Utopia – notes from: Sargent, Lyman Tower; UTOPIANISM – A Very Short Introduction; OXFORD, Univ. Press; 2010 Lyman Tower Sargent (born 9 February 1940) is an American academic, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Sargent's main academic interests are in utopian studies, political theory, American studies and bibliography. He is one Introduction (Han inleder med en rad citat) of the world's foremost scholars on utopian studies, founding editor of Utopian Studies, serving in that post for the journal's first fifteen years, and recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Society for Utopian Studies.[1] Sargent was educated as an undergraduate at Macalester College and as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota.

Marge Piercy (born March 31, 1936) is an American poet, novelist, Dreams are the fire in us. Marge Piercy and social activist. Piercy is the author of Woman on the Edge of Time; He, She and It, which won the 1993 Arthur C. Clarke Award; and Gone to Soldiers, a New York Times Best Seller[1] and sweeping historical novel set during World War II.

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realization of utopias. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November Oscar Wilde 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. He is remembered for his epigrams, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, his plays, as well as the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death.

The last thing we really need is more utopian visions. Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (/ˈwɔːlәrstiːn/;[4] born September 28, Immanuel Wallerstein 1930) is an American sociologist, historical social scientist, and world- systems analyst, arguably best known for his development of the general approach in sociology which led to the emergence of his world-systems approach.[5] He publishes bimonthly syndicated commentaries on world affairs.[6]

So this is utopia, Sir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm (24 August 1872 – 20 May 1956) was an English essayist, parodist, and caricaturist. He first became Is it? Well – known in the 1890s as a dandy and a humorist. He was the drama critic for the Saturday Review from 1898 until 1910, when he relocated I beg your pardon; to Rapallo, Italy. In his later years he was popular for his occasional radio broadcasts. Among his best-known works is his only novel, I thought it was Hell Max Beerbohm Zuleika Dobson, published in 1911. His caricatures, drawn usually in pen or pencil with muted watercolour tinting, are in many public collections.

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, PC (25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was a British historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer; his books on British history have been hailed as literary masterpieces.[1] Macaulay held political office as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and the Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1848. He played a major role in introducing English and western concepts to education in An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in India, publishing his argument on the subject in the "Macaulay Minute" published in 1835. He supported the replacement of Persian Utopia. The smallest actual good is better than the most by English as the official language, the use of English as the medium of instruction in all schools, and the training of English-speaking Magnificent promises of impossibilities. Indians as teachers.[1]

Thomas Babington Macauley

Les utopies ne sont souvent que des verités prématurées.

Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine

Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine, chevalier de Pratz (French: [alfɔ s maʁi lwi dәpʁa dә lamaʁtin]; 21 October 1790 – 28 February 1869), was a French writer, poet and politician who was instrumental in the foundation of the Second Republic and the continuation of the Tricolore as the flag of France. p2 The word ’utopia’ was coined by Thomas More as the name of the imaginry country he described in his short 1516 book written in latin and published Libellus vere aureus nec minus salutaris quam festivus de optimo reip[ublicae] statu, deq[ue] noua Insula Utopia – Concerning the Best State of a Commonwealth and New Island of Utopia. A Truly Golden Handbook No Less Beneficial Than Entertaining. – now known as Utopia.

Sir Thomas More (/ˈmɔːr/; 7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated by Roman Catholics as Saint Thomas More,[1][2] was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was also a councillor to Henry VIII, and Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to 16 May 1532.[3] He also wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an imaginary ideal island nation.

The word is based on the Greek topos meaning place or where, and ‘u’ from the prefix ‘ou’ meaning no or not. … More gives the reader a poem that calls Utopia ‘Eutopia’ (Happy Land or good place) …

…

In Utopia, more depicted a ship discovering an unknown island, which has established a society based on far-reaching equality but under the authority of wise, elderly men. It is hierarchical and patriarchal; it has very strict laws with harsh punishments; ant it provides a much better life for its citizen than was available to the p4 citizens of England at that time. … It is this showing of everyday life transformed that characterizes a utopia, and utopianism is about just that transformation of the everyday.

While the word ‘utopia’ was coined by More, the idea already had a long and complex history. … utopian has, from very early on, been a way of dismissing it as unrealistic.

… such visions, occur in the earliest written records we have, such as a Sumerian clay tablet from 2000 BCE. The earliest utopias were very like dreams, completely out of human control, something that would come about naturally or because some god willed it. p5 All utopias ask questions. They ask whether or not the way we live could be improved and answer that it could. Most utopias compare life in the present and life in the utopia and point out what is wrong with the way we now live, thus suggesting what needs to be done to improve things.

As with most topics, there are definitional disagreements. One issue that regularly confuses people stems from the failure to make the distinction between utopianism as a general category and the utopia as a literary genre. … …

The range of the word can be seen in the description by the Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski of the process by which a word that

emerged as an artificially concocted Leszek Kołakowski (Polish: [ˈlɛʂɛk kɔwaˈkɔfskʲi]; 23 October 1927 – 17 proper name has acquired, in the last two centuries, July 2009) was a Polish philosopher and historian of ideas. He is best known for his critical analyses of Marxist thought, especially his three- a sense so extended that it refers not only to a volume history, Main Currents of Marxism (1976). In his later work, literary genre but to a way of thinking, to a Kolakowski increasingly focused on religious questions. In his 1986 mentality, to a philosophical attitude, and is being Jefferson Lecture, he asserted that "We learn history not in order to know how to behave or how to succeed, but to know who we are.”[3] employed in depicting cultural phenomena going back into antiquity.

Here Kolakowski demonstrates the complexity of utopianism as it has evolved. I have called utopianism ‘social dreaming’. The sociologist Ruth Levitas calls it ‘the desire for a better way of being’, with the utopia as an aspect of the ‘education of desire’. Within these broad categories are what I call ‘the three faces of utopianism’ – the literary utopia, utopian practice, and utopian social theory. And, as the quotations at the head of the chapter make clear, the word has come to mean different things to different people.

Ruth Levitas is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Bristol. She is well known internationally for her research on utopia. Her book, The Concept of Utopia (1990), addresses the notion of the ideal society throughout European history. She is recently credited for formulating a program of sociology which is fundamentally utopian-focused in conventional sociological discourse. She also introduced the concepts of MUD (the moral underclass discourse), SID (the social integration discourse), and RED (the redistribution discourse), as tools for analysing social exclusion. One of Ruth's most notable books is The Inclusive Society?: Social Exclusion and New Labour, which introduced the idea of social exclusion as part of the new political language. P6 Scholars today generally use one of two quite similar definitions for the literary utopia: the first is the literary theorist Darko Suvin’s, the second is mine:

Darko Ronald Suvin (born Darko Šlesinger; July 19, 1930) is a Croatian born academic and critic who became a Professor at McGill The verbal construction of a particular quasi- University in Montreal — now emeritus.[1] He was born in Zagreb, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now capital of Croatia), and after teaching human community where sociopolitical institutions, at the department for comparative literature at Zagreb University, norms and individual relationships are organized moved to Canada in 1968. according to a more perfect principle than in the author’s community, this construction being based He is best known for several major works of criticism and literary history on estrangement arising out of an alternative devoted to science fiction. He was editor of Science-Fiction Studies (later respelled as Science Fiction Studies) from 1973 to 1980. After his historical hypothesis. retirement from McGill in 1999, he has lived in Lucca, Italy. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences).

A non-existent society described in considerable In 2009, he received Croatian SFera Award for lifetime achievement detail and normally located in time and space. In in science fiction. Also, he is member of both Croatia's writers standard usage utopia is used both as a defined association, Croatian Writers Society (HDP),[2] and Croatian Writers' Association (DHK).[3] here and as an equivalent for eutopia or a non- existent society described in considerable detail Recently, he published the series of his memoirs on his youth as and normally located in time and space that the member of the Young Communist League of Yugoslavia during the author intended a contemporaneous reader to Nazi occupation of Croatia and Yugoslavia, and first years of Josip view as considerably better than the society in Broz Tito's Yugoslavia, in the Croatian cultural journal Gordogan. Suvin is a member of the Advisory Board of the left-wing journal Novi which that reader lived. Plamen and Croatian science fiction journal Ubiq.

… Suvin was born in Zagreb, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, on July 19, 1930 to a Croatian Jewish family of Miroslav and Truda (née Weiser) Šlesinger. In Zagreb he attended the Jewish elementary school in Palmotićeva street. In 1939 his family changed the surname from Šlesinger to Suvin due to political situation and antisemitism caused by Nazi propaganda.[4][5][6] When Suvin was a young child, there was great political strife in Yugoslavia. Originally a monarchy, Yugoslavia quickly succumbed to the Fascist occupation, and then later various other types of government. In the early 1940s, before the end of World War Two, a Nazi controlled bomb exploded close to Suvin, an event that was ultimately responsible for piquing his interest in Science Fiction, not because of the technology behind the bomb, but because he realized in even a slightly alternative world, he may have been killed right then and there.[7] Many members of his family have perished during the Holocaust, including his paternal grandparents Lavoslav and Josipa Šlesinger.[4] …

Utopian practice includes what are now most often called intentional communities, or communes, but were once called by many other things, including utopian communities, utopian experiments, and practical utopias. Ere, there is no agreed-upon definition, but many scholars use mine, often with minor variations, which states that an intentional community is a group of five or more adults and their children, if any, who come from more than one nuclear family and who have chosen to live together to enhance their shared values or for some other mutually agreed upon purpose.

p7 At one time, utopian practice was generally limited to such communities, but because the word ‘utopia’ is now used as s label for many types of social and political activity intended to bring about a better society and, in some cases, personal transformation, it is a broader category than it used to be. And all utopian practice is about the actual rather than the fictional transformation of the everyday. People joining intentional communities choose to experiment with their own lives, as do, in different ways, those who participate in other forms of utopian practice.

Karl Mannheim (March 27, 1893 – January 9, 1947), or Károly Manheim in the original writing of his name, was a Hungarian-born sociologist, influential in the first half of the 20th century and one of the founding fathers of classical sociology as well as a founder of the sociology of knowledge. He is most known for his book Ideology and Utopia published in 1936 where he argues that ideologies are the true Utopian social theory includes: nature of any given society and in trying to achieve utopia, these ideologies affect theories of philosophy and even history. utopia as a method of analysis;

the relationship between utopia and ideology first outlined by the social theorist Karl Mannheim in 1929 and used by others in various ways since then;

Ernst Bloch (German: [ˈɛʁnst ˈblɔx]; July 8, 1885 – August 4, 1977) was a German Marxist philosopher. Bloch was influenced by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, as well as by apocalyptic and religious thinkers such as Thomas Müntzer, Paracelsus, and Jacob Boehme.[5] He established friendships with György Lukács, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor W. Adorno. Bloch's work focuses on the thesis that in a humanistic world where oppression and exploitation have been eliminated there will always be a truly revolutionary force. the ways in which utopianism has been used to explain social change by thinkers like the German Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch and the Dutch sociologist Frederick L. Polak;

Frederik Lodewijk Polak (21 May 1907, Amsterdam – 17 September 1985, Wassenaar) was one of the Dutch founding fathers of futures studies, perhaps best known in the field for theorising the central role o imagined alternative futures in his classic work The Image of the Future

the role of utopianism in religion, particularly in Christian theology, in which it has been seen as variously heretical and essential; p 86 Judaism and Christianity are permeated with utopian imagery. The idea of a utopian past and future is central to Christianity.

‘Utopianism in Christian traditions’ considers the place of utopia, the idea of a better life, in branches of Christianity, where these images can be found and what they mean for those living a Christian life. Krishan Kuma has argued that there is a profound contradiction between Christian religion and utopia. Utopia is of this world and for many religions is primarily concerned with the next. So utopia is heretical. Today, there are many Christian intentional communities, some extremely conservative and apart from society, some radical and engaged with society, all trying to live a good Christian life.

the role of utopianism in colonialism and post-colonialism; and the debates between globalizers and anti-globalizers. …

p 50 There were two types of colonies: one was primarily formed to exploit labour, raw materials, and resources and the other was designed for settlement. ‘Indigenous, colonial, and postcolonial utopianism’ examines the importance of colonies to utopianism. They represent utopian dreams and more intentional communities have been established in colonies than in colonizing countries. Settler colonies became places of utopian experimentation, and as early as 1659, intentional communities were established in the American colonies such as the Ephrata community in Pennsylvania. Some of these communities are secular, others religious; some are open, others are closed; some date hundreds of years and some are being established now.

Utopianism and intentional communities are complex phenomena with long histories occurring in many different settings. As a result, they differ radically from time to time and place to place. Definition at a level of generalization that would capture everything may be a useful starting point but would tell us little about the actual phenomena as they occur. Thus we need to characterize the various sub-categories appropriately so that we both capture the connections and recognize the differences. And in particular, any discussion of intentional communities must be aware that every community has its own life cycle beginning with visions and pre-planning to birth, growth, maturation, and, often death, with death possible at any point in a community’s life.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990), Walden (/ˈwɔːldәn/; first published as Walden; or, Life in the commonly known as B. F. Skinner, was an American psychologist, Woods ) is a book by noted transcendentalist Henry David behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher.[2][3][4][5] He was Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon simple living in natural the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from surroundings. [2] The work is part personal declaration of 1958 until his retirement in 1974.[6] independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and (to some degree) manual for self- Walden Two is a utopian novel written by behavioral psychologist B. F. reliance. Skinner, first published in 1948. In its time, it could have been considered science fiction, since science-based methods for altering First published in 1854, Walden details Thoreau's experiences people's behavior did not yet exist.[1][2] Such methods are now known over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a as applied behavior analysis. cabin he built near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Walden Two is controversial because its characters speak of a Massachusetts. Thoreau used this time to write his first book, A rejection of free will,[3] including a rejection of the proposition that Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. The experience human behavior is controlled by a non-corporeal entity, such as a later inspired Walden, in which Thoreau compresses the time spirit or a soul.[4] Walden Two embraces the proposition that the into a single calendar year and uses passages of four seasons behavior of organisms, including humans, is determined by to symbolize human development. environmental variables,[5] and that systematically altering environmental variables can generate a sociocultural system that By immersing himself in nature, Thoreau hoped to gain a more very closely approximates utopia.[6] objective understanding of society through personal introspection. Simple living and self-sufficiency were Thoreau's Skinner considered free will an illusion and human action dependent other goals, and the whole project was inspired by on consequences of previous actions. If the consequences are bad, transcendentalist philosophy, a central theme of the American there is a high chance the action will not be repeated; if the Romantic Period. consequences are good, the actions that led to it being repeated become more probable.[7] Skinner called this the principle of reinforcement.[8]

p8 And there can be fundamental disagreements over what constitutes a good place. The classic 20th- century case is psychologist B.F.Skinner’s Walden Two, a novel describing a small community that had been established by a behavioral psychologist, which many saw as clearly a good place and even a guide to the ideal intentional community. … Others read the novel as a picture of a totalitarian society. … For example, intentional communities are often seen as wonderful places to be a child and terrible places to be a teenager.

Literary utopias have at least six purposes, although they are not necessarily separable. A utopia

can be simply a fantasy,

it can be a description of a desirable or an undesirable society,

an extrapolation,

a warning,

an alternative to the present,

or a model to be achieved.

And the intentional community as utopia adds a seventh propose,

to demonstrate that living a better life is possible in the here and now.

…

But basically, utopianism is a philosophy of hope, and it is characterized by the transformation of generalized hope into a description of a non-existent society. Of course, hope can often be nothing more than a rather naive wish-fulfillment, such as in some fairy tales. On the other hand, hope is essential to any attempt to change society for the better. … Utopians are always faced with this dilemma when they attempt to move their dream to reality – is their dream compatible with the imposition of their dream; can freedom be achieved through un-freedom, or equality through inequality?

p 10 chapter 1 – abstract – Good Places and Bad Places

The notion of utopia was around before Thomas More first used the word. There are two versions of utopia: the first focuses on bodily pleasure in terms of food, drink, and sex; and the second focuses on social organization. The first is seen as being created by Nature or God and the second as a human creation. Both these versions are ancient and continue today. ‘Good places and bad places’ examines these two types of utopia and looks at where they have been described in legend, myths, and literature before and after Thomas More. What is the appeal of the notion of utopia in literature? What is a dystopia? Publius Vergilius Maro (Classical Latin: [ˈpuː.blɪ.ʊs wɛrˈɡɪ.lɪ.ʊs ˈma.roː]; traditional dates October 15, 70 BC – September 21, 19 BC[1]), usually called Virgil or Vergil /ˈvɜːrdʒᵻl/ in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three acclaimed works of Latin literature, the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, are sometimes attributed to him.[2][3]

Virgil is traditionally ranked as one of Rome's greatest poets. His Aeneid has been considered the national epic of ancient Rome from the time of its composition to the present day. Modeled after Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the Aeneid follows the Trojan refugee Aeneas as he struggles to fulfill his destiny and arrive on the shores of Italy—in Roman mythology the founding act of Rome. Virgil's work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dante's Divine Comedy, in which Virgil appears as Dante's guide through hell P16 … and purgatory.[4]

Virgil’s images of the simple life in Arcadia are something of a transition between the fantasy of the first tradition and the human-created utopia of the second. And it is the human-created societies depicted by Greek and Roman writers that are most similar to More’s Utopia and the works that followed it. This branch of the utopian tradition gives people hope because it is more realistic and because it focuses on humans solving human problems, such as adequate food, housing, and clothing and security, rather than relying on Nature or the gods.

In the West, the formal utopia appears to have originated in classical Greece, with descriptions of the Greek city-state Sparta being the most influential. The Greek writer Plutarch described the motivation of Lycurgus, the supposed founder of Sparta and the description could well fit others, saying,

He was convinced that a partial change of the laws Plutarch (/ˈpluːtɑːrk/; Greek: Πλούταρχος, Ploútarkhos, Koine would be of no avail whatsoever, but that he must Greek: [plǔːtarkʰos]; later named, upon becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Λούκιος Μέστριος Πλούταρχος);[a] c. AD proceed as a s physician would with a patient who 46 – AD 120)[1] was a Greek biographer and essayist, known primarily was debilitated and full of all sorts of diseases; he for his Parallel Lives and Moralia.[2] He is classified[3] as a Middle must reduce and alter the existing temperament by Platonist. Plutarch's surviving works were written in Greek, but intended for both Greek and Roman readers.[4] means of drugs and purges, and introduce a new and different regime.

"The soul, being eternal, after death is like a caged bird that has been released. If it has been a long time in the body, and has become tame by many affairs and long habit, the soul will immediately take another body and once again become involved in the troubles of the world. The worst thing about old age is that the soul's memory of the other world grows dim, while at the same time its attachment to things of this world becomes so strong that the soul tends to retain the form that it had in the body. But that soul which remains only a short time within a body, until liberated by the higher powers, quickly recovers its fire and goes on to higher things." Plutarch (The Consolation, Moralia)

Lycurgus (/laɪˈkɜːrɡәs/; Greek: Λυκοῦργος, Lykoûrgos, Ancient Greek: [lykôrɡos] c. 900 – 800 BC) was the legendary lawgiver of Sparta who established the military-oriented reformation of Spartan society in accordance with the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. All his reforms were directed towards the three Spartan virtues: equality (among citizens), military fitness, and austerity.[1] p17 …

Many commentators connect Sparta with the Repulic, the best-known utopia of the Greek philosopher Plato, which is treated as the fount of Western utopianism. The Republic is primarily concerned with developing an understanding of justice. It is a typical Platonic dialogue of the early to middle period in which a question is set by Socrates and a process of question and answer takes place until a number of positions have been presented, all of which are rejected by Socrates. He then provides his own answer, gradually dominating the discussion, turning it into a monologue with only the most perfunctory interjections for the others.

Plato (/ˈpleɪtoʊ/;[a][1] Greek: Πλάτων[a] Plátōn, pronounced [plá.tɔːn] in Classical Attic; 428/427 or 424/423[b] – 348/347 BCE) was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, especially the Western tradition.[2] Unlike nearly all of his philosophical contemporaries, Plato's entire œuvre is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years.[3]

Along with his teacher, Socrates, and his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato laid the very foundations of Western philosophy and science.[4] Alfred North Whitehead once noted: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."[5] In addition to being a foundational figure for Western science, philosophy, and mathematics, Plato has also often been cited as one of the founders of Western religion and spirituality.[6] Friedrich Nietzsche, amongst other scholars, called Christianity, "Platonism for the people."[7] Plato's influence on Christian thought is often thought to be mediated by his major influence on Saint Augustine of Hippo, one of the most important philosophers and theologians in the history of Christianity.

Plato was the innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy, which originate with him. Plato appears to have been the founder of Western political philosophy, with his Republic, and Laws among other dialogues, providing some of the earliest extant treatments of political questions from a philosophical perspective. Plato's own most decisive philosophical influences are usually thought to have been Socrates, Parmenides, Heraclitus and Pythagoras, although few of his predecessors' works remain extant and much of what we know about these figures today derives from Plato himself.[8]

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes Plato as "...one of the most dazzling writers in the Western literary tradition and one of the most penetrating, wide-ranging, and influential authors in the history of philosophy. ... He was not the first thinker or writer to whom the word “philosopher” should be applied. But he was so self-conscious about how philosophy should be conceived, and what its scope and ambitions properly are, and he so transformed the intellectual currents with which he grappled, that the subject of philosophy, as it is often conceived—a rigorous and systematic examination of ethical, political, metaphysical, and epistemological issues, armed with a distinctive method—can be called his invention. Few other authors in the history of Western philosophy approximate him in depth and [9] range: perhaps only Aristotle (who studied with him), Aquinas and Kant would be generally agreed to be of the same rank."

He is referred to by ancient historians and philosophers Herodotus, Xenophon, Plato, Polybius, Plutarch, and Epictetus. It is not clear if this Lycurgus was an actual historical figure; however, many ancient historians[2] believed Lycurgus was responsible for the communalistic and militaristic reforms that transformed Spartan society, most notably the Great Rhetra.

… philosopher-kings (reason) guardians

auxiliaries (spirited element)  Productive (Workers) — the labourers, carpenters, plumbers, masons, merchants, farmers, ranchers, etc. These artisans (temperance or moderation) correspond to the "appetite" part of the soul.  Protective (Warriors or Guardians) — those who are adventurous, strong and brave; in the armed forces. These correspond to the "spirit" part of the soul. The Republic (Greek: Πολιτεία, Politeia; Latin: De Re Publica[1]) is  Governing (Rulers or Philosopher Kings) — those who are a Socratic dialogue, written by Plato around 380 BCE, intelligent, rational, self-controlled, in love with wisdom, well concerning the definition of justice (δικαιοσύνη), the order and suited to make decisions for the community. These character of the just city-state and the just man[2]—for this correspond to the "reason" part of the soul and are very few. reason, ancient readers used the name On Justice as an alternative title (not to be confused with the spurious dialogue Socrates (/ˈsɒkrәtiːz/;[2] Greek: Σωκράτης [sɔːkrátɛːs], Sōkrátēs; 470/469 also titled On Justice).[3] The dramatic date of the dialogue has – 399 BC)[1] was a classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher credited as been much debated and though it might have taken place one of the founders of Western philosophy. He is an enigmatic figure some time during the Peloponnesian War, "there would be known chiefly through the accounts of classical writers, especially the jarring anachronisms if any of the candidate specific dates writings of his students Plato and Xenophon and the plays of his between 432 and 404 were assigned".[4] It is Plato's best-known contemporary Aristophanes. Plato's dialogues are among the most work, and has proven to be one of the world's most influential comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity, works of philosophy and political theory, both intellectually and though it is unclear the degree to which Socrates himself is "hidden historically.[5][6] In it, Socrates along with various Athenians and behind his 'best disciple', Plato".[3] foreigners discuss the meaning of justice and examine whether or not the just man is happier than the unjust man by considering a series of different cities coming into existence "in Through his portrayal in Plato's dialogues, Socrates has become speech", culminating in a city called Kallipolis (Καλλίπολις), renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who lends his name to the concepts of Socratic which is ruled by philosopher-kings; and by examining the nature of existing regimes. The participants also discuss the irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus. The latter remains a theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, and the roles of the commonly used tool in a wide range of discussions, and is a type of philosopher and of poetry in society.[7]He is referred to by pedagogy in which a series of questions is asked not only to draw ancient historians and philosophers Herodotus, Xenophon, individual answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight into Plato, Polybius, Plutarch, and Epictetus. It is not clear if this the issue at hand. Plato's Socrates also made important and lasting Lycurgus was an actual historical figure; however, many contributions to the field of epistemology, and his ideologies and approach have proven a strong foundation for much Western ancient historians[2] believed Lycurgus was responsible for the communalistic and militaristic reforms that transformed Spartan philosophy that has followed. society, most notably the Great Rhetra.

… However, any society created by humans can only be a poor reflection of the ideal, and it must fail. Plato explores the process of failure at considerable length, in doing so, he develops a theory of corruption and applies it to both individuals and societies. …

p18 … Greek utopians, including Plato, has as a basic assumption what we call the small or face‐to‐face community. It was inconceivable to them that a good society could be a large one in which citizen could not all regularly meet and converse. …

The first great anti‐utopian, the Greek writer of comedies Aristophanes, wrote at the same time and discussed many of the same themes as the utopian writers. From the utopian perspective, the most important of his plays was Ecclesiazusae, or Women in Parliament, in which a group of women succeeded in taking over the legislative assembly and enacting a form of communism. Their legislation failed not because it was bad but because the human race was not capable of the required altruism. … Plutus, in which the blind god of wealth is given sight, whereupon he redistributes wealth to the deserving, and then human greed rapidly redistributes it again inequitably.

Assemblywomen (Greek: Ἐκκλησιάζουσαι Aristophanes (/ˌærᵻˈstɒfәniːz/ or /ˌɛrᵻˈstɒfәniːz/;[2] Greek: Ἀριστοφάνης, Ekklesiazousai; also translated as, Congresswomen, pronounced [aristopʰánɛːs]; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of Women in Parliament, Women in Power, and A the deme Kydathenaion (Latin: Cydathenaeum),[3] was a comic Parliament of Women) is a comedy written by the playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually Greek playwright Aristophanes in 391 BCE.[3] The complete. These, together with fragments of some of his other plays, play invents an unlikely scenario where the provide the only real examples of a genre of comic drama known as women of Athens assume control of the Old Comedy, and are used to define it.[4] government and instate pseudo-communist reforms that ban private wealth and enforce Also known as the Father of Comedy[5] and the Prince of Ancient sexual equality for the old and unattractive. In Comedy,[6] Aristophanes has been said to recreate the life of ancient addition to Aristophanes' political and social satire, Athens more convincingly than any other author.[7] His powers of Assemblywomen derives it's comedy through ridicule were feared and acknowledged by influential sexual and scatological humor. It is important to contemporaries; Plato[8][9] singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds note that the play's central concepts of women in as slander that contributed to the trial and subsequent condemning government and communism were not legitimate to death of Socrates although other satirical playwrights[10] had also suggestions from Aristophanes, but rather an caricatured the philosopher. outlandish premise that aimed to criticize the Athenian government at the time.[4] His second play, The Babylonians (now lost), was denounced by the demagogue Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. It is Plutus (Ancient Greek: Πλοῦτος, Ploutos, "Wealth") possible that the case was argued in court but details of the trial are is an Ancient Greek comedy by the playwright not recorded and Aristophanes caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his Aristophanes, first produced in 408 BC, revised and subsequent plays, especially The Knights, the first of many plays that performed again in c. 388 BC. A political satire on he directed himself. "In my opinion," he says through the Chorus in contemporary Athens, it features the personified that play, "the author-director of comedies has the hardest job of all." god of wealth Plutus. Reflecting the development (κωμῳδοδιδασκαλίαν εἶναι χαλεπώτατον ἔργον ἁπάντων)[11] of Old Comedy towards New Comedy, it uses such familiar character types as the stupid master and the insubordinate slave to attack the morals of the time.

Aristotle (/ˈærɪˌstɒtәl/;[1] Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Greek pronunciation: [aristotélɛːs], Aristotélēs; 384–322 BC)[2] was a Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle… Aristotle rejected Pla was a child, whereafterto’s utopia … Politics. Proxenus of Atarneus became his guardian.[3] At seventeen or eighteen years of age, he joined Plato's Academy in Athens[4] and remained there until the age of thirty-seven (c. 347 BC). His writings cover many subjects – including physics, biology , zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, linguistics, politics and government – and constitute the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip [5] of Macedon, tutored Alexander the Great beginning in 343 BC.

Teaching Alexander the Great gave Aristotle many opportunities and an abundance of supplies. He established a library in the Lyceum which aided in the production of many of his hundreds of books. The fact that Aristotle was a pupil of Plato contributed to his former views of Platonism, but, following Plato's death, Aristotle immersed himself in empirical studies and shifted from Platonism to empiricism.[6] He believed all peoples' concepts and all of their knowledge was ultimately based on perception. Aristotle's views on natural sciences represent the groundwork underlying many of his works.

Aristotle's views on physical science profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. Their influence extended from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, and were not replaced systematically until the Enlightenment and theories such as classical mechanics. Some of Aristotle's zoological observations, such as on the hectocotyl (reproductive) arm of the octopus, were not confirmed or refuted until the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic.

In metaphysics, Aristotelianism profoundly influenced Judeo-Islamic philosophical and theological thought during the Middle Ages and continues to influence Christian theology, especially the Neoplatonism of the Early Church and the scholastic tradition of the Roman .(ﺍﻟﻤﻌﻠﻢ ﺍﻷﻭﻝ :Catholic Church. Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as "The First Teacher" (Arabic

His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues – Cicero described his literary style as "a river of gold"[7] – it is thought that only around a third of his original output has survived.[8] p19 …

Aristotle believed the best state to be one as close to self‐sufficiency as possible within the limits imposed by a small population and territory, and his utopia was based on the possibility of citizens knowing each other. … Aristotle believed that this would require that there be non‐citizens to do the demeaning labor, …

Politics (Greek: Πολιτικά) is a work of political philosophy by Aristotle, a 4th-century BC Greek philosopher.

The end of the Nicomachean Ethics declared that the inquiry into ethics necessarily follows into politics, and the two works are frequently considered to be parts of a larger treatise, or perhaps connected lectures, dealing with the "philosophy of human affairs." The title of the Politics literally means "the things concerning the polis."

p20 … novel and film Lost Horizon directed by Frank Capra, loosely based on the myth of Shambhala, a Tibetan Buddhist legend of a mythical kingdom hidden somewhere in inner Asia where some of the Bodhisattvas, the most enlightened Buddhists, live. … becomes Shangri‐la ... Lost Horizon is a 1937 American drama-fantasy film directed by Frank Capra. The screenplay by Robert Riskin is based on the 1933 novel of the same name by James Hilton. The film exceeded its original budget by more than $776,000, and it took five years for it to earn back its cost. The serious financial crisis it created for Columbia Pictures damaged the partnership between Capra and studio head Harry Cohn, as well as the friendship between Capra and screenwriter Riskin, whose previous collaborations had included Lady for a Day, It Happened One Night, and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.[2] In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[3]

It is 1935. Before returning to England to become the new Foreign Secretary, writer, soldier, and diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) has one last task in China: to rescue 90 Westerners in the city of Baskul. He flies out with the last few evacuees, just ahead of armed revolutionaries. Unbeknownst to the passengers, the pilot has been replaced and their aircraft hijacked. It eventually runs out of fuel and crashes deep in the Himalayan Mountains, killing their abductor. The group is rescued by Chang (H.B. Warner) and his men and taken to Shangri-La, an idyllic valley sheltered from the bitter cold. The contented inhabitants are led by the mysterious High Lama (Sam Jaffe). Initially anxious to return to civilization, most of the newcomers grow to love Shangri-La, including paleontologist Alexander Lovett (Edward Everett Horton), swindler Henry Barnard (Thomas Mitchell), and bitter, terminally-ill Gloria Stone (Isabel Jewell), who miraculously seems to be recovering. Conway is particularly enchanted, especially when he meets Sondra (Jane Wyatt), who has grown up in Shangri-La. However, Conway's younger brother George (John Howard), and Maria (Margo), another beautiful young woman they find there, are determined to leave. Conway eventually has an audience with the High Lama and learns that his arrival was no accident. The founder of Shangri-La is said to be hundreds of years old, preserved, like the other residents, by the magical properties of the paradise he has created, but is finally dying and needs someone wise and knowledgeable in the ways of the modern world to keep it safe. Having read Conway's writings, Sondra believed he was the one; the Lama had agreed with her and arranged for Conway's abduction. The old man names Conway as his successor and then peacefully passes away. George refuses to believe the Lama's fantastic story and is supported by Maria. Uncertain and torn between love and loyalty, Conway reluctantly gives in to his brother and they leave, taking Maria with them, despite being warned that she is much older than she appears. After several days of grueling travel, she becomes exhausted and falls face down in the snow. When they turn her over, they discover that she had become extremely old and died. Her departure from Shangri-La had restored Maria to her true age. Horrified, George loses his sanity and jumps to his death. Conway continues on and eventually meets up with a search party sent to find him, although the ordeal has caused him to lose his memory of Shangri-La. On the voyage back to England, he remembers everything; he tells his story and then jumps ship. The searchers track him back to the Himalayas, but are unable to follow him any further. Conway manages to return to Shangri-La. In Tibetan Buddhist and Hindu traditions, Shambhala (Sanskrit: शम्भलः Śambhalaḥ, also spelled Shambala or Shamballa or Frank Russell Capra (born Francesco Rosario Capra; May 18, "Shambhallah"; Tibetan: བདེ་འང, Wylie: bde 'byung; Chinese: 香巴 1897 – September 3, 1991) was an Italian-American film 拉; pinyin: xiāngbālā) is a mythical kingdom. It is mentioned in director, producer and writer who became the creative force various ancient texts, including the Kalacakra Tantra[2] and the behind some of the major award-winning films of the 1930s and ancient Zhangzhung texts of western Tibet. The Bon scriptures 1940s. Born in Italy and raised in Los Angeles from the age of speak of a closely related land called Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring.[3] five, his rags-to-riches story has led film historians such as Ian Hindu texts such as the Vishnu Purana (4.24) mention the village Freer to consider him the "American dream personified."[1] Shambhala as the birthplace of Kalki, the final incarnation of Vishnu who will usher in a new Golden Age (Satya Yuga).[4] The Capra became one of America's most influential directors legends, teachings and healing practices associated with during the 1930s, winning three Oscars as Best Director. Among Shambhala are older than any of these organized religions. his leading films were It Happened One Night (1934), You Can't Shambhala may very well have been an indigenous belief Take It With You (1938), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington system, an Alti-Himalayan shamanic tradition, absorbed into (1939); the former two of these won the Academy Award for these other faiths. This pre-existing belief system, also called Best Picture. During World War II, Capra served in the U.S. Army Mleccha (from Vedic Sanskrit े mleccha, meaning "non- Signal Corps and produced propaganda films, such as the Why Vedic"), and the amazing abilities, wisdom and long life of We Fight series. After World War II, Capra's career declined as these 'sun worshipers' (the Siddhi from the Vedic Sanskrit िस of his later films such as It's a Wonderful Life (1946), which flopped the ancient Surya Samadhi समािध) is documented in both the when it was first released, were critically derided as being Buddhist and Hindu texts. Whatever its historical basis, [2] "simplistic" or "overly idealistic". In succeeding decades, Shambhala (spelling derived from the Buddhist transliterations) however, these films have been favorably reassessed. Outside gradually came to be seen as a Buddhist pure land, a fabulous of directing, Capra was active in the film industry, engaging in kingdom whose reality is visionary or spiritual as much as various political and social issues. He served as President of the physical or geographic. It was in this form that the Shambhala Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, worked myth reached Western Europe and the Americas, where it alongside the Screenwriters Guild, and was head of the influenced non-Buddhist as well as Buddhist spiritual seekers — Directors Guild of America. and, to some extent, popular culture in general. … The historian and architectural critic Lewis Mumford in particular argued that the city and the utopia were closely linked, and the following quotations from utopias from the late 19th and mid‐20th centuries illustrate views of utopian architecture. Lewis Mumford, KBE (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer. At my feet lay a great city. Miles of broad streets, Mumford was influenced by the work of Scottish theorist Sir Patrick Geddes and worked closely with his associate the British shaded by trees and lined with fine buildings, for the sociologist Victor Branford.Mumford was also a contemporary most part not in continuous blocks but set in larger or and friend of Frank Lloyd Wright, Clarence Stein, Frederic Osborn, Edmund N. Bacon, and Vannevar Bush. smaller enclosures, stretched in every direction. Every quarter contained large open squares filled with trees, Edward Bellamy (March 26, 1850 – May 22, 1898) was an among which statues glistened and fountains flashed in American author and socialist, most famous for his utopian the late afternoon sun. Public buildings of a colossal novel, Looking Backward, a tale set in the distant future of the year 2000. Bellamy's vision of a harmonious future world inspired size and an architectural grandeur unparalleled in my the formation of at least 165 "Nationalist Clubs" dedicated to day raised their stately piles on every side. the propagation of Bellamy's political ideas and working to make them a practical reality.[1]

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward Looking Backward: 2000–1887 is a utopian science fiction novel by Edward Bellamy, a journalist and writer from Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts; it was first published in 1888. Nationalist Clubs were an organized network of socialist political groups which emerged at the end of the 1880s in the It was the third-largest bestseller of its time, after Uncle Tom's United States of America in an effort to make real the ideas Cabin and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.[1] It influenced a large advanced by Edward Bellamy in his utopian novel Looking number of intellectuals, and appears by title in many of the Backward. At least 165 Nationalist Clubs were formed by so- major Marxist writings of the day. "It is one of the few books ever called "Bellamyites," who sought to remake the economy and published that created almost immediately on its appearance society through the nationalization of industry.[1] One of the last a political mass movement".[2] issues of "The Nationalist" noted that 'over 500' had been formed.[2] Owing to the growth of the Populist movement and In the United States alone, over 162 "Bellamy Clubs" sprang up the financial and physical difficulties suffered by Bellamy, the to discuss and propagate the book's ideas.[3] Owing to its Bellamyite Nationalist Clubs began to dissipate in 1892, lost their commitment to the nationalization of private property and the national magazine in 1894, and vanished from the scene desire to avoid use of the term socialism, this political entirely circa 1896. movement came to be known as Nationalism — not to be confused with the political concept of nationalism.[4] The novel also inspired several utopian communities.

She saw … a river, little no account buildings, strange structures like long-legged birds with sails that turned in the wind, a few large terracotta and yellow buildings and one blue dome, irregular buildings, none bigger than a supermarket in her day, an ordinary supermarket in any shopping plaza. The bird objects were the tallest things around and they were scarcely higher than some of the pine trees she could see. A few lumpy free-form structures with green vines.

Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time

Woman on the Edge of Time (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976) is a novel by Marge Piercy. It is considered a classic of utopian "speculative" science fiction as well as a feminist classic. Thirty-seven-year-old Hispanic woman Consuelo (Connie) Ramos, recently released from forced detention in a mental institution for drug-fueled child abuse which led her to lose custody of her daughter, gets recommitted against her will. She was committed by her niece's pimp after she struck him because he was forcing her niece (Dolly) to have a dirty abortion. While committed and heavily drugged in a mental hospital in New York, she begins to communicate with a figure that may or may not be imaginary: an androgynous young woman named Luciente. Luciente is from the future, a utopian world in which a number of goals of the political and social agenda of the late sixties and early seventies radical movements have been fulfilled. Environmental pollution, homophobia, racism, phallogocentrism, class-subordination, consumerism, imperialism, and totalitarianism no longer exist in the agrarian, communal community of Mattapoisett. The death penalty, however, continues to exist ("We don't think it's right to kill ... . Only convenient."), as does war. Connie learns that she is living at an important time in history, and she herself is in a pivotal position; her actions and decisions will determine the course of history. Luciente's utopia is only one possible future; a dystopian alternate future is a possibility—one in which a wealthy elite live on space platforms and subdue the majority of the population with psychotropic drugs and surgical control of moods, also harvesting these earth-bound humans' organs. Women are valued solely for their appearance and sexuality, and plastic surgery that gives women grotesquely exaggerated sexual features is commonplace. The novel gives little indication as to whether or not Connie's visions are by-products of a mental disease or are meant to be taken literally, but ultimately, Connie's confrontation with the future inspires her to a violent action that will presumably prevent the dissemination of the mind-control technology that makes the future dystopia possible, since it puts an end to the mind-control experiments and prevents the lobotomy-like operation that had been planned for her. Though her actions do not ensure the existence of the Mattapoisett future, Connie nevertheless sees her act as a victory: "I'm a dead woman now too. ... But I did fight them. ... I tried."[1] p21 … There are socialist capitalist, monarchical, democratic, anarchist, ecological, feminist, patriarchal, egalitarian, hierarchical, racist, left-wing, right-wing, reformist, free love, nuclear family, extended family, gay, lesbian, and many more utopias, and all these types were published between 1516 and the middle of the 20th century, before diversity really took hold. And, because there is a strong anti-utopian tradition, the number could be doubled by simply putting ‘anti-‘ in front of any of these words and after the early 20th century there have been dystopias written reflecting all these positions. … … … p22 More’s Utopia

… One set of problems stems from the fact that Utopia appears on the surface to be straightforward while it is quite playful and satirical. … , but when you discover that Anydrus, the name of the main river, means ‘no water’ and the surname of the person describing Utopia, Hythlodaeus, means ‘ speaker of nonsense’, you must begin to wonder. But Raphel, Hytholodaeus’s first name, means ‘healer from God’, so you cannot draw a clear conclusion. … p23 … But Utopia, Anydrus, Amaurotum, and Ademus do mean the island was nowhere, the city a phantom, the river without water, and the ruler without a people. … p24 Satire

… is fundamental to both utopian traditions because one of the functions of most utopias is to hold the present up to ridicule and, in doing so, man utopias use a typical tool of satire, exaggeration. …

Satire is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement.[1] Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.

A feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm—"in satire, irony is militant"[2]—but parody, burlesque, exaggeration,[3] juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. This "militant" irony or sarcasm often professes to approve of (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist wishes to attack.

Satire is nowadays found in many artistic forms of expression, including literature, plays, commentary, television shows, and media such as lyrics.

Samuel Butler Erewhon or Over the Range

[1] Erewhon: or, Over the Range /ɛ.rɛ.hwɒn/ is a novel by Samuel Samuel Butler (4 December 1835 – 18 June 1902) was an iconoclastic Butler which was first published anonymously in 1872.[2] The title English author of a variety of works. Two of his most famous works are is also the name of a country, supposedly discovered by the the Utopian satire Erewhon and the semi-autobiographical novel The protagonist. In the novel, it is not revealed where Erewhon is, Way of All Flesh, published posthumously. He is also known for but it is clear that it is a fictional country. Butler meant the title examining Christian orthodoxy, substantive studies of evolutionary to be read as "nowhere" backwards even though the letters "h" thought, studies of Italian art, and works of literary history and criticism. and "w" are transposed, as it would have been pronounced in Butler made prose translations of the Iliad and Odyssey that remain in his day (and still is in some dialects of English). The book is a use to this day. satire on Victorian society.[3] The first few chapters of the novel dealing with the discovery of Erewhon are in fact based on Butler's own experiences in New Zealand where, as a young man, he worked as a sheep farmer on Mesopotamia Station for about four years (1860–64), and explored parts of the interior of the South Island and which he wrote about in his A First Year in Canterbury Settlement (1863).

Jonathan Swift; Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World (Gulliveriana)

Gulliver's Travels, whose full title is Travels into Several Remote Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo- Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Irish[1] satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, (1726, amended the Tories), poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's 1735), is a prose satire[1][2] by Irish writer and clergyman Cathedral, Dublin.[2] Swift is remembered for works such as A Tale of a Jonathan Swift, that is both a satire on human nature and the Tub (1704), An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1712), "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. It is Swift's best known full- Gulliver's Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729). He is regarded length work, and a classic of English literature. He himself by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the claimed that he wrote Gulliver's Travels "to vex the world rather English language,[1] and is less well known for his poetry. He originally than divert it". The book became popular as soon as it was published all of his works under pseudonyms – such as Lemuel Gulliver, published. John Gay wrote in a 1726 letter to Swift that "It is Isaac Bickerstaff, Drapier's Letters as MB Drapier – or anonymously. He universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery."[3] is also known for being a master of two styles of satire, the Horatian and Juvenalian styles. His deadpan, ironic writing style, particularly in A Modest Proposal, has led to such satire being subsequently termed "Swiftian".[3] Daniel Defoe The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner

Robinson Crusoe[a] /ˌrɒbɪnsәn ˈkruː soʊ/ is a novel by Daniel (Robinsonade) Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading Daniel Defoe (/ˌdænjәl dᵻˈfoʊ/; c. 1660 – 24 April 1731),[1] born Daniel many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, pamphleteer, and spy, travelogue of true incidents.[2] most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is noted for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is the form in Britain with others such as Samuel Richardson, and is presented as an autobiography of the title character (whose among the founders of the English novel. He was a prolific and birth name is Robinson Kreutznaer)—a castaway who spends versatile writer, producing more than five hundred books, pamphlets, twenty-seven years on a remote tropical desert island near and journals on various topics, including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology, and the supernatural. He was also a pioneer of Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers, before ultimately being rescued. The story has since been economic journalism.[2] thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called "Más a Tierra", now part of Chile, which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966,[3] but various literary sources have also been suggested.

Robinsonade (/ˌrɒbɪnsәˈneɪd/) is a literary genre that takes its name Despite its simple narrative style, Robinson Crusoe was well from the 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. The success of received in the literary world and is often credited as marking this novel spawned so many imitations that its name was used to the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. It is define a genre, which is sometimes described simply as a "desert [4] generally seen as a contender for the first English novel. island story"[1] or a "castaway narrative."[2] Before the end of 1719, the book had already run through four editions, and it has gone on to become one of the most widely published books in history, spawning numerous imitations in film, The word "robinsonade" was coined by the German writer Johann television and radio that its name was used to define a genre, Gottfried Schnabel in the Preface of his 1731 work Die Insel Felsenburg Robinsonade. (The Island Stronghold).[3] It is often viewed as a subgenre of survivalist fiction.

William Morris News from Nowhere; or, An Epoche of Rest

News from Nowhere (1890) is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris. It was first published in serial form in the Commonweal journal beginning on 11 January 1890. In the novel, the narrator, William Guest, falls asleep after returning from a meeting of the Socialist League and awakes to find himself in a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. In this society there is no private property, no big cities, no authority, no monetary system, no divorce, no courts, no prisons, and no class systems. This agrarian society functions simply because the people find pleasure in nature, and therefore they find pleasure in their work. The novel explores a number of aspects of this society, including its organisation and the relationships which it engenders between people. Morris fuses Marxism and the romance tradition when he presents himself as an enchanted figure in a time and place different from Victorian England. As Morris, the romance character, quests for love and fellowship—and through them for a reborn self—he encounters romance archetypes in Marxist guises. Old Hammond is both the communist educator who teaches Morris the new world and the wise old man of romance. Dick and Clara are good comrades and the married lovers who aid Morris in his wanderings. The journey on the Thames is both a voyage through society transformed by revolution and a quest for happiness. The goal of the quest, met and found though only transiently, is Ellen, the symbol of the reborn age and the bride the alien cannot win. Ellen herself is a multidimensional figure: a working class woman emancipated under socialism, she is also a benign nature spirit as well as the soul in the form of a woman.[1] The book offers Morris' answers to a number of frequent objections to socialism, and underlines his belief that socialism will entail not only the abolishment of private property but also of the divisions between art, life, and work. In the novel, Morris tackles one of the most common criticisms of socialism; the supposed lack of incentive to work in a communistic society. Morris' response is that all work should be creative and pleasurable. This differs from the majority of Socialist thinkers, who tend to assume that while work is a necessary evil, a well-planned equal society can reduce the amount of work needed to be done by each worker. News From Nowhere was written as a Libertarian socialist response to an earlier book called Looking Backward, a book that epitomises a kind of state socialism that Morris abhorred. It was also meant to directly influence various currents of thought at the time regarding the tactics to bring about socialism.[2]

William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, novelist, translator, and socialist activist. Associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement, he was a major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production. His literary contributions helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, while he played a significant role in propagating the early socialist movement in Britain. … Although retaining a main home in London, from 1871 Morris rented the rural retreat of Kelmscott Manor, Oxfordshire. Greatly influenced by visits to Iceland, with Eiríkr Magnússon he produced a series of English-language translations of Icelandic Sagas. He also achieved success with the publication of his epic poems and novels, namely The Earthly Paradise (1868–1870), A Dream of John Ball (1888), the utopian News from Nowhere (1890), and the fantasy romance The Well at the World's End (1896). In 1877 he founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings to campaign against the damage caused by architectural restoration. Embracing Marxism and influenced by anarchism, in the 1880s Morris became a committed revolutionary socialist activist; after an involvement in the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), he founded the Socialist League in 1884, but broke with that organization in 1890. In 1891 he founded the Kelmscott Press to publish limited-edition, illuminated-style print books, a cause to which he devoted his final years. Morris is recognised as one of the most significant cultural figures of Victorian Britain; though best known in his lifetime as a poet, he posthumously became better known for his designs. Founded in 1955, the William Morris Society is devoted to his legacy, while multiple biographies and studies of his work have seen publication. Many of the buildings associated with his life are open to visitors, much of his work can be found in art galleries and museums, and his designs are still in production.

H.G.Wells The Time Machine

A Modern Utopia Group: Samurai – ‘an Open Conspiracy’

Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946)—known as H. G. Wells[3][4]—was a prolific English writer in many genres, including the novel, history, politics, social commentary, and textbooks and rules for war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is called a "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback.[5][6][a] His most notable science fiction works include The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). He [7] was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times. Wells's earliest specialised training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a specifically and fundamentally Darwinian context.[8] He was also from an early date an outspoken socialist, often (but not always, as at the beginning of the First World War) sympathising with pacifist views. His later works became increasingly political and didactic, and he wrote little science fiction, while he sometimes indicated on official documents that his profession was that of journalist.[9] Novels like Kipps and The History of Mr Polly, which describe lower-middle-class life, led to the suggestion, when they were published, that he was a worthy successor to Charles Dickens,[10] but Wells described a range of social strata and even attempted, in Tono-Bungay (1909), a diagnosis of English society as a whole. A diabetic, in 1934 Wells co-founded the charity The Diabetic Association (known today as Diabetes UK).

THE TIME MACHINE History Wells had considered the notion of time travel before, in a short story titled "The Chronic Argonauts" (1888). This work, published in his college newspaper, was the foundation for The Time Machine. Wells frequently stated that he had thought of using some of this material in a series of articles in the Pall Mall Gazette, until the publisher asked him if he could instead write a serial novel on the same theme. Wells readily agreed and was paid £100 (equal to about £10,000 today) on its publication by Heinemann in 1895, which first published the story in serial form in the January to May numbers of The New Review (newly under the nominal editorship of W. E. Henley).[1] Henry Holt and Company published the first book edition (possibly prepared from a different manuscript)[2] on 7 May 1895; Heinemann published an English edition on 29 May.[1] These two editions are different textually and are commonly referred to as the "Holt text" and "Heinemann text", respectively. Nearly all modern reprints reproduce the Heinemann text.[citation needed] The story reflects Wells's own socialist political views, his view on life and abundance, and the contemporary angst about industrial relations. It is also influenced by Ray Lankester's theories about social degeneration[3] and shares many elements with Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel Vril, the Power of the Coming Race (1871).[4] Other science fiction works of the period, including Edward Bellamy's novel Looking Backward: 2000- 1887 (1888) and the later film Metropolis (1927), dealt with similar themes.[citation needed] Plot The book's protagonist is an English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond, Surrey, in Victorian England, and identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller. The narrator recounts the Traveller's lecture to his weekly dinner guests that time is simply a fourth dimension, and his demonstration of a tabletop model machine for travelling through it. He reveals that he has built a machine capable of carrying a person through time, and returns at dinner the following week to recount a remarkable tale, becoming the new narrator. In the new narrative, the Time Traveller tests his device with a journey that takes him to A.D. 802,701, where he meets the Eloi, a society of small, elegant, childlike adults. They live in small communities within large and futuristic yet slowly deteriorating buildings, doing no work and having a frugivorous diet. His efforts to communicate with them are hampered by their lack of curiosity or discipline, and he speculates that they are a peaceful, communist society, the result of humanity conquering nature with technology, and subsequently evolving to adapt to an environment in which strength and intellect are no longer advantageous to survival. Returning to the site where he arrived, the Time Traveller is shocked to find his time machine missing, and eventually concludes that it has been dragged by some unknown party into a nearby structure with heavy doors, locked from the inside, which resembles a Sphinx. Luckily, he had removed the machine's levers before leaving it (the time machine being unable to travel through time without them). Later in the dark, he is approached menacingly by the Morlocks, ape-like troglodytes who live in darkness underground and surface only at night. Within their dwellings he discovers the machinery and industry that makes the above-ground paradise possible. He alters his theory, speculating that the human race has evolved into two species: the leisured classes have become the ineffectual Eloi, and the downtrodden working classes have become the brutal light-fearing Morlocks. Deducing that the Morlocks have taken his time machine, he explores the Morlock tunnels, learning that due to a lack of any other means of sustenance, they feed on the Eloi. His revised analysis is that their relationship is not one of lords and servants, but of livestock and ranchers. The Time Traveller theorizes that intelligence is the result of and response to danger; with no real challenges facing the Eloi, they have lost the spirit, intelligence, and physical fitness of humanity at its peak. Meanwhile, he saves an Eloi named Weena from drowning as none of the other Eloi take any notice of her plight, and they develop an innocently affectionate relationship over the course of several days. He takes Weena with him on an expedition to a distant structure that turns out to be the remains of a museum, where he finds a fresh supply of matches and fashions a crude weapon against Morlocks, whom he must fight to get back his machine. He plans to take Weena back to his own time. Because the long and tiring journey back to Weena's home is too much for them, they stop in the forest, and they are then overcome by Morlocks in the night, and Weena faints. The Traveller escapes when a small fire he had left behind them to distract the Morlocks catches up to them as a forest fire; Weena and the pursuing Morlocks are lost in the fire, and the Time Traveler is devastated over his loss. The Morlocks open the Sphinx and use the time machine as bait to capture the Traveller, not understanding that he will use it to escape. He reattaches the levers before he travels further ahead to roughly 30 million years from his own time. There he sees some of the last living things on a dying Earth: menacing reddish crab-like creatures slowly wandering the blood- red beaches chasing enormous butterflies in a world covered in simple lichenous vegetation. He continues to make short jumps through time, seeing Earth's rotation gradually cease and the sun grow larger, redder, and dimmer, and the world falling silent and freezing as the last degenerate living things die out. Overwhelmed, he goes back to the machine and returns to Victorian time, arriving at his laboratory just three hours after he originally left. Interrupting dinner, he relates his adventures to his disbelieving visitors, producing as evidence two strange white flowers Weena had put in his pocket. The original narrator then takes over and relates that he returned to the Time Traveller's house the next day, finding him preparing for another journey. After promising to return in a short period of time, the narrator reveals that after 3 years of waiting, the Time Traveller has never returned. Deleted text A section from the eleventh chapter of the serial published in New Review (May 1895) was deleted from the book. It was drafted at the suggestion of Wells's editor, William Ernest Henley, who wanted Wells to "oblige your editor" by lengthening the text with, among other things, an illustration of "the ultimate degeneracy" of humanity. "There was a slight struggle," Wells later recalled, "between the writer and W. E. Henley who wanted, he said, to put a little 'writing' into the tale. But the writer was in reaction from that sort of thing, the Henley interpolations were cut out again, and he had his own way with his text."[5] This portion of the story was published elsewhere as "The Grey Man".[6] The deleted text was also published by Forrest J Ackerman in an issue of the American edition of Perry Rhodan.[citation needed] The deleted text recounts an incident immediately after the Traveller's escape from the Morlocks. He finds himself in the distant future of an unrecognisable Earth, populated with furry, hopping herbivores resembling kangaroos. He stuns or kills one with a rock, and upon closer examination realises they are probably the descendants of humans/Eloi/Morlocks. A gigantic, centipede-like arthropod approaches and the Traveller flees into the next day, finding that the creature has apparently eaten the tiny humanoid. The Dover Press[7] and Easton Press editions of the novella restore this deleted segment.[citation needed] A Modern Utopia is a 1905 novel by H. G. Wells. Because of the complexity and sophistication of its narrative structure A Modern Utopia has been called "not so much a modern as a postmodern utopia."[1] The novel is best known for its notion that a voluntary order of nobility known as the Samurai could effectively rule a "kinetic and not static" world state[2] so as to solve "the problem of combining progress with political stability."[3] Conception of the work In his preface, Wells forecasts (incorrectly) that A Modern Utopia would be the last of a series of volumes on social problems that began in 1901 with Anticipations and included Mankind in the Making (1903). But unlike those non-fictional works, A Modern Utopia is presented as a tale told by a sketchily described character known only as the Owner of the Voice. This character "is not to be taken as the Voice of the ostensible author who fathers these pages," Wells warns.[4] He is accompanied by another character known as "the botanist." Interspersed in the narrative are discursive remarks on various matters, creating what Wells called in his preface "a sort of shot- silk texture between philosophical discussion on the one hand and imaginative narrative on the other.".[5] In addition, there are frequent comparisons to and discussions of previous utopian literature.[6] In terms of Northrop Frye's classification of literary genres, A Modern Utopia is not a novel but an anatomy.[1]mThe premise of the novel is that there is a planet (for "No less than a planet will serve the purpose of a modern Utopia" [7]) exactly like Earth, with the same geography and biology. Moreover, on that planet "all the men and women that you know and I" exist "in duplicate."[8] They have, however, "different habits, different traditions, different knowledge, different ideas, different clothing, and different appliances."[9] (Not however, a different language: "Indeed, should we be in Utopia at all, if we could not talk to everyone?"[10]) Plot To this planet "out beyond Sirius"[11] the Owner of the Voice and the botanist are translated, imaginatively, "in the twinkling of an eye . . . We should scarcely note the change. Not a cloud would have gone from the sky."[12] Their point of entry is on the slopes of the Piz Lucendro in the Swiss Alps. The adventures of these two characters are traced through eleven chapters. Little by little they discover how Utopia is organized. It is a world with "no positive compulsions at all . . . for the adult Utopian—unless they fall upon him as penalties incurred."[13] The Owner of the Voice and the botanist are soon required to account for their presence. When their thumbprints are checked against records in "the central index housed in a vast series of buildings at or near Paris,"[14] both discover they have doubles in Utopia. They journey to London to meet them, and the Owner of the Voice's double is a member of the Samurai, a voluntary order of nobility that rules Utopia. "These samurai form the real body of the State."[15] Running through the novel as a foil to the main narrative is the botanist's obsession with an unhappy love affair back on Earth. The Owner of the Voice is annoyed at this undignified and unworthy insertion of earthly affairs in Utopia, but when the botanist meets the double of his beloved in Utopia the violence of his reaction bursts the imaginative bubble that has sustained the narrative and the two men find themselves back in early-twentieth-century London.[16] Utopian economics The world shares the same language, coinage, customs, and laws, and freedom of movement is general.[17] Some personal property is allowed, but "all natural sources of force, and indeed all strictly natural products" are "inalienably vested in the local authorities" occupying "areas as large sometimes as half England."[18] The World State is "the sole landowner of the earth."[19] Units of currency are based on units of energy, so that "employment would constantly shift into the areas where energy was cheap."[20] Humanity has been almost entirely liberated from the need for physical labor: "There appears to be no limit to the invasion of life by the machine."[21] The samurai and Utopian society The narrator's double describes the ascetic Rule by which the samurai live; this includes a ban on alcohol and drugs and a mandatory annual one-week solitary ramble in the wilderness. He also explains the social theory of Utopia, which distinguished four "main classes of mind": The Poietic, the Kinetic, the Dull, and the Base.[22] Poietic minds are creative or inventive; kinetic minds are able but not particularly inventive; the Dull have "inadequate imagination,"[23] and the Base are mired in egotism and lack "moral sense."[24] The relations of the sexes There is extensive discussion of gender roles in A Modern Utopia, but no recognition of the existence of homosexuality. A chapter entitled "Women in a Modern Utopia" makes it clear that women are to be as free as men. Motherhood is subsidized by the state. Only those who can support themselves can marry, women at 21 and men at 26 or 27.[25] Marriages that remain childless "expire" after a term of three to five years, but the partners may marry again if they choose.[26] Race in Utopia A Modern Utopia is also notable for Chapter 10 ("Race in Utopia"), an enlightened discussion of race. Contemporary racialist discourse is condemned as crude, ignorant, and extravagant. "For my own part I am disposed to discount all adverse judgments and all statements of insurmountable differences between race and race."[27] Meat The narrator is told, "In all the round world of Utopia there is no meat. There used to be. But now we cannot stand the thought of slaughter-houses. And, in a population that is all educated, and at about the same level of physical refinement, it is practically impossible to find anyone who will hew a dead ox or pig. We never settled the hygienic question of meat-eating at all. This other aspect decided us. I can still remember, as a boy, the rejoicings over the closing of the last slaughter-house".[28] Origins The work was partly inspired by a trip to the Alps Wells made with his friend Graham Wallas, a prominent member of the Fabian Society.

The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow.[1][2] As one of the founding organisations of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, and as an important influence upon the Labour Party which grew from it, the Fabian Society has had a powerful influence on British politics. Later members of the Fabian Society included Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders of new nations created out of the former British Empire, who used Fabian principles to create socialist democracies in India, Pakistan, Nigeria and elsewhere as Britain decolonised after World War II. The Fabian Society founded the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1895 "for the betterment of society", now one of the leading institutions in the world, an incubator of influential politicians, economists, journalists, prime ministers and liberal billionaires.[improper synthesis?] Today, the society functions primarily as a think tank and is one of 15 socialist societies affiliated with the Labour Party. Similar societies exist in Australia (the Australian Fabian Society), in Canada (the Douglas–Coldwell Foundation and the now disbanded League for Social Reconstruction), in Sicily (Sicilian Fabian Society) and in New Zealand (The NZ Fabian Society).[3] p26 The growth of the dystopia And with World Wars I and II, the flu epidemic, the Depression, the Korean War, the war in Vietnam, and other events of the 20th century, dystopias became the dominant form of utopian literature. While the word ‘dystopia’ was first used in the middle of the 18th century, and the English philosopher John Stuart Mill used it in a speech in Parliament in 1868, the literary form and the use of the word to describe it did not become common until well into the 20th century.

Francis Galton

Sir Francis Galton, FRS (/ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈɡɔːltәn/; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911) was an English Victorian statistician, progressive, polymath, sociologist , psychologist,[1][2] anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, and psychometrician. He was knighted in 1909. Galton produced over 340 papers and books. He also created the statistical concept of correlation and widely promoted regression toward the mean. He was the first to apply statistical methods to the study of human differences and inheritance of intelligence, and introduced the use of questionnaires and surveys for collecting data on human communities, which he needed for genealogical and biographical works and for his anthropometric studies. He was a pioneer in eugenics, coining the term itself[3] and the phrase "nature versus nurture".[4] His book Hereditary Genius (1869) was the first social scientific attempt to study genius and greatness .[5] As an investigator of the human mind, he founded psychometrics (the science of measuring mental faculties) and differential psychology and the lexical hypothesis of personality. He devised a method for classifying fingerprints that proved useful in forensic science. He also conducted research on the power of prayer, concluding it had none by its null effects on the longevity of those prayed for.[6] His quest for the scientific principles of diverse phenomena extended even to the optimal method for making tea.[7] As the initiator of scientific meteorology, he devised the first weather map, proposed a theory of anticyclones, and was the first to establish a complete record of short- term climatic phenomena on a European scale.[8] He also invented the Galton Whistle for testing differential hearing ability.[9] He was Charles Darwin's half-cousin.[10] Evgeny Zamiatin We Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin[1] (Russian: Евге ний Ива нович Замя тин; IPA: [jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɪˈvanәvʲɪtɕ zɐˈmʲætʲɪn]; 20 January (Julian) / 1 February (Gregorian), 1884 – 10 March 1937) was a Russian author of science fiction and political satire. He is most famous for his 1921 novel We, a story set in a dystopian future police state. Despite having been a prominent Old Bolshevik, Zamyatin was deeply disturbed by the policies pursued by the CPSU following the October Revolution. In 1921, We became the first work banned by the Soviet censorship board. Ultimately, Zamyatin arranged for We to be smuggled to the West for publication. The subsequent outrage this sparked within the Party and the Union of Soviet Writers led directly to Zamyatin's successful request for exile from his homeland. Due to his use of literature to criticize Soviet society, Zamyatin has been referred to as one of the first Soviet dissidents.

We (Russian: Мы) is a dystopian novel by Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin, completed in 1921.[2] The novel was first published in 1924 by E. P. Dutton in New York in an English translation by Gregory Zilboorg. The novel describes a world of harmony and conformity within a united totalitarian state. Setting We is set in the future. D-503, a spacecraft engineer, lives in the One State,[3] an urban nation constructed almost entirely of glass, which assists mass surveillance. The structure of the state is Panopticon-like. Furthermore, life is scientifically managed F. W. Taylor -style. People march in step with each other and are uniformed. There is no way of referring to people save by their given numbers. The society is run strictly by logic or reason as the primary justification for the laws or the construct of the society.[4][5] The individual's behaviour is based on logic by way of formulas and equations outlined by the One State.[6] Plot One thousand years after the One State's conquest of the entire world, the spaceship Integral is being built in order to invade and conquer extraterrestrial planets. Meanwhile, the project's chief engineer, D-503, begins a journal that he intends to be carried upon the completed spaceship.Like all other citizens of One State, D-503 lives in a glass apartment building and is carefully watched by the secret police, or Bureau of Guardians. D-503's lover, O-90, has been assigned by One State to visit him on certain nights. She is considered too short to bear children and is deeply grieved by her state in life. O-90's other lover and D-503's best friend is R-13, a State poet who reads his verse at public executions. While on an assigned walk with O-90, D-503 meets a woman named I-330. I-330 smokes cigarettes, drinks alcohol, and shamelessly flirts with D-503 instead of applying for an impersonal sex visit; all of these are highly illegal according to the laws of One State. Both repelled and fascinated, D-503 struggles to overcome his attraction to I- 330. I-330 invites him to visit the Ancient House, notable for being the only opaque building in One State, except for windows. Objects of aesthetic and historical importance dug up from around the city are stored there. There, I-330 offers him the services of a corrupt doctor to explain his absence from work. Leaving in horror D-503 vows to denounce her to the Bureau of Guardians, but finds that he cannot. He begins to have dreams, which disturbs him, as dreams are thought to be a symptom of mental illness. Slowly, I-330 reveals to D-503 that she is involved with the Mephi, an organization plotting to bring down the One State. She takes him through secret tunnels inside the Ancient House to the world outside the Green Wall, which surrounds the city-state. There, D-503 meets the inhabitants of the outside world: humans whose bodies are covered with animal fur. The aims of the Mephi are to destroy the Green Wall and reunite the citizens of One State with the outside world. Despite the recent rift between them, O-90 pleads with D-503 to impregnate her illegally. After O-90 insists that she will obey the law by turning over their child to be raised by the One State, D-503 obliges. However, as her pregnancy progresses, O-90 realizes that she cannot bear to be parted from her baby under any circumstances. At D-503's request, I-330 arranges for O-90 to be smuggled outside the Green Wall. In his last journal entry, D-503 indifferently relates that he has been forcibly tied to a table and subjected to the "Great Operation", which has recently been mandated for all citizens of One State in order to prevent possible riots;[7] having been psycho-surgically refashioned into a state of mechanical "reliability", they would now function as "tractors in human form".[8] This operation removes the imagination and emotions by targeting parts of the brain with X-rays. After this operation, D-503 willingly informed the Benefactor about the inner workings of the Mephi. However, D-503 expresses surprise that even torture could not induce I-330 to denounce her comrades. Despite her refusal, I-330 and those arrested with her have been sentenced to death, "under the Benefactor's Machine". Meanwhile, the Mephi uprising gathers strength; parts of the Green Wall have been destroyed, birds are repopulating the city, and people start committing acts of social rebellion. Although D-503 expresses hope that the Benefactor shall restore "reason", the novel ends with One State's survival in doubt. I-330's mantra is that, just as there is no highest number, there can be no final revolution. Major themes - Dystopian society The dystopian society depicted in We is presided over by the Benefactor[9] and is surrounded by a giant Green Wall to separate the citizens from primitive untamed nature. All citizens are known as "numbers". [10] Every hour in one's life is directed by "The Table". The action of We is set at some time after the Two Hundred Years' War, which has wiped out all but "0.2 of the earth's population".[11] The war was over a rare substance never mentioned in the book, but it could be about petroleum, as all knowledge of the war comes from biblical metaphors; the substance was called "bread" as the "Christians gladiated over it"—as in countries fighting conventional wars. However, it is also revealed that the war only ended after the use of weapons of mass destruction, so that the One State is surrounded with a post-apocalyptic landscape. Allusions and references Many of the names and numbers in We are allusions to personal experiences of Zamyatin or to culture and literature. For example, "Auditorium 112" refers to cell number 112, where Zamyatin was twice imprisoned,[12] and the name of S-4711 is a reference to the Eau de Cologne number 4711.[13] Zamyatin, who worked as a naval architect,[14] refers to the specifications of the icebreaker St. Alexander Nevsky. The numbers [. . .] of the chief characters in WE are taken directly from the specifications of Zamyatin's favourite icebreaker, the Saint Alexander Nevsky, yard no. A/W 905, round tonnage 3300, where O–90 and I-330 appropriately divide the hapless D-503 [. . .] Yu-10 could easily derive from the Swan Hunter yard numbers of no fewer than three of Zamyatin's major icebreakers – 1012, 1020, 1021 [. . .]. R-13 can be found here too, as well as in the yard number of Sviatogor A/W 904.[15][16] Many comparisons to The Bible exist in We. There are similarities between Genesis Chapters 1–4 and We, where the One State is considered Paradise, D-503 is Adam, and I-330 is Eve. The snake in this piece is S-4711, who is described as having a bent and twisted form, with a "double-curved body" (he is a double agent). References to Mephistopheles (in the Mephi) are seen as allusions to Satan and his rebellion against Heaven in the Bible (Ezekial 28:11–19; Isaiah 14:12–15).[citation needed] The novel itself could be considered a criticism of organised religion given this interpretation.[17] However, Zamyatin, influenced by Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground and The Brothers Karamazov,[17] made the novel a criticism of the excesses of a militantly atheistic society.[18] The novel uses mathematical concepts symbolically. The spaceship that D-503 is supervising the construction of is called the Integral, which he hopes will "integrate the grandiose cosmic equation". D-503 also mentions that he is profoundly disturbed by the concept of the square root of −1— which is the basis for imaginary numbers (imagination being deprecated by the One State). Zamyatin's point, probably in light of the increasingly dogmatic Soviet government of the time, would seem to be that it is impossible to remove all the rebels against a system. Zamyatin even says this through I-330: "There is no final revolution. Revolutions are infinite."[19]

Alduous Huxley Brave New World

Aldous Leonard Huxley (/ˈɔːldәs ˈhʌksli/; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer, novelist, philosopher,[1][2][3][4] and prominent member of the Huxley family. He graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a first in English literature. He was best known for his novels including Brave New World, set in a dystopian London; for non-fiction books, such as The Doors of Perception, which recalls experiences when taking a psychedelic drug; and a wide-ranging output of essays. Early in his career Huxley edited the magazine Oxford Poetry and published short stories and poetry. Mid career and later, he published travel writing, film stories, and scripts. He spent the later part of his life in the U.S., living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. In 1962, a year before his death, he was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature.[5] Huxley was a humanist, pacifist, and satirist. He later became interested in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism,[6][7] in particular universalism.[8] By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent intellectuals of his time.[9] He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in seven different years.[10]

Brave New World is a novel written in 1931 by Aldous Huxley and published in 1932. Set in London in the year AD 2540 (632 A.F.—"After Ford"— in the book), the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation, and classical conditioning that combine profoundly to change society. Huxley answered this book with a reassessment in an essay, Brave New World Revisited (1958), and with Island (1962), his final novel. In 1999, the Modern Library ranked Brave New World fifth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.[2] In 2003, Robert McCrum writing for The Observer included Brave New World chronologically at number 53 in "the top 100 greatest novels of all time",[3] and the novel was listed at number 87 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[4] Title Brave New World's title derives from Miranda's speech in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene I:[5]

O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't. — William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I, ll. 203–206[6]

Translations of the title often allude to similar expressions used in domestic works of literature: the French edition of the work is entitled Le Meilleur des mondes (The Best of All Worlds), an allusion to an expression used by the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz[7] and satirised in Candide, Ou l'Optimisme by Voltaire (1759). History Huxley wrote Brave New World in his house in Sanary-sur-Mer, France in the four months from May to August 1931.[8] By this time, Huxley had already established himself as a writer and social satirist. He was a contributor to Vanity Fair and Vogue magazines, and had published a collection of his poetry (The Burning Wheel, 1916) and four successful satirical novels: Crome Yellow (1921), Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925), and Point Counter Point (1928). Brave New World was Huxley's fifth novel and first dystopian work. Huxley said that Brave New World was inspired by the utopian novels of H. G. Wells, including A Modern Utopia (1905) and Men Like Gods (1923).[9] Wells' hopeful vision of the future's possibilities gave Huxley the idea to begin writing a parody of the novel, which became Brave New World. He wrote in a letter to Mrs. Arthur Goldsmith, an American acquaintance, that he had "been having a little fun pulling the leg of H. G. Wells," but then he "got caught up in the excitement of [his] own ideas."[10] Unlike the most popular optimist utopian novels of the time, Huxley sought to provide a frightening vision of the future. Huxley referred to Brave New World as a "negative utopia", somewhat influenced by Wells' own The Sleeper Awakes (dealing with subjects like corporate tyranny and behavioural conditioning) and the works of D. H. Lawrence. George Orwell believed that Brave New World must have been partly derived from the novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.[11] However, in a 1962 letter, Huxley says that he wrote Brave New World long before he had heard of We.[12] According to We translator Natasha Randall, Orwell believed that Huxley was lying.[13] The scientific futurism in Brave New World is believed to be cribbed from Daedalus by J. B. S. Haldane.[14] The events of the Depression in Britain in 1931, with its mass unemployment and the abandonment of the gold currency standard, persuaded Huxley to assert that stability was the "primal and ultimate need" if civilisation was to survive the present crisis.[15] The Brave New World character Mustapha Mond, Resident World Controller of Western Europe, is named after Sir Alfred Mond. Huxley visited Mond's technologically advanced plant near Billingham, north east England, shortly before writing the novel, and it made a great impression on him.[15] Huxley used the setting and characters in his science fiction novel to express widely held opinions, particularly the fear of losing individual identity in the fast-paced world of the future. An early trip to the United States gave Brave New World much of its character. Not only was Huxley outraged by the culture of youth, commercial cheeriness and sexual promiscuity, and the inward-looking nature of many Americans,[16] he had also found the book My Life and Work by Henry Ford on the boat to America, and he saw the book's principles applied in everything he encountered after leaving San Francisco.[17] Plot The novel opens in London in AF 632 (AD 2540 in the Gregorian calendar). The society described above is illuminated by the activities of two of the novel's central characters, Lenina Crowne and Bernard Marx, and the other characters with whom they come into contact. Lenina, a hatchery worker, is socially accepted and contented, but Bernard, a psychologist in the Directorate of Hatcheries and Conditioning, is not. He is shorter in stature than the average of his Alpha caste—a quality shared by the lower castes, which gives him an inferiority complex. His intelligence and his work with hypnopaedia allow him to understand, and disapprove of, the methods by which society is sustained. Courting disaster, he is vocal and arrogant about his differences. Bernard is mocked by other Alphas because of his stature, as well as for his individualistic tendencies, and is threatened with exile to Iceland because of his nonconformity. His only friend is Helmholtz Watson, a lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering. The friendship is based on their feelings of being misfits (in the context of the World State), but unlike Bernard, Watson's sense of alienation stems from being exceptionally gifted, intelligent, handsome, and physically strong. Helmholtz is drawn to Bernard as a confidant. Bernard takes a holiday with Lenina at a Savage Reservation in New Mexico. (The culture of the village folk resembles the contemporary Native American groups of the region, descendants of the Anasazi, including the Puebloan peoples of Acoma, Laguna and Zuni.) There they observe ceremonies, including a ritual in which a village boy is whipped into unconsciousness. They encounter Linda, a woman originally from the World State who is living on the reservation with her son John, now a young man. She too visited the reservation on a holiday, and became separated from her group and was left behind. She had meanwhile become pregnant by a fellow-holidaymaker (who is revealed to be Bernard's boss, the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning). She did not try to return to "civilization" because of her shame at her pregnancy. Neither Linda nor John are accepted by the villagers, and their life has been hard and unpleasant. Linda has taught John to read, although from only two books: a scientific manual from his mother's job in the hatchery and the collected works of Shakespeare. Ostracised by the villagers, John is able to articulate his feelings only in terms of Shakespearean drama, especially the tragedies of Othello, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. Linda now wants to return to London, while John wants to see the "brave new world" his mother has told him about. Bernard sees an opportunity to thwart plans to exile him, and gets permission to take Linda and John back. On his return to London, Bernard is confronted by the Director, but turns the tables by presenting him with his long-lost lover and unknown son. John calls the Director his "father", a vulgarity which causes a roar of laughter. The humiliated Director resigns in shame. Bernard, as "custodian" of the "savage" John who is now treated as a celebrity, is fawned on by the highest members of society and revels in attention he once scorned. However, his triumph is short-lived. Decrepit and friendless, Linda goes on a permanent soma holiday while John refuses to attend social events organised by Bernard, appalled by what he perceives to be an empty society. Society drops Bernard as swiftly as it had taken him. Lenina and John are physically attracted to each other, but John's view of courtship and romance, based on Shakespeare, is utterly incompatible with Lenina's freewheeling attitude to sex. Lenina tries to seduce John, but he attacks her for being an "impudent strumpet". John is then informed that his mother is extremely ill. He rushes to her bedside, causing a scandal as this is not the "correct" attitude to death. Some Delta children who enter the ward for "death-conditioning" irritate John to the point where he attacks one physically. He then tries to break up a distribution of soma to a lower-caste group and is set upon by the outraged recipients. Helmholtz, who has been called by Bernard, also becomes involved in the fracas. Bernard, Helmholtz and John are brought before Mustapha Mond, the Resident "World Controller for Western Europe". Bernard and Helmholtz are told they are to be exiled to islands, seen by society at large as a punishment for antisocial activity. Bernard pleads grovelling for a second chance, but Helmholtz welcomes the opportunity to be an individual, and chooses the Falkland Islands as his destination, believing that their bad weather will inspire his writing. Mond says that Bernard does not know that exile is actually a reward. The islands are full of the most interesting people in the world, individuals who did not fit in the World State community. Mond outlines for John the events that led to the present society and his arguments for a caste system and social control. John rejects Mond's arguments, and Mond sums up by saying that John demands "the right to be unhappy". John asks if he may go to the islands as well but Mond refuses, saying he wishes to "continue the experiment". John moves to an abandoned hilltop "air-lighthouse" (meant to warn and guide helicopters) there, near the village of Puttenham, where he intends to adopt an ascetic lifestyle in order to purify himself of civilization and make amends for his mistreatment of his mother. He practises self-mortification, and his self-flagellation is witnessed by bystanders, turning him into a sensational spectacle. Hundreds of sightseers, hoping to witness his behaviour, arrive at John's lighthouse; one of them is Lenina. At the sight of the woman whom he both adores and loathes, John attacks her with his whip. The onlookers are whipped into a frenzy by the display and John is caught up in a soma-fueled orgy. The next morning, John remembers the previous night's events and is stricken with remorse. Onlookers and journalists who arrive that evening find that he has hanged himself, his body twisting aimlessly in the lighthouse.

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950),[1] who used the pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and George Orwell Nineteen Eighy‐Four critic. His work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism.[2][3] Orwell wrote literary criticism, poetry, fiction, and polemical journalism. He is best known for his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949) and the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945). His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working class life in the north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, are widely acclaimed, as are his essays on politics, literature, language, and culture. In 2008, The Times ranked him second on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".[4] Orwell's work continues to influence popular and political culture, and the term Orwellian – descriptive of totalitarian or authoritarian social practices – has entered the language together with many of his neologisms, including cold war, Big Brother, thought police, Room 101, memory hole, newspeak, doublethink, and thoughtcrime.[5]

Nineteen Eighty-Four, often published as 1984, is a dystopian novel by English author George Orwell published in 1949.[1][2] The novel is set in Airstrip One (formerly known as Great Britain), a province of the superstate Oceania in a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance , and public manipulation, dictated by a political system euphemistically named English Socialism (or Ingsoc in the government's invented language, Newspeak) under the control of a privileged elite of the Inner Party, that persecutes individualism and independent thinking as "thoughtcrime."[3] The tyranny is epitomised by Big Brother, the Party leader who enjoys an intense cult of personality but who may not even exist. The Party "seeks power entirely for its own sake. It is not interested in the good of others; it is interested solely in power."[4] The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, is a member of the Outer Party, who works for the Ministry of Truth (or Minitrue in Newspeak), which is responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism. His job is to rewrite past newspaper articles, so that the historical record always supports the party line.[5] The instructions that the workers receive specify the corrections as fixing misquotations and never as what they really are: forgeries and falsifications. A large part of the ministry also actively destroys all documents that have been edited and do not contain the revisions; in this way, no proof exists that the government is lying. Smith is a diligent and skillful worker but secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion against Big Brother. Orwell based the character of the heroine of the novel, Julia, on his second wife, Sonia Orwell.[6][7] As literary political fiction and dystopian science-fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic novel in content, plot and style. Many of its terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, Room 101, telescreen, 2 + 2 = 5, and memory hole, have entered into common use since its publication in 1949. Nineteen Eighty-Four popularised the adjective Orwellian, which describes official deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of recorded history by a totalitarian or authoritarian state.[5] In 2005, the novel was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.[8] It was awarded a place on both lists of Modern Library 100 Best Novels, reaching number 13 on the editor's list, and 6 on the readers' list.[9] In 2003, the novel was listed at number 8 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[10]

p29 … Huxley’s projection or extrapolation into the future of trends he saw around him became the norm for dystopias.

Upton Sinclair We, People of America and How We ended Poverty

Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in several genres. Sinclair's work was well-known and popular in the first half of the twentieth century, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943.

In 1906, Sinclair acquired particular fame for his classic muckraking novel The Jungle, which exposed conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.[1] In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the “free press” in the United States. Four years after publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created.[2] Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence".[3] He is also well remembered for the line: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."[4] He used this line in speeches and the book about his campaign for governor as a way to explain why the editors and publishers of the major newspapers in California would not treat seriously his proposals for old age pensions and other progressive reforms.[5] Many of his novels can be read as historical works. Writing during the Progressive Era, Sinclair describes the world of industrialized America from both the working man's point of view and the industrialist. Novels like King Coal (1917), The Coal War (published posthumously), Oil! (1927) and The Flivver King (1937) describe the working conditions of the coal, oil and auto industries at the time. He attacked J. P. Morgan, whom many regarded as a hero for ending the Panic of 1907, saying that he had engineered the crisis in order to acquire a bank.[citation needed] The Flivver King describes the rise of Henry Ford, his "wage reform", and the company's Sociological Department to his decline into antisemitism as publisher of The Dearborn Independent. King Coal confronts John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his role in the 1913 Ludlow Massacre in the coal fields of Colorado. Sinclair was an outspoken socialist and ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a nominee from the Socialist Party. He was also the Democratic Party candidate for Governor of California during the Great Depression, running under the banner of the End Poverty in California campaign, but was defeated in the 1934 elections.

THE EPIC PLAN

1. A legislative enactment for the establishment of State land colonies whereby the unemployed may become self-sustaining and cease to be a burden upon the taxpayers. A public body, the California Authority for Land (the CAL) will take the idle land, and land sold for taxes and at foreclosure sales, and erect dormitories, kitchens, cafeterias, and social rooms, and cultivate the land using modern machinery under the guidance of experts. 2. A public body entitled the California Authority for Production (the CAP), will be authorized to acquire factories and production plants whereby the unemployed may produce the basic necessities required for themselves and for the land colonies, and to operate these factories and house and feed and care for the workers. CAL and CAP will maintain a distribution system for the exchange of each other's products. The industries will include laundries, bakeries, canneries, clothing and shoe factories, cement-plants, brick-yards, lumber yards, thus constituting a complete industrial system, a new and self-sustaining world for those our present system cannot employ.

3. A public body entitled the California Authority for Money (the CAM) will handle the financing of CAL and CAP. This body will issue scrip to be paid to the workers and used in the exchanging of products within the system. It will also issue bonds to cover the purchase of land and factories, the erection of buildings and the purchase of machinery.

4. An act of the legislature repealing the present sales tax, and substituting a tax on stock transfers at the rate of 4 cents per share.

5. An act of the legislature providing for a State income tax, beginning with incomes of $5000 and steeply graduated until incomes of $50,000 would pay 30% tax.

6. An increase in the State inheritance tax, steeply graduated and applying to all property in the State regardless of where the owner may reside. This law would take 50% of sums above $50,000 bequeathed to any individual and 50% of sums above $250,000 bequeathed by any individual.

7. A law increasing the taxes on privately owned public utility corporations and banks.

8. A constitutional amendment revising the tax code of the State, providing that cities and counties shall exempt from taxation all homes occupied by the owners and ranches cultivated by the owners, wherever the assessed value of such homes and ranches is less than $3000. Upon properties assessed at more than $5000 there will be a tax increase of one-half of one per cent for each $5000 of additional assessed valuation.

9. A constitutional amendment providing for a State land tax upon unimproved building land and agricultural land which is not under cultivation. The first $1000 of assessed valuation to be exempt, and the tax to be graduated according to the value of land held by the individual. Provision to be made for a state building loan fund for those who wish to erect homes.

10. A law providing for the payment of a pension of $50 per month to every needy person over sixty years of age who has lived in the State of California three years prior to the date of the coming into effect of the law.

11. A law providing for the payment of $50 per month to all persons who are blind, or who by medical examination are proved to be physically unable to earn a living; these persons also having been residents of the State for three years.

12. A pension of $50 per month to all widowed women who have dependent children; if the children are more than two in number, the pension to be increased by $25 per month for each additional child. These also to have been residents three years in the State.

Harold Loeb Life in a Technocracy Harold Albert Loeb (1891–1974) was an American writer, notable as an important American figure in the arts among expatriates in Paris in the Technocracy is an organizational structure or system of 1920s. In 1921 he was the founding editor of Broom, an international governance where decision-makers are selected on the basis of literary and art magazine, which was first published in New York City technological knowledge. The concept of a technocracy before he moved the venture to Europe. Loeb published two novels remains mostly hypothetical. Technocrats, a term used frequently while living in Paris in the 1920s, and additional works after returning to by journalists in the twenty-first century, can refer to individuals New York in 1929. exercising governmental authority because of their knowledge.[1] Technocrat has come to mean either "a member of a powerful technical elite" or "someone who advocates the supremacy of This work from 1933 expounds on the merits of creating a utopian [2][3][4] technical experts". Examples include scientists, engineers, society through technocracy, predicting the future of art, education, and technologists who have special knowledge, expertise, or religion and government under the leadership of technical skills, and would compose the governing body, instead of people professionals. It encompasses the social and economic theories of the elected through political parties and businesspeople.[5] In a pre-depression era. technocracy, decision makers would be selected based upon how knowledgeable and skillful they are in their field. The term technocracy was originally used to advocate the application of the scientific method to solving social problems. According to the proponents of this concept, the role of money, economic values, and moralistic control mechanisms would be eliminated altogether if and when this form of social control should ever be implemented in a continental area endowed with enough natural resources, technically trained personnel, and installed industrial equipment. In such an arrangement, concern would be given to sustainability within the resource base, instead of monetary profitability, so as to ensure continued operation of all social-industrial functions into the indefinite future. Technical and leadership skills would be selected on the basis of specialized knowledge and performance, rather than democratic election by those without such knowledge or skill deemed necessary.[6] Some uses of the word technocracy refer to a form of meritocracy , a system where the most qualified are in charge. Other applications have been described as not being an oligarchic human group of controllers, but rather administration by discipline-specific science, ostensibly without the influence of special interest groups.[7] The word technocracy has also been used to indicate any kind of management or administration by specialized experts (technocrats) in any field, not just physical science, and the adjective technocratic has been used to describe governments that include non-elected professionals at a ministerial level.[3][4] The academics Duncan McDonnell and Marco Valbruzzi have defined a prime minister or minister as a technocrat if “at the time of his/her appointment to government, he/she: (1) has never held public office under the banner of a political party; (2) is not a formal member of any party; (3) is said to possess recognized non-party political expertise which is directly relevant to the role occupied in government”.[8]

p30 … The literary scholar Tom Moylan called these works ‘critical utopias’, the political theorist Lucy Sargisson, focusing on feminist utopianism, called them ‘transgressive utopias’, and I have called some of them ‘ flawed utopias’ to illustrate the way in which some authors, like Ursula K. Le Guin her “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, present what appears to be a utopia but may in fact be a dystopia.

Joanna Russ “What Can a Heroine Do? Or Why Women Can’t Write”

“The Female Man” Joanna Russ (February 22, 1937 – April 29, 2011) was an American writer, academic and radical feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as How to Suppress Women's Writing, as well as a contemporary novel, On Strike Against God, and one children's book, Kittatinny. She is best known for The Female Man, a novel combining utopian fiction and satire and the story "When It Changed."

How to Suppress Women's Writing is a book by Joanna Russ, published in 1983.[1] Written in the style of a sarcastic and irreverent guidebook, it explains how women are prevented from producing written works, not given credit when such works are produced, or dismissed or belittled for those contributions they are acknowledged to have made. Although primarily focusing on texts written in English, the author also includes examples from non-English works and other media, like paintings. Citing authors and critics like Suzy McKee Charnas, Margaret Cavendish, and Vonda McIntyre,[1] Russ aims to describe the systematic social forces that impede widespread recognition of the work of female authors. [2] Although Russ was an active feminist and one of the central contributors to the feminist science fiction scene during the late 1960s and 70s, How to Suppress Women's Writing marked a transition towards her focus on literary criticism.[3] In the same decade, she went on to write an essay entitled "Recent Feminist Utopias," which was later published in 1995 as part of her book, To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction. Russ' suppression methods The book outlines eleven common methods that are used to ignore, condemn or belittle the work of female authors:

1. Prohibitions Prevent women from access to the basic tools for writing. 2. Bad Faith Unconsciously create social systems that ignore or devalue women's writing. 3. Denial of Agency Deny that a woman wrote it. 4. Pollution of Agency Show that their art is immodest, not actually art, or shouldn't have been written about. 5. The Double Standard of Content Claim that one set of experiences is considered more valuable than another. 6. False Categorizing Incorrectly categorize women artists as the wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, or lovers of male artists. 7. Isolation Create a myth of isolated achievement that claims that only one work or short series of poems is considered great. 8. Anomalousness Assert that the woman in question is eccentric or atypical. 9. Lack of Models Reinforce a male author dominance in literary canons in order to cut off women writers' inspiration and role models. 10. Responses Force women to deny their female identity in order to be taken seriously. 11. Aesthetics Popularize aesthetic works that contain demeaning roles and characterizations of women.[1][4]

The Female Man is a feminist science fiction novel written by Joanna Russ. It was originally written in 1970 and first published in 1975. Russ was an avid feminist and challenged sexist views during the 1970s with her novels, short stories, and nonfiction works. These works include We Who Are About To..., "When It Changed", and What Are We Fighting For?: Sex, Race, Class, and the Future of Feminism. The novel follows the lives of four women living in parallel worlds that differ in time and place. When they cross over to each other's worlds, their different views on gender roles startle each other's preexisting notions of womanhood. In the end, their encounters influence them to evaluate their lives and shape their ideas of what it means to be a woman.

Explanation of the novel's title The character Joanna calls herself the “female man” because she believes that she must forget her identity as a woman in order to be respected (p. 5). She states that “there is one and only one way to possess that in which we are defective…Become it” (p. 139). Her metaphorical transformation refers to her decision to seek equality by rejecting women’s dependence on men. Jonathan Swift refers to Queen Anne as a "female man" in Chapter 4 of the Houyhnhnms section of Gulliver's Travels. Setting The Female Man includes several fictional worlds. Joanna's World: Joanna exists in a world that's similar to Earth in the 1970s. Jeannine's World: Jeannine lives in a world where the Great Depression never ended. The Second World War never happened because Adolf Hitler was assassinated in 1936, and Chiang Kai- shek controls Hong Kong, as Japanese imperialism still dominates the Chinese mainland. Whileaway (Janet's World): Whileaway is a utopian society in the far future where all the men died from a gender-specific plague over 800 years ago (though in the final chapter, Jael suggests that they were in fact killed and this fact then covered up). Their technology enables them to genetically merge ova in order to procreate. After mastering parthenogenesis, women form lesbian relationships and parent children within them. Although the world is technologically advanced, their societies are mostly agrarian. Joanna Russ's Nebula Award winning short story When It Changed (1972) also takes place on Whileaway, but earlier.[1] Jael's World: Jael's world is a dystopia where men and women are literally engaged in a "battle of the sexes". Although they have been in conflict for over 40 years, the two societies still participate in trade with each other. Women trade children in exchange for resources. In order for men to cope with their sexual desires, young boys undergo cosmetic surgery that physically changes their appearance so that they look like women. Jael is heterosexual and has sex with Davy, a robot designed as an attractive and sexually submissive young man, at her home.Plot summary The novel begins when Janet Evason suddenly arrives in Jeannine Dadier’s world. Janet is from Whileaway, a futuristic world where a plague killed all of the men over 800 years ago, and Jeannine lives in a world that never experienced the end of the Great Depression. Janet finds Jeannine at a Chinese New Year festival and takes her to Joanna’s world. Joanna comes from a world that is beginning its feminist movement. Acting as a guide, Joanna takes Janet to a party in her world to show her how women and men interact with each other. Janet quickly finds herself the object of a man’s attention, and after he harasses her, Janet knocks the man down and mocks him. Because Joanna’s world believes that women are inferior to men, everyone is shocked. Janet expresses her desire to experience living with a typical family so Joanna takes Janet to the Wildings’ household. Janet meets their daughter Laura Rose who instantly admires Janet’s confidence and independence as a woman. Laura realizes that she is attracted to Janet and begins to pursue a sexual relationship with her. This is transgressive for both of them, as Whileaway's taboo against cross-generational relationships (having a relationship with someone old enough to be your parent or child) is as strong as the taboo against same-sex relationships on Laura's world.The novel then follows Jeannine and Joanna as they accompany Janet back to Whileaway. They meet Vittoria, Janet’s wife, and stay at their home. Joanna finds herself under scrutiny when Vittoria uses a story about a bear trapped between two worlds as a metaphor for her life. Jeannine returns to her world with Joanna, and they both go to vacation at her brother’s house. Jeannine’s mother pesters her about her love life and whether she is going to get married soon. Jeannine goes on a few dates with some men but still finds herself dissatisfied. Jeannine begins to doubt her sense of reality, but soon decides that she wants to assimilate into her role as a woman. She calls Cal and agrees to marry him. Joanna, Jeannine, Janet, and Laura are lounging in Laura's house. Laura tries to glorify Janet’s status in Whileaway, but Janet explains that her world does not value her particularly, but chose her as inter-dimensional explorer because she was more expendable than others ("I am stupid," she explains). At 3 a.m., Joanna comes down, unable to sleep, and finds Jeannine and Janet awake as well. Suddenly they are no longer at Laura’s house but in another world. Joanna, Jeannine, and Janet have arrived in Jael’s world which is experiencing a 40-year-old war between male and female societies. Jael explains that she works for the Bureau of Comparative Ethnology, an organization that concentrates on people’s various counterparts in different parallel worlds. She reveals that she is the one who brought all of them together because they are essentially “four versions of the same woman” (p. 162). Jael takes all of them with her into enemy territory because she appears to be negotiating a deal with one of the male leaders. At first, the male leader appears to be promoting equality, but Jael quickly realizes that he still believes in the inferiority of women. Jael reveals herself as a ruthless assassin, kills the man, and shuttles all of the women back to her house. Jael finally tells the other women why she has assembled all of them. She wants to create bases in the other women’s worlds without the male society knowing and eventually empower women to overthrow oppressive men and their gender roles for women. In the end, Jeannine and Joanna agree to help Jael and assimilate the women soldiers into their worlds, but Janet refuses, given the overall pacifism of Whileaway. Jeannine and Joanna appear to have become stronger individuals and are excited to rise up against their gender roles. Janet is not moved by Jael’s intentions so Jael tells Janet that the reason for the absence of men on Whileaway is not because of a plague but because the women won the war and killed all of the men in its timeline's past. Janet refuses to believe Jael, and the other women are annoyed at Janet’s resistance. The novel ends with the women separating and returning to their worlds, each with a new perspectiveMP (see on above) her life, her world, and her identity as a woman. Alice Bradley Sheldon, as James Tiptree, Jr

“Houston Houston, Do You Read?”

Houston, Houston, Do You Read? is a novella by James Tiptree, Jr. Alice Bradley Sheldon (August 24, 1915 – May 19, 1987) was an (pseudonym of Alice Sheldon). It won a Nebula Award for Best American science fiction author better known as James Tiptree Jr., a Novella in 1976 and a Hugo Award for Best Novella in 1977.[1] The pen name she used from 1967 to her death. She was most notable for novella first appeared in the anthology Aurora: Beyond Equality, breaking down the barriers between writing perceived as inherently edited by Vonda N. McIntyre and Susan J. Anderson, published by "male" or "female"—it was not publicly known until 1977 that James Fawcett in May 1976.[2] It was subsequently reprinted several times Tiptree Jr. was a woman. From 1974 to 1977 she also used the pen name (amongst others in the James Tiptree collections Star Songs of an Raccoona Sheldon. Tiptree was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Old Primate in 1978 and Her Smoke Rose Up Forever in 1990) and in Fame in 2012.[2] 1989 was published in a Tor Doubles mass market paperback (number eleven in that series) with the flipside novella "Souls" by Joanna Russ (ISBN 0-8125-5962-2). It remains Tiptree's most famous and most reprinted story.

Plot summary The story portrays a crew of three male astronauts launched in the near future on a circumsolar mission in the spaceship Sunbird. A large solar flare damages their craft and leaves them drifting and lost in space. They make repeated attempts to contact NASA in Houston, to no avail. Soon, however, they begin to pick up strange radio communications. They are puzzled that almost all of the voices are female, usually with a strong Australian accent. They overhear conversations about personal matters (including the birth of a cow) as well as unknown slang terms. Various theories are discussed by the perplexed astronauts: hallucinations? A hoax? A hostile power trying to trick them? They record and play back the conversations over and over, trying to figure out what is going on. Soon, they realize that these unknown people are aware of them and are offering to help. At first, the Sunbird's commander refuses to communicate with them, suspicious of their motives. As they continue to plead with the astronauts to accept their rescue offer, the men are chilled to hear their mission referred to in historical terms. They come to realize that they were not only thrown off-course in space, but in time as well, and that their flight was lost centuries ago. They are given bare details of the current Earth: an undefined cataclysm has reduced the human population to a mere few million. Eventually, the Sunbird agrees to rendezvous with the spaceship Gloria to allow the astronauts to spacewalk to safety. The Gloria is an enigma to them. Besides having an almost all-female crew, the ship is haphazard and cluttered with plants and animals on board. The technology used on the ship does not appear to them to be as advanced as they would have thought the world to be after such a long passage of time, and they think it odd that some of the ship's functions are powered by stationary bikes. Their culture shock is compounded by the cryptic and incomplete answers they are given concerning the Earth. Little by little, the three gather clues from both observations and slips of the tongue. While crew members often refer to their "sisters," there is no mention of husbands, boyfriends, or families. There are twins on board (both named Judy), yet one seems older than the other. The one male, a teen named Andy, seems strangely feminine. Technology, and science and culture in general, seems to be relatively unadvanced considering the centuries that passed. Eventually, they learn the truth. A plague wiped out most human life, including all males. Only about 11,000 women survived, mostly concentrated in Australasia and a few other areas. Until recently, they reproduced only by cloning, so most women are clones of the original 11,000 genotypes. Babies are raised communally in crèches, and all members of each genotype are encouraged to add their story to a book that is passed on for the inspiration and education of future "sisters." Certain genotypes are given early androgen treatments (hence, Andy, who the astronauts thought was male) to increase bulk and strength for physical tasks. The resulting communal male-free society has settled into a peaceful pattern — without major conflict and seemingly happy. The Sunbird's crew react to these revelations in different ways. The commander considers this to be a great tragedy, and believes he was chosen by God to subjugate the women to their intended roles and lead them back to the true path with men as leaders of society and family. Another eagerly anticipates the prospect of millions of women who have not known a man's touch, believing that the women are all sexually unfulfilled without a man, and he engages in violent sexual fantasies of domination. The third crew member — the narrator — differs from the other two in that he is an intellectual man without much physical development — the other two men look down upon him for his nerdy qualities, and he thinks back to all of the abuse and bullying he has been the victim of over the years by men like them. He realizes that their feelings of superiority and importance are blinding them to what is really going on: he and his crewmates have been given a mind-altering drug — it disinhibits them and causes them to show their "true selves" and voice their thoughts. He realizes that the traits they have exhibited of violence and domination are unacceptable in the new world of women, and they are all going to be killed, even himself. He tries to explain to them that though he expressed sexual thoughts in aggressive, violent words, he would never act on such thoughts. The women explain that they do not even have such thoughts. They are content to live in a world of women, and they don't want for leadership or sexual fulfillment without men. Their study of these three astronauts has shown that allowing men on Earth will pose unacceptable risks, so they are now merely studying the men and obtaining useful information and (in the case of the over-amorous astronaut) sperm samples, presumably to introduce fresh genetic material and create new genotypes.

Kim Stanley Robinson Mars Triology

Forty Signs of Rain + Fifty Degree Below + Sixty Days and counting

The Mars trilogy is a series of award-winning science fiction novels Kim Stanley Robinson (born March 23, 1952) is an American writer of by Kim Stanley Robinson that chronicles the settlement and science fiction. He has published nineteen novels and numerous short terraforming of the planet Mars through the intensely personal and stories but is best known for his Mars trilogy. His work has been translated detailed viewpoints of a wide variety of characters spanning into 24 languages. Many of his novels and stories have ecological, almost two centuries. Ultimately more utopian than dystopian, the cultural and political themes running through them and feature story focuses on egalitarian, sociological, and scientific advances scientists as heroes. Robinson has won numerous awards, including the made on Mars, while Earth suffers from overpopulation and Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the ecological disaster. The three novels are Red Mars (1993), Green World Fantasy Award. Robinson's work has been labeled by The Atlantic Mars (1994), and Blue Mars (1996). The Martians (1999) is a as "the gold-standard of realistic, and highly literary, science-fiction collection of short stories set in the same fictional universe. The main writing."[1] According to an article in the New Yorker, Robinson is trilogy won a number of prestigious awards. Icehenge (1984), "generally acknowledged as one of the greatest living science-fiction Robinson's first novel about Mars, is not set in this universe but deals writers."[2] with similar themes and plot elements. The trilogy shares some similarities with Robinson's more recent novel 2312 (2012), for instance, the terraforming of Mars and the extreme longevity of the characters in both novels. Plot Red Mars – Colonization Red Mars starts in 2026 with the first colonial voyage to Mars aboard the Ares, the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built and home to a crew who are to be the first hundred Martian colonists. The ship was built from clustered space shuttle external fuel tanks which, instead of reentering Earth's atmosphere, had been boosted into orbit until enough had been amassed to build the ship. The mission is a joint American–Russian undertaking, and seventy of the First Hundred are drawn from these countries (except, for example, Michel Duval, a French psychologist assigned to observe their behavior). The book details the trip out, construction of the first settlement on Mars (eventually called Underhill) by Nadia Chernyshevski, as well as establishing colonies on Mars' hollowed out asteroid-moon Phobos, the ever-changing relationships between the colonists, debates among the colonists regarding both the terraforming of the planet and its future relationship to Earth. The two extreme views on terraforming are personified by Saxifrage "Sax" Russell, who believes their very presence on the planet means some level of terraforming has already begun and that it is humanity's obligation to spread life as it is the most scarce thing in the known universe, and Ann Clayborne, who stakes out the position that humankind does not have the right to change entire planets at their will. Russell's view is initially purely scientific but in time comes to blend with the views of Hiroko Ai, the chief of the Agricultural Team who assembles a new belief system (the "Areophany") devoted to the appreciation and furthering of life ("viriditas"); these views are collectively known as the "Green" position, while Clayborne's naturalist stance comes to be known as "Red." The actual decision is left to the United Nations Organization Mars Authority (UNOMA), which greenlights terraforming, and a series of actions get underway, including the drilling of "moholes" to release subsurface heat; thickening of the atmosphere according to a complicated bio-chemical formula that comes to be known as the "Russell cocktail" after Sax Russell; and the detonation of nuclear explosions deep in the sub-surface permafrost to release water. Additional steps are taken to connect Mars more closely with Earth, including the insertion of an Areosynchronous asteroid "Clarke" to which a space elevator cable is tethered. Against the backdrop of this development is another debate, one whose principal instigator is Arkady Bogdanov of the Russian contingent (possibly named in homage to the Russian polymath and science fiction writer Alexander

Bogdanov - it is later revealed in Blue Mars that Alexander Bogdanov is an ancestor of Arkady's.). Bogdanov argues that Mars need not and should not be subject to Earth traditions, limitations, or authority. He is to some extent joined in this position by John Boone, famous as the "First Man on Mars" from a preceding expedition and rival to Frank Chalmers, the technical leader of the American contingent. Their rivalry is further exacerbated by competing romantic interest in Maya Katarina Toitovna, the leader of the Russian contingent. (In the opening of the book, Chalmers instigates a sequence of events that leads to Boone being assassinated; much of what follows is a retrospective examination of what led to that point.) Earth meanwhile increasingly falls under the control of transnational corporations (transnats) that come to dominate its governments, particularly smaller nations adopted as "flags of convenience" for extending their influence into Martian affairs. As UNOMA's power erodes, the Mars treaty is renegotiated in a move led by Frank Chalmers; the outcome is impressive but proves short-lived as the transnats find ways around it through loop-holes. Things get worse as the nations of Earth start to clash over limited resources, expanding debt, and population growth as well as restrictions on access to a new longevity treatment developed by Martian science—one that holds the promise of lifespans into the hundreds of years. In 2061, with Boone dead and exploding immigration threatening the fabric of Martian society, Bogdanov launches a revolution against what many now view as occupying transnat troops operating only loosely under an UNOMA rubber- stamp approval. Initially successful, the revolution proves infeasible on the basis of both a greater-than-expected willingness of the Earth troops to use violence and the extreme vulnerability of life on a planet without a habitable atmosphere. A series of exchanges sees the cutting of the space elevator, bombardment of several Martian cities (including the city where Bogdanov is himself organizing the rebellion; he is killed), the destruction of Phobos and its military complex, and the unleashing of a great flood of torrential groundwater freed by nuclear detonations. By the end, most of the First Hundred are dead, and virtually all who remain have fled to a hidden refuge established years earlier by Ai and her followers. (One exception is Phyllis Boyle, who has allied herself with the transnats; she is on Clarke when the space elevator cable is cut and sent flying out of orbit to a fate unknown by the conclusion of the book.) The revolution dies and life on Mars returns to a sense of stability under heavy transnat control. The clash over resources on Earth breaks out into a full-blown world war leaving hundreds of millions dead, but cease-fire arrangements are reached when the transnats flee to the safety of the developed nations, which use their huge militaries to restore order, forming police-states. But a new generation of humans born on Mars holds the promise of change. In the meantime, the remaining First Hundred—including Russell, Clayborne and Chernyshevski—settle into life in Ai's refuge called Zygote, hidden under the Martian south pole. Green Mars – Terraforming Green Mars takes its title from the stage of terraforming that has allowed plants to grow. It picks up the story 50 years after the events of Red Mars in the dawn of the 22nd century, following the lives of the remaining First Hundred and their children and grandchildren. Hiroko Ai's base under the south pole is attacked by UN Transitional Authority (UNTA) forces, and the survivors are forced to escape into a (less literal) underground organization known as the Demimonde. Among the expanded group are the First Hundred's children, the Nisei, a number of whom live in Hiroko's second secret base, Zygote. As unrest in the multinational control over Mars's affairs grows, various groups start to form with different aims and methods. Watching these groups evolve from Earth, the CEO of the Praxis Corporation sends a representative, Arthur Randolph, to organize the resistance movements. This culminates into the Dorsa Brevia agreement, in which nearly all the underground factions take part. Preparations are made for a second revolution beginning in the 2120s, from converting moholes to missiles silos or hidden bases, sabotaging orbital mirrors, to propelling Deimos out of Mars' gravity well and out into deep space so it could never be used as a weapons platform as Phobos was. The book follows the characters across the Martian landscape, which is explained in detail. As Russell's character infiltrates the transnat terraforming project, the newly evolving Martian biosphere is described at great length and with more profound changes most aimed at warming up the surface of Mars to the brink of making it habitable, from continent sized orbital mirrors, another space elevator built (using another anchored asteroid that is dubbed "New Clarke"), to melting the northern polar ice cap, and digging moholes deep enough to form volcanoes. A mainstay of the novel is a detailed analysis of philosophical, political, personal, economical, and geological experiences of the characters. The story weaves back and forth from character to character, providing a picture of Mars as seen by them. Russell eventually becomes romantically involved with Phyllis under his assumed identity, but she discovers his true identity and has him arrested. Members of the underground launch a daring rescue from the prison facility where Russell suffers torture and interrogation that causes a stroke; Maya kills Phyllis in the process of the rescue. The book ends on a major event which is a sudden, catastrophic rise in Earth's global sea levels not caused primarily by any greenhouse effect but by the eruption of a chain of volcanoes underneath the ice of west Antarctica, disintegrating the ice sheet and displacing the fragments into the ocean. The resultant flooding causes global chaos on Earth, creating the perfect moment for the Martian underground to seize control of Martian society from Earth-based control. Following a series of largely bloodless coups, an extremist faction of Reds bombs a dam near Burroughs, the major city where the remaining United Nations forces have concentrated, in order to force the security forces to evacuate. The entire city is flooded and the population of the city has to walk in the open Martian atmosphere (which just barely has the temperature, atmospheric pressure, and gas mixture to support human life) to the base of the new space elevator in Sheffield. With this, control of Mars is finally wrested away from Earth with minimal loss of life, although Hiroko and some of her followers are said to have been killed in the conflict. Blue Mars – Long-term results Blue Mars takes its title from the stage of terraforming that has allowed atmospheric pressure and temperature to increase so that liquid water can exist on the planet's surface, forming rivers and seas. It follows closely in time from the end of Green Mars and has a much wider scope than the previous two books, covering an entire century after the second revolution. As Earth is heavily flooded by the sudden melting of the Antarctic ice cap, the once mighty metanats are brought to their knees; as the Praxis Corporation paves a new way of "democratic businesses". Mars becomes the "Head" of the system, giving universal healthcare, free education, and an abundance of food. However, this sparks illegal immigration from Earth, so to ease the population strain on the Blue Planet, Martian scientists and engineers are soon put to the task of creating asteroid cities; where small planetoids of the Belt are hollowed out, given a spin to produce gravity, and a mini-sun is created to produce light and heat. With a vast increase in sciences, technologies, and spacecraft manufacturing, this begins the "Accelerando"; where humankind spreads its civilization throughout the Solar System, and eventually beyond. As Venus, the Jovian moons, the Saturnian moons, and eventually Triton are colonized and terraformed in some way, Jackie Boone (the granddaughter of John Boone, the first man to walk on Mars from the first book) takes an interstellar vessel (made out of an asteroid) to another star system twenty light-years away, where they will start to terraform the planets and moons found there. The remaining First Hundred are generally regarded as living legends. Reports of Hiroko's survival are numerous, and purported sightings occur all over the colonized solar system, but none are substantiated. Nadia and Art Randolph lead a constitutional congress in which a global system of government is established that leaves most cities and

settlements generally autonomous, but subject to a central representative legislature and two systems of courts, one legal and the other environmental. The environmental court is packed with members of the Red faction as a concession (in exchange for their support in the congress, as much of their power was broken when they attempted and failed to violently expel remaining UN forces early on after the second revolution of Green Mars; yet they still retained enough power to stymie constitutional negotiations). Vlad, Marina, and Ursula, the

original inventors of the longevity treatments, introduce a new economic system that is a hybrid of capitalism, socialism, and environmental conservationism. During a trip to Earth occurring alongside the congress, Nirgal (one of the original children to be born on Mars to the First Hundred and something of a Mars-wide celebrity), Maya, and Sax negotiate an agreement that allows Earth to send a number of migrants equal to 10% of Mars' population to Mars every year. Following the adoption of the new constitution, Nadia is elected the first president of Mars and serves competently, although she does not enjoy politics. She and Art work together closely, and eventually fall in love and have a

child. Sax Russell devotes himself to various scientific projects, all the while continuing to recover from the effects of his stroke. Since the second revolution, he feels enormous guilt that his pro-terraforming position became the dominant one at the expense of the goals of Ann's anti-terraforming stance, as Sax and Ann have come to be regarded as the original champions of their respective positions. Sax becomes increasingly preoccupied with seeking forgiveness and approval from Ann, while Ann, depressed and bitter from her many political and personal losses, is suicidal and refuses to accept any more longevity treatments. However, during one attempt to demonstrate to Ann the beauty of the terraformed world, Sax witnesses Ann collapse into a coma. While she remains unconscious he arranges for her to be resuscitated and for her to be treated with the longevity treatment, both against her will. The longevity treatments themselves begin to show weaknesses once those receiving them reach the two-century mark in age. The treatments reduce most aging processes to a negligible rate, but are much less effective when it comes to brain function, and in particular memory. Maya in particular suffers extreme lapses in memory,

although she remains high functioning most of the time. Further, as people age, they begin to show susceptibility to strange, fatal conditions which have no apparent explanation and are resistant to any treatment. Most common is the event that comes to be known as the "quick decline", where a person of extremely advanced age and in apparently good health suffers a sudden fatal heart arrythmia and dies abruptly. The exact mechanism is never explained. Michel dies of the quick decline, while attending the wake of another First Hundred member. Russell speculates that Michel's quick decline was brought on by the shock of seeing Maya fail to remember Frank Chalmers (who was killed while escaping security forces in the first revolution) upon looking at a treasured photo of him on her refrigerator. As a result of this and Russell's own problems with memory, he organizes a team of scientists to develop medicine that will restore memory. The remaining members of the First Hundred, of which there are only 12, congregate in Underhill, and take the medicine. It works so well that Russell remembers his own birth. He and Ann Clayborne finally recall that they had been in love prior to leaving Earth the very first time, but both had

been too socially inept and nervous about their chances for selection for the Mars voyage to reveal this to each other. Their famous argument over terraforming had been a mere continuation of a running conversation they had been having since they still lived on Earth. Through the memory treatment it is also revealed that Phyllis had been lobbying to free Sax from his torturers when she was murdered by Maya. Maya herself declines the treatment. Sax also distinctly recalls Hiroko assisting him in finding his rover in a storm before he nearly froze to death before disappearing once again and is convinced she remains alive, although the question of whether she is actually alive is never resolved. Eventually, the anti-immigration factions of the Martian government provoke massive illegal immigration from Earth, risking another war; however, under the leadership of Ann and Sax, who have fallen in love again following their reconciliation, along with Maya, the Martian population unites to reconstitute the government to accept more immigration from Earth, diffusing the imminent conflict and ushering in a new golden age of harmony and security on Mars. The Martians – Short stories The Martians is a collection of short stories that takes place over

the timespan of the original trilogy of novels, as well as some stories that take place in an alternate version of the novels where the First Hundred's mission was one of exploration rather than colonization. Buried in the stories are several hints about the eventual fate of the Martian terraforming program.

Science in the Capital series

1. Forty Signs of Rain (2004) 2. Fifty Degrees Below (2005) 3. Sixty Days and Counting (2007) Collected and condensed omnibus edition released as Green Earth (2015)[2]

Forty Signs of Rain (2004) is the first book in the hard science fiction "Science in the Capital" trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. (The following two

novels are Fifty Degrees Below (2005) and Sixty Days and Counting (2007).) Robinson has been nicknamed the "Master of Disaster" for his description of natural disasters based partly on the contents of this book. Plot introduction The focus of the novel is the effects of global warming in the early decades of the 21st century. Its characters are mostly scientists, either involved in biotech research, assisting government members, or doing paperwork at the National Science Foundation (NSF). There are also several Buddhist monks working for the embassy of the fictional island nation of Khembalung.

Fifty Degrees Below (2005) is the second book in the hard science fiction Science in the Capital trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. It directly follows the events of Forty Signs of Rain, with a greater focus on character Frank Vanderwal, and his decision to remain at the National Science Foundation, following the earlier novel’s superstorm and devastating flood of Washington DC. Major themes The book, and series, looks mainly at possible mitigation and adaptation efforts that could be undertaken to combat the dangers of anthropogenic climate

change, though mainly the plot focuses on an international effort to restart the stalled Gulf Stream. The focus is mainly on the scientific approach by the NSF, and its effort to work with the United States government, the UN and other international bodies. The character of Frank Vanderwal is followed closely through about a year and a half of his life. Alongside his work at the NSF, his storyline focuses mainly on his attempt at a paleolithic lifestyle, which includes focusing on certain types of behaviour that the human brain has adapted to enjoy, such as sleeping outdoors and hunting. Vanderwal also meets a woman who introduces him to the potential and danger of total electronic

surveillance.

Sixty Days and Counting (2007) is the third book in the hard science fiction Science in the Capital trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. It directly follows the events of Fifty Degrees Below, beginning just after the election of character Phil Chase to the White House. It follows the previous novel's deep freeze of the area surrounding Washington DC.

Ernest Callenbach Ecotopia Ernest Callenbach (April 3, 1929 – April 16, 2012) was an American author, film critic, editor, and simple living adherent.[1] He became famous due to his internationally successful semi-utopian novel Ecotopia (1975).

Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston is a seminal utopian novel by Ernest Callenbach, published in 1975. The society described in the book is one of the first ecological utopias and was influential on the counterculture and the green movement in the 1970s and thereafter. The author himself claimed that the society he depicted in the book is not a true utopia (in the sense of a perfect society), but, while guided by societal intentions and values, was imperfect and in-process.[1] Callenbach said of the story, in relation to Americans: “It is so hard to imagine anything fundamentally different from what we have now. But without these alternate visions, we get stuck on dead center. And we’d better get ready. We need to know where we’d like to go.”[2] The book's context and background Callenbach wove his story using the fiber of technologies, lifestyles, folkways, and attitudes that were common in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. The "leading edges" (his main ideas for Ecotopian values and practices) were patterns in actual social experimentation taking place in the American West.[3] To draw an example, Callenbach's fictional Crick School was based upon Pinel School, an alternative school located outside Martinez, California, and attended for a time by his son. Besides the important social dimensions of the story, Callenbach talked publicly about being influenced, during work on the novel, by numerous streams of thought: The scientific discoveries in the fields of ecology and conservation biology. The urban-ecology movement, concerned with a new approach to urban planning. The soft-energy movement, championed by Amory Lovins and others. Much of the environmentally benign energy, homebuilding, and transportation technology described by the author was based on his reading of research findings published in such journals as Scientific American and Science.[4] Callenbach’s concept does not reject high technology (or any technology) as long as it does not interfere with the Ecotopian social order and serves the overall objectives. Members of his fictional society prefer to demonstrate a conscious selectivity toward technology, so that not only human health and sanity might be preserved, but also social and ecological wellbeing. Hence, as an example, Callenbach’s story anticipated the development and liberal usage of videoconferencing.[citation needed] During the 1970s when Ecotopia was written and published, many prominent counterculture and new left thinkers decried the consumption and overabundance that they perceived as characteristic of post-World War Two America.[5][6] The citizens of Ecotopia share a common aim: they seek a balance between themselves and nature. They were “literally sick of bad air, chemicalized food, and lunatic advertising. They turned to politics because it was finally the only route to self-preservation.”[7] In the mid-20th century as “firms grew in size and complexity citizens needed to know the market would still serve the interests of those for whom it claimed to exist.”[8] Callenbach’s Ecotopia targets the fact that many people did not feel that the market or the government were serving them in the way they wanted them to. This book could be interpreted as “a protest against consumerism and materialism, among other aspects of American life."[8] The term "ecotopian fiction", as a subgenre of science fiction and utopian fiction, makes implicit reference to this book. Plot summary The book is set in 1999 (25 years in the future from 1974) and consists of diary entries and reports of journalist William Weston, who is the first American mainstream media reporter to investigate Ecotopia, a small country that broke away from the USA in 1980. Prior to Weston's reporting, most Americans had been barred from entering the new country, which is depicted as being on continual guard against revanchism. The new nation of Ecotopia consists of Northern California, Oregon, and Washington; it is hinted that Southern California is a lost cause. The novel takes its form as a narrative from Weston's diary in combination with dispatches that he transmits to his publication, the fictional Times-Post. Together with Weston (who at the beginning is curious about, but not particularly sympathetic to the Ecotopians), the reader learns about the Ecotopian transportation system and the preferred lifestyle that includes a wide range of gender roles, sexual freedom, and acceptance of non-monogamous relationships. Liberal cannabis use is evident. Televised mass-spectacle sports are displaced due to a preference for local arts, participatory sports, and general fitness. Some Ecotopians participate in a peculiar ritual of (voluntary) mock warfare, fought with actual weapons and often resulting in injuries. Ecotopia has tolerated the voluntary separatism of many people of African descent who have, in fact, chosen to live in a mini- nation in the San Francisco East Bay-area. Ecotopian society has favored decentralized and renewable energy production and green building construction. The citizens are technologically creative, while remaining involved with and sensitive to nature. Thorough-going education reform is described, along with a highly localized system of universal medical care. (The narrator discovers that Ecotopian healing practices may include sexual stimulation.) The national defense strategy has focused on developing a highly advanced arms industry, while also allegedly maintaining hidden WMD within major US population centers to discourage conquest and annexation. Through Weston's diary we learn of observations he does not include in his columns, such as his personally transformative love affair with an Ecotopian woman. The book's parallel narrative structures allow the reader to see how Weston's internal reflections, as recorded in his diary, are diffracted in his external pronouncements to his readers. Despite Weston's initial reservations, throughout the novel Ecotopian citizens are characterized as clever, technologically resourceful, emotionally expressive, and even occasionally violent – but also socially responsible, patriotic. They often live in extended families, and tend to live by choice in ethnically separated localities. Their economic enterprises are generally employee- owned and -controlled. The current governmental administration that of a woman-led (but not exclusively female) party, and government structures are highly decentralized. The novel concludes with Weston's finding himself enchanted by Ecotopian life and deciding to stay in Ecotopia as its interpreter to the wider world. Values exemplified in the novel The values embodied by those Ecotopians depicted in the novel reflect the values espoused by its author. Callenbach said that his Ecotopians attach fundamental importance to environmental and social stability within which variety can flourish. They value creativity. They ensure equality for women. They implement the protection and restoration of natural systems. They promote food production in their cities. As well, they treasure personal quality-of-life values, such as health and friendliness, and both meaningful discussion and play.[1] Callenbach began writing the novel by depicting the recycling of valuable materials and substances by the society; he saw a much-expanded role for recycling of all sorts, and this is key to many concepts underpinning Ecotopia.[4] Anticipation of emerging realities Worth mentioning is Callenbach's speculation on the roles of TV in his envisioned society. The author espoused the fly on the wall genre of direct political-process broadcasts, deeming them valuable to the citizenry. In some ways anticipating C-SPAN, which would first be broadcast in 1979, Ecotopia mentions that the daily life of the legislature and some of that of the judicial courts is televised in Ecotopia. Even highly technical debates are televised, addressing the needs and desires of Ecotopian viewers. Another interesting detail in the story is "print on demand" (POD) publishing. Ecotopian customers could choose selected print media from a jukebox -like device that would then print and bind the book. In the 21st century, POD services that print, bind and ship books for customers who order on-line, have become commonplace. Impact The importance of this book is not so much to be found in its literary style as in the lively imagination of an alternative and ecologically sound lifestyle on a greater scale, presented more or less realistically. It expressed on paper the dream of an alternative future held by many in the movements of the 1970s and later. Even the names of the two characters most reflective of their respective viewpoints – "Will West(on)", the representative for materialist American culture and "Vera Allwen" (= "All women + all men"), the President and spokeswoman for Ecotopia – suggest the degree to which the author intended the book to be a reflection of what he saw as American ecological and cultural deficiencies. However, in contrast to much of the Green movement in contemporary America, with its preference for regulation, Callenbach's Ecotopia has relatively laissez-faire economic tendencies, guided by intense moral pressure toward sustainable practices both in private life and in business. In 1981, Callenbach published Ecotopia Emerging, a multi-strand "prequel" suggesting how the sustainable nation of Ecotopia could have come into existence. In 1990, Audio Renaissance released a partial dramatization of Ecotopia on audiocassettes in the form of recordings of a radio network broadcast (the Allied News Network replacing the Times-Post). The tape-recorded diaries of William Weston were read by the book's author, Ernest Callenbach. Weston's reports were read by veteran news reporter Edwin Newman. In the online Earth Island Journal, Ecotopia was reviewed by Brian Smith, identifying himself as a child not of the 1960s but the 1980s. He read the novel 30 years after it was first published, and said of it: "I felt great affinity for the details of the world Callenbach predicted. Even better, I was impressed by how many of his ideas came to pass."[9] Ecotopia is now required reading in a number of colleges (see New York Times article "The Novel That Predicted Portland" referenced below).

Sally Miller Gearhart The Wanderground: Stories of the Hill Women

The Magister Sally Miller Gearhart (born April 15, 1931) is an American teacher, radical feminist, science fiction writer, and political activist.[1] In 1973 she became the first open lesbian to obtain a tenure-track faculty position when she was hired by San Francisco State University, where she helped establish one of the first women and gender study programs in the country.[2] She later became a nationally known gay rights activist.[2] She has been controversial for her statement that "The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race", made in her essay "The Future-If There is One-Is Female".[3] The Wanderground is a speculative fiction novel by Sally Miller Gearhart, published in 1979 by Persephone Books. It is Gearhart's first and most famous novel, and continues to be used in Women's Studies classes as a characteristic example of the separatist feminism movement from the 1970s.[1] Structure The Wanderground is a collection of short, interlocking narratives [2] that build on each other to form a full novel. Chapters fit together loosely, often focusing on completely different characters in each chapter, or taking place in a different part of the world Gearhart created, although many characters make reappearances throughout the collection, as the stories begin to build on each other. Many of the chapters were first published as short stories, in fanzines, magazines, and lesbian periodicals including Ms., The Witch and the Chameleon, Quest: A Feminist Quarterly, and WomanSpirit[3] Summary The Wanderground is set in the United States, in the future, although no date is given. The stories focus on the hill women, a group of women who have fled from the men-ruled cities to the wilderness, where they live in all-women communities in harmony with each other and the natural world. The hill women have psychic powers that they use to communicate with each other and with animals, and to move through the world. The main narrative that weaves throughout almost all of the stories, is caused by some kind of shift in the cosmic balance between the hill women and the cities. Rumors are whispered, things are getting worse for women in the cities. As the stories build on each other, subtle remarks are made about how things are getting worse, the cities are becoming even more controlling, it is more dangerous for the women underground, men are appearing outside of the cities, even to the point of rapes occurring in the borderlands. Something is changing. The tension finally comes to the foreground when the gentles (gay men, who have the greatest respect for all women, especially the hill women) request a meeting with the hill women. The message is smuggled out of the city, and a great discussion begins. Even though the gentles are considered to be allies of the hill women, they are still men, and this mixed status of ally and enemy causes a great debate.

Intersectionality (or intersectional theory) is a term first coined in 1989 by Ecofeminism is a term that links feminism with ecology. Its American civil rights advocate and leading scholar of critical race theory, advocates say that paternalistic/capitalistic society has led Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw. It is the study of overlapping or intersecting social to a harmful split between nature and culture. Early identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination. ecofeminists propagated that the split can only be healed Intersectionality is the idea that multiple identities intersect to create a whole by the feminine instinct for nurture and holistic knowledge of that is different from the component identities. These identities that can nature's processes. Modern ecofeminism, or feminist intersect include gender, race, social class, ethnicity, nationality, sexual ecocriticism, eschews such essentialism and instead focuses orientation , religion, age, mental disability, physical disability, mental illness, more on intersectional questions, such as how the nature- and physical illness as well as other forms of identity.[1] These aspects of identity culture split enables the oppression of female and are not “unitary, mutually exclusive entities, but rather…reciprocally nonhuman bodies. constructing phenomena.”[1] The theory proposes that we think of each element or trait of a person as inextricably linked with all of the other elements in order to fully understand one's identity.[2] This framework can be used to understand how systemic injustice and social inequality occur on a The Kanshou: Book One of Earthkeep. It is 2087 on Little Blue. multidimensional basis.[3] Intersectionality holds that the classical Global population has dropped to a mere six billion people. conceptualizations of oppression within society—such as racism, sexism, Women, who outnumber men by a ratio of 12-to-1, are in classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and belief-based absolute control of the affairs of the planet. Humans are Little bigotry—do not act independently of each other. Instead, these forms of Blue’s only animal life form because, on a single day in 2021, oppression interrelate, creating a system of oppression that reflects the called “Empty Monday,” all non-human animals have "intersection" of multiple forms of discrimination.[4] Intersectional identities mysteriously died. All subsequent attempts to clone stored usually aren’t addressed or mapped out in normal social discourses and often animal DNA have failed. Women who are lovers or who have come with their own set of oppression, domination, and discrimination. been lovers, can fly together without the aid of wings or Because laws and policies usually only address one form of marginalized motors. identity but not the intersection of multiple oppressed identities, intersectional identities often go overlooked. Since these identities are overlooked, there is a The Magister: Book Two of Earthkeep. Now that the bailiwick lack of resources needed to combat the discrimination, and the oppression is outbreaks have been handled by Little Blue’s all-woman cyclically perpetuated.[5] Intersectionality proposes that all aspects of one’s peacekeeping force in Book I, “The Kanshou,” a new threat identity need to be examined as simultaneously interacting with each other to the planet emerges. The human species may be following and affecting one’s privilege and perception in society, and that these facets in the footsteps of animal life, which deserted the planet on of identity cannot simply be observed separately.[6] As such, intersectionality is “Empty Monday” in the year 2021. Little Blue’s children are not simply a view of personal identity, but rather an overarching analysis of dying–in some cases, just after birth. In other cases, the power hierarchies present within identities.[6] The framework of intersectionality children range from several years old to teenagers and also provides an insight into how multiple systems of oppression interrelate and exhibit no apparent signs of illness. In fact, they greet Death are interactive.[6] Intersectionality is not a static field; rather, it is dynamic and as a friend and go willingly, in song, singly or in groups. constantly developing as response to formations of complex social inequalities . Intersectionality can be seen as an “overarching knowledge project.”[1] Within this overarching umbrella, there are multiple knowledge projects that evolve “in tandem with changes in the interpretive communities that advance them.”[1] Intersectionality is an important paradigm in academic scholarship and broader contexts such as social justice work or demography, but difficulties arise due to the many complexities involved in In 1976 A Feminist Tarot became the first publication of the making "multidimensional conceptualizations"[7] that explain the way in which socially constructed categories of differentiation interact to create a social newly-launched lesbian-feminist press in Watertown, Massachusetts, called Persephone Press. From then until 1981 hierarchy. For example, intersectionality holds that there is no singular experience of an identity. Rather than understanding women's health solely when Persephone ceased publication, it went through four editions. Alyson Publications (of Boston, and more recently of through the lens of gender, it is necessary to consider other social categories such as class, ability, nation or race, to have a fuller understanding of the Los Angeles) has shepherded the book through two more range of women's health concerns. The theory of intersectionality also editions (1981 and the present 1997 edition) in addition to its suggests that seemingly discrete forms and expressions of oppression are Dutch translation published in 1985 by Uitgeverij Ankh- Hermes bv, Deventer. In contrast to the explosion of shaped by one another (mutually co-constitutive).[8] Thus, in order to fully understand the racialization of oppressed groups, one must investigate the women’s Tarot decks and interpretations of the 1980’s and ways in which racializing structures, social processes and social 90’s, A Feminist Tarot uses the images of the traditional Waite representations (or ideas purporting to represent groups and group members Tarot deck, presenting and unveiling them from the perspective of cultural feminist thought. It casts an in society) are shaped by gender, class, sexuality, etc.[9] While the theory began as an exploration of the oppression of women of color within American expanded interpretation upon each card of the Major and society, today the analysis is potentially applied to all categories (including Minor Arcana, offering both upright and reversed meanings, statuses usually seen as dominant when seen as standalone statuses). and a summary of traditional meanings as well. It includes a Intersectionality is ambiguous and open ended, and it has been argued that history of and a commentary upon the Tarot itself, illustrated its "lack of clear-cut definition or even specific parameters has enabled it to lay-outs and common uses of the Tarot, as well as a brief bibliography. be drawn upon in nearly any context of inquiry".[10] Merritt Abrash Mindful of Utopia

Mindful of Utopia: How does a man who denies the possibility of Author: Merritt Abrash Birthplace: Peterson, New Jersey, USA Birthdate: 3 an ideal world react when he finds himself actually in utopia? April 1930 Anthologies Utopia in a Scientific Age (1979) Essays Robert Silverberg's How does he deal with being the sole outsider in a parallel world, The World Inside (1983) Dante's Hell as an Ideal Mechanical largely similar to his own but featuring utopian principles and Environment (1984) Elusive Utopias: Societies as Mechanisms in the Early customs? Fiction of Philip K. Dick (1984) Le Guin's "The Field of Vision": A Minority View on Ultimate Truth (1985) A Failure of Scholarship (1985) Sparring What becomes of his skepticism when he finds contentment in the with the Universe: Heroism and Futility in Philip K. Dick's Protagonists parallel world so widespread that the pursuit of wealth and power (1986) "Man Everywhere in Chains": Dick, Rosseau, and "The Penultimate holds no attraction? Truth" (1987) also appeared as: Variant Title: "Man Everywhere in Chains": Dick, Rousseau, and the Penultimate Truth (1987) Afterword to What kind of relationships can he establish with women when he "Private Eye" (1988) Reviews The Novels of Philip K. Dick (1985) by Kim knows nothing of their romantic practices and expectations from Stanley Robinson ; The Penultimate Truth (1987) by Philip K. Dick life?

These questions are explored.

MY OWN REFERENCE: http://hieroglyph.asu.edu/ What Is The Purpose of Science Fiction Stories? April 8, 2016 in Hieroglyph

Science fiction, perhaps more than any other modern genre of fiction, is often written with a social purpose or a goal. That purpose is rarely to explicitly predict the future—though they’re frequently touted, the predictive powers of science fiction are mediocre at best. In hindsight, it’s easy to pick out the novels and stories of the last century with elements that came true, but these works are few and far between compared to the plethora of “predictions” that fizzled. (Science fiction sometimes guides technological development, rather than predicting it—for example, some developers of Google Earth have credited Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash as an inspiration.) Science fiction writers themselves often bemoan the futility of trying to predict the future in their more metafictional works— see, for instance, Stanislaw Lem’s novel The Futurological Congress, a surrealist satire about drugs, war, and how perception shapes reality. Instead, science fiction is written to caution against the horrors of endless war (e.g., The Forever War), or to glorify human ingenuity (e.g., The Martian), or to explore the ramifications of a radically different political system (e.g., The Dispossessed, 1984).

Science fiction is also read with a purpose. Its readers seek to accomplish something, though our motives might be more elusive than those of the authors. Why do we read science fiction? The immediate answer for some is escapism: to enter into fantastic worlds that are more exciting than mundane reality. But that’s a simplistic answer that fails to explain why we’re drawn to science fiction, which, while speculative, often nods to realism and presents a thoughtful perspective on the future – frequently one that’s informed by scientific and technological reality. The draw of science fiction is more nuanced than a desire to escape the mundane.

Reading science fiction enables us to reflect on the ways people interact with each other, with technology, with our environment. A good science fiction work posits one vision for the future, among countless possibilities, that is built on a foundation of realism. In creating a link between the present and the future, science fiction invites us to consider the complex ways our choices and interactions contribute to generating the future. The collective and individual decisions we make every day—the careers we choose, the ideas we propagate, the ways we educate each other—lead us into the future. Science fiction gives us a venue to consider the futures that we want, and those we don’t, and how our actions contribute to one or the other.

Growing up, I immersed myself in science fiction, from the epic space sagas of Arthur C. Clarke to the twisted dystopian nightmares of Philip K. Dick. Science fiction opened up an endless array of possibilities and gave me a sense of agency in choosing which ones I hoped would materialize—and perhaps help nudge into being. The genre informed my decision to pursue a career in science and engineering, to very purposefully work toward the futures that I think are best and brightest.

Today, as a graduate student, much of the work I do involves the minutiae of science—the many hours of long work that hide behind every advance in the way we understand the world, no matter how small. But by reading science fiction, I place my work into a broader context and remind myself of why I think it’s important to work on the things I do: striving to make energy cheap, clean, and accessible, and developing systems for using it as efficiently as possible. Although I’m older, more practical, and probably more cynical, I’m just as inspired by science fiction now as I was when I first left the Earth with Bradbury and Asimov.

Hieroglyph, in pursuing group storytelling and interaction involving an exchange of ideas among readers, writers, scientists, and artists, gives us a tool for societal or collective reflection. Futures can be proposed, modified, refined, and discussed in an open, accessible community conversation. That certainly doesn’t mean that any one future discussed in the Hieroglyph collective imagination will come to pass. Nor does it necessarily mean we should all work together towards some particular future (such a call to collective action rings hollow to me). Truthfully, I doubt you could ever get a large enough portion of the population to agree that one course of action, one foreseeable future, is the best, to really ensure that it comes to pass. And the world is a large and diverse place—the notion that there can only be one ubiquitous “future” for everyone is laughable. But we should certainly use science fiction as a means to imagine what sorts of futures are possible, and which are desirable, and each act in our own way to help usher the best futures into reality.

Author Zach Berkson Zach Berkson is an engineer, researcher, and writer, who graduated from ASU’s chemical engineering program in 2013 and is now a PhD student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research focuses on engineering nanostructured materials for new applications in energy technology, including solid-state lighting, pollutant emission reduction, and solar-energy utilization. He is interested in finding ways to further technological development while maintaining a commitment to the environment and social equity in the face of a rapidly changing world.

p 33 chapter 2 – abstract – Utopian Practice

Utopia has developed from a literary ideal to a reality. But many individuals or groups who have tried to put their utopian visions into practice via political power or social movements have actually created dystopias. ‘Utopian practice’ looks at how the concept of utopia has been put into reality. The most common approach has been either to create a small community or to withdraw from the larger society without interference. These communities are popularly known as communes but the preferred term now is ‘intentional community’. Dissatisfaction starts utopianism, and ultimately it is about the transformation of everyday life.

p33 … But the most common form of putting a specific vision into practice has been to create a small community either to withdraw from the larger society to practice the beliefs of its members without interference or to demonstrate to the larger society that their utopia could be put into practice. Although he denied the utopian connection, the historian Arthur Eugene Bestor, Jr called the latte ‘patent-office models of the good society’, a label that actually makes the utopian connection.

Bestor taught at Teachers College, Columbia University, the Arthur Eugene Bestor, Jr. (September 20, 1908 – December 13, 1994) was University of Wisconsin, Stanford University, and the University of a historian of the United States, and during the 1950s a noted critic of Illinois . In 1963 he joined the faculty of the University of American public education. Washington, Seattle, where he taught until his retirement. He was the visiting Harmsworth Professor of American History at Queen's College, Oxford in 1956-57, and taught at the University of Tokyo, Rikkyo University (Tokyo), and Doshisha University (Kyoto) as a visiting professor sponsored by the Fulbright Program in 1967.

Bestor's early research was on the history of 19th-century American utopian and communitarian experimental settlements, especially New Harmony, Indiana, founded by followers of the Welsh communitarian philosopher Robert Owen. Bestor's study of New Harmony was published as Backwoods Utopias. In 1946 he received the prestigious Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association for this work.[3] In the mid-1950s, Bestor became well known in educational circles as a critic of then-common educational doctrines; Educational Wastelands (1953) was his manifesto about declining educational standards. From the late 1950s, his scholarly research shifted to issues of the constitutional basis of sovereignty, the war powers clauses of the US constitution, and the power of impeachment. "The American Civil War as a Constitutional Crisis " (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1844986 ) is a much noted and quoted essay of Bestor. Until his death in 1994, he published widely in historical and law journals on constitutional history and was several times invited to testify before Congress on constitutional matters. At the time of his death he was working on an intellectual history of European philosophical influences on the framers of the US constitution, with particular focus on the writings of Montaigne. Bestor was one of the first specialists on American constitutional law to publicly call for the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, in a piece published in The Nation.[1]

In addition, small, temporary actions are now being seen as utopian because they generally employ a utopian image against the dystopia that, as their proponents see it, they oppose. These actions take place in many different ways, from performance to protest.

Intentional communities Jill Dolan:

Christian convents and monasteries I believe that theatre and performance can articulate a common future, onte that’s more just and equitable, one in The kibbutz which we can all participate more equally, with more chances Dystopian communities to live fully and contribute to the making of culture.

The “60-ies” communities

Contemporary intentional communities

Success and failures? Rosabeth Moss Kanter Henry Demarest Lloyd

TAZ and DIY p 50 chapter 3 – abstract see above – Indigenous, colonial, and postcolonial utopianism

There were two types of colonies: one was primarily formed to exploit labor, raw materials, and resources and the other was designed for settlement. ‘Indigenous, colonial, and postcolonial utopianism’ examines the importance of colonies to utopianism. They represent utopian dreams and more intentional communities have been established in colonies than in colonizing countries. Settler colonies became places of utopian experimentation, and as early as 1659, intentional communities were established in the American colonies such as the Ephrata community in Pennsylvania. Some of these communities are secular, others religious; some are open, others are closed; some date hundreds of years and some are being established now. p 66 chapter 4 – abstract – Utopianism in other traditions

Are utopias a Western creation? Most scholars argue that utopian traditions have existed in other cultures such as Buddhism, Confucian, Hinduism, Japanese Shintoism, and Islam. ‘Utopianism in other traditions’ looks at such utopias and analyses whether the myths that are part of the idea of a utopia share any similarities. There are two common utopian forms with parallels in the West and other cultures: an ideal society in the past and some version of a paradise. Visions of a good life to be brought about by human efforts seem to be common and culturally specific. Social movements such as feminism and environmentalism have raised questions that have been answered in similar ways in different places.

People on the Northern Island’ …. Make no use of agriculture or any other art or profession. A tree named Padesà grows in that fortunate island on which, instead of fruit, are seen hanging precious garments of various colors whereof the natives take whatever pleases them best. In like manner they need not cultivate the soil, nor sow, nor reap; neither do they fish, nor hunt; because the same tree naturally produces them an excellent kind of rice without any husk. Whenever they wish to take nourishment, they have only to place this rice upon a certain great stone, from which a flame instantly issues, dresses their food, and then goes out of itself. While they eat their rice, various kinds of exquisite meats, ready dressed, appear upon the leaves of some trees, from which everyone takes at will. The meal over the remains immediately disappear.

(Burmese Buddhist text, quoted by Father Sangermano)

“Take a small country with a small population. The sage could bring it about that though there were contrivances which saved labor ten or a hundred times over, the people would not use them. He could make the people ready to die twice over for their country rather than emigrate. There might still be boats and chariots but no one would ride in them. There ought still be weapons of war but no one would drill with them. He could bring it about that ‘the people should go back (from writing) to knotted cords, be contented with their food, pleased with their clothes, satisfied with their homes and happy in their work and customs. The country over the border might be so near that one could hear the cocks crowing and the dogs barking in it, but the people would grow old and die without ever once troubling to go there. “

(Tao Te ching, quoted by Joseph Needham) p68 China: … It has roots in Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, followed by Neo-Confucianism … p72 India: … In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, two Indian authors, Hara Prasad Shastri, a man and a Hindu, and Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, a woman and a Muslim, published utopias. p73 … Mohandas K. Gandhi was a utopian and used the Hindu notion of Ramraja, or the rule of Rama, the golden ages, as a means of communicating his ideas. p74 Japan: …The Japanese word for utopia is riso-kyo, which derived from an earlier word tokoyo, or a world that exists forever. … Zen Gardens. p77 Islam: paradise and community at Medina p78 Africa … p81 intentional communities – monasteries and ashrams; dystopian cults; Chinese communalism p 86 chapter 5 – abstract see above – Utopianism in Christian traditions

Judaism and Christianity are permeated with utopian imagery. The idea of a utopian past and future is central to Christianity. ‘Utopianism in Christian traditions’ considers the place of utopia, the idea of a better life, in branches of Christianity, where these images can be found and what they mean for those living a Christian life. Krishan Kuma has argued that there is a profound contradiction between Christian religion and utopia. Utopia is of this world and for many religions is primarily concerned with the next. So utopia is heretical. Today, there are many Christian intentional communities, some extremely conservative and apart from society, some radical and engaged with society, all trying to live a good Christian life. p 102 chapter 6 – abstract – Utopianism and political theory

The heart of the utopian belief is that human needs can be satisfied if certain conditions are met. Simple dissatisfactions lead to the simple satisfactions. ‘Utopianism and political theory) looks at the complicated relationship between theories about utopias and political thinking. Some critics of utopianism, who equate utopia with the search for ‘perfect’, connect the problems of the 20th century (world wars, genocide, Communism, Islamism) with utopianism. On the other hand, supporters argue that utopianism has been fundamental to overcoming the worst excesses of the 20th century and is necessary for the continuance of civilization as people are always striving for things to improve (towards utopia). p 118 chapter 7 – abstract – Utopia and ideology

The term ideology was coined by French thinker Antoine Destutt de Tracy in about 1794 for a new science of ideas. It was adopted to mean the ways people mislead themselves and others via their beliefs. It is also used to describe a system of belief, usually political, that organizes a view of the world. ‘Utopia and ideology’ looks at the connection between the terms and how this connection can be confusing. The 20th century has been called the ‘age of ideology’ and utopia used both as a contrast and as being interchangeable with ideology. There is a utopia at the heart of every ideology. It is not clear how a utopia can become an ideology. p 126 conclusion – abstract

The term utopia originated quite late in the history of civilization and utopianism has existed in every cultural tradition. It heralds the hope for a better life. The Conclusion argues that utopianism has been used positively to spur people on to improve their lot and negatively to gain power, prestige, and money. Some utopias have turned into dystopias. Other utopias have been used to defeat dystopias. Utopias have many contradictions inherent in them: they are powerful and dangerous; they are things of hope and failure.