by its allure. Why do some of us still believe in it - after the devastation wreaked this century by the utopian ideals that gave rise to Fascism and Communism? And what do utopias in fiction tell about the present - and even future?

Notes: John Carey, Dr Antony Craling…

Utopia means no place. Something in the future that is better than now. Thomas Moore Utopia = no place, was a sort of ironic. A good place more than no place. It’s idealised to start with.. The first realisable program that was not ideology was Plato’s Replubic. Eugenics, Rulers that are dedicated and non-selfish, than you produce new people within this, you have a better world. 
 We are because we always have been, question of utopian. Every individual looks for their way of personal utopia. Human society has always been looking for an utopian way. Best conditions for everyone in the society, are a minority. Most of the utopian ideals only worked for a small and privileged part of the society.

Writing utopias comes from our anxiety for death? Death is the ultimate anti-utopian (dystopian) thing. Eternal Youth = utopian? Utopia to whom? Utopian are very selective, just look at the heavens. Not only reject certain people (hell) but also watch the sufferings of these people. Some people will be cut down, and with planning this utopia you will have to think about this.

Simplicity of some utopians… Plato’s republic, a lot of people feel like that is a totalitarian state. Ruling, plucked out kids, etc. Slaves etc.. Do you think it was a template.. Why is practical utopian so totalitarian? There needs to be power to protect this equality. Top down authority VS Egalitarian: Lots of groups of people set up their little utopian. Especially united states. Small communities (communist) that set up their own little utopian. These are very non-authoritarian, very equal.

Ideals in kibbutz come close to utopia. For example; those who can work, work, but they all share. Think of Marx; ideal from everyone to everyone according to their needs. Problem; the teenagers want a Car and go to tell-aviv. The parents say it’s wrong, but denying it would be totalitarian. How to stop people from self-fulfilment.

Utopian desire an enormous sacrifice of the self to the whole…

He think that happens because the reality that we are presented with now; competition, conflict, etc. If you had a situation where there is no conflict for resources, then there wouldn’t be a problem. So that is what these communities promise; equality. 
That is not solution, utopia should extend more than these little communicates. Would be a world state, you can’t have Africa starving, then it wouldn’t be a utopian. England is already a utopia! Population exploded.. How are we in the future going to manage that? Wells; birth control.. Selective breeding. Birth control for an utopian future.

Self-defeating paradox in Plato’s Replubic. But we are in a utopian, and yet we aren’t happier. We are unhappier. Its post-darwin. It’s not institution or artefacts. Its in the mind of the human being, it’s in our genetics. It’s our relation to our human-nature. That’s why in the 20th century we see manipulation of this human-nature. Eugenics; How is human natures to be changed? Writer (Name?); We have some horrendous to that. Synthetic gene manipulation. No diseases; and job of choice. Is this utopian?

Bacteria will get back to us (future dystopia).

Crayonists are believing in a utopian future.

Cultivate your soul. Then it’s going to be about what make YOU happy. Fear in brave new world that unwashed take over society. Orwell; society’s become so controlling that you aren’t able to talk freely. Our ability to think will be stopped. Fearful in a lot of ways. Not utopian because of fear, but out of selfishness and equality. This is getting more and more pour.

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Gemeinschaft Gesellschaft; Gemeinschaft (German pronunciation: [ɡəˈmaɪnʃaft]) and Gesellschaft ([ɡəˈzɛlʃaft]), generally translated as "community and society", are categories which were used by the German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies in order to categorize social ties into two dichotomous sociological types which define each other. Max Weber, who is generally recognized as being a founding figure in sociology, also wrote extensively about the relationship between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. Weber wrote in direct response to Tönnies.[1]

Egalitarian society, how is it produced? If you just have the institution you get a bureaucracy. A lot of modern utopian writings are based on the Gemeinschaft en Gesellschaft principles.

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Radio show on modern Utopia's

BBC.co.uk; http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003k9fz Modern Utopias: Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the mad, bad world of modern utopias. "I want to gather together about twenty souls," wrote D H Lawrence in 1915, "and sail away from this world of war and squalor and find a little colony where there shall be no money but a sort of communism as necessaries of life go, and some real decency". Utopias were in the air in the first decades of the 20th century and the literature of the period abounds with worlds of imagined escape, feminist utopias, technological nightmares and rich imaginings of the world as it could or should become. Many of the societies that writers like H G Wells created were meant seriously, as signposts to a future that would seem horrific to us now, where the weak are eradicated and the strong prosper and procreate.What was it about that era that brought forward so many imagined futures? How did utopias become the dystopias of Brave New World and 1984, and why are writers so much less likely to create a Utopia now?With John Carey, Emeritus Professor of English Literature, Oxford University and editor of The Faber Book of Utopias; Steve Connor, Professor of Modern Literature at Birkbeck, University of London; Laura Marcus, Professor of English, University of Sussex.

Notes: There was a change; summing up: late 90’ centrury utopias are optimistic and egalitarian, beginning 20’s are pessimistic and exclusive. Marx, late 90’s: From each according to his ability to each according to his need. Edward Balleny; planned a state where there was no money, but everyone had a creditcard. Everyone had an equal share of the surplus, no matter what you conditions were. H.G. wells it changed; things that didn’t work; ruining of the planet (ecology) and the explosion of population. So he wanted to reduce the population. Moore; is egalitarian. All is the same. It’s the early 20 century that go away of that idea…

What is it in current society? It is the second wave of industrialisation, appearance of mass society (an offshoot of industrialism), masses were being to be understood as more than a lot of individuals stuck together. Late 1890’s notion about how there is a mass will, conscious of their own. New technology (not the one of the half 90 century) by the 1880’s technology’s become sensory, soft machines. Light bulbs, telephones etc. This gives also utopian idea. (Living underground with lightbulbs) So it became part of human. It became inside humans. 1990’s onwards, making the world but making people. -> Back to Euganics.

Ideology (end of the 18 centuary, system of believes). Becomes part of the understanding how they behave collectively instead of individually. Ideology produces (believes and feelings) ideas and sense (instead of being a side effect of being human).

All men in utopian writings etc.; New women writers of the early 90’s (maybe not official utopian). Not the idea of no place but of not yet. At this time; woman’s writing is a tragic sense that women’s desires and dreams are ahead of time. Herland: 1915; three young male adventurers. Discover a land entirely inhabited of woman. They have to explain how the society works. It’s totally utopian (no violence etc.) Virginia Wolve, androgynous utopia. Or being able to cross from one gender into another. Mar Pierces (?name) gender differences are non existence. Men have breast and can breastfeed children.

Virgin birth is possible. Men are totally superfluous now.

Radically Subtractive; There are a lot of writers who decide what should be removed from society. This characterise the 20’s century. Cult of life;… There are a lot of people that are not on the side of well but still are in radically subtractive. Life as the ultimate value. Idea is that some of it has to be filtered out to keep the pristine idea of life!

Filter out gender differences or race differences. Utopia is not to get rid of wickedness or evil but of the ugliness. Ugliness is not life… The survival of the fittest (Darwin). We have to get rid of all the weak. Darwin refers as the eugenics as the self sustainable utopian.

Mary Stones; feminist an eugenist. Bas VS good, birth control and sterelazition of the weak. Her only son married a short-sighted woman. So she stopped talking about this. Some strongly feminist writers were thinkers of woman of generators, the breeding of the empire.

Eugenics is thought of now in a very negative way. But utopian idea’s were radically subtractive. The future of eugenics; Leo Silvers; predicts that synthetic genes, were are able to eliminate to reduce all diseases… Predicts two human races; eugenic rich and the normal (the poor). The government are not going to stop this. This is parental love that will do it.

H.G. Wells, he was driving eugenic forward to get rid of the flaws.

What is wrong with humanism? Well its a weak response to Darwinism. Wells had a enormous trust in humanity for safekeeping and understanding the needs of humanity.

Planetery eugenics. Eliminating of malaria. Well there will not be forest left because human has no reason to not go back there. Wells; the population ideally not this big. Unable to sustain. One way or another; either there will be a (1914) feminien plague or nuclear war, or sensible birth control. Either disctuction or creation.

The machine; dystopic realm. System control. Planning is the key word of 1930’s; a planned & utopian society was one of the same. Brave new world, is it a dystopia of utopia, satire.

Utopia of the mind. Huxley thinks it’s the most important thing to have culture, if your not doing that you’re not quite human. Marx says the future is with the uneducated. Huxley visited Hollywood; The new world is often the heart of this utopian thinking. He was a bit horrified by the popculture but still had a feeling for the good time.

In brave new world the masses are being given pleasure and distraction. Which is utopian and dystopian at the same time. —— principles of utopian..

principle of government recourses rights of individuals social engineering (for example woman society)

TECHNOLOGICAL UTOPIA.. (because this is also the anxiety for the future)

idea's / note's on my own utopia

Different ideas.. 
Definitely less people in the world.

Different worlds, which cater for everyone.. But this could also be in a simulated reality.? 
 My utopia can only be set in a future where racism, sexism, capitalism etc is ruled out by an earlier form of dystopia? Maybe like feminist sci-fi.. Afro-futurism.

Only in an alternate reality. Or another paralel universe?? yes definitely a paralel universe.

But no happiness without struggle….. ….. … so whats the struggle?

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IDEAS what is the IDEA?

-> so the struggle has to be implemented. ->

In my world everyone eats rainbows and poops butterfly’s. Big Mouth -> pornscape

In my utopia we don’t need cattle anymore, nobody eats meat, everybody is vegan. Due to technological revolution people are able to print food. You can choose how you look and change your look whenever you like, thus therefor not being submitted to any form of competition concerning looks, sexe or identity in any form. This ability to change outer appearance (like second world) gives everyone the freedom and equal rights they need. Also capitalist industries based on appearances don’t exist anymore. Because anybody can be anybody a sense of togetherness exist.

There is not really a difference between physical and digital space as the digital becomes a space where we can physically move through as well. So we communicate in the digital as being physical. We don’t need written language anymore to communicate in the digital. There is a new form of idea and communication (like in the Arrival movie or Big Mouth - Pornscape hah).

You have the choice to participate in any level of technology from primitive to advanced. But they do not live next to each other. All are different communities. But there are also hybrid forms (like in Horizon Zero Dawn) 

Every different area needs a education and training for you to enter. There is also a neutral world where you can explore all different aspects.

There are different islands within the universe that cater to different needs. Some people like to be part of the ‘natural’ where people try and be themselves.

The natural lands exist of a small group of people who prefer to live in the wild, building by hand and living in symbiosis with nature.

There is the cultivated land, where people live from their own trait and expertise. Going back to the time of craft and trade.

I think the sims is a perfect utopian.

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DYSTOPIA

We would live in a world where our memory are externalised and stored in another device. This device causes a homogeneity in thinking.