Utopia and Its Discontents
Posted by Sappho on October 20th, 2018 filed in College Life, Memory, News and Commentary
More than thirty years ago, during the summer after my sophomore year in college, I spent two and a half weeks in utopia.
A day before yesterday, I arrived here by train from New York. Now, as I lie here on a Twin Oaks made hammock and listen to music from Jesus Christ Superstar drifting out from Llano, sometimes drowned out by the noise of hammers and saws from Tachai, I don’t really know where to begin in setting down my thoughts.
This particular utopia, Twin Oaks, a commune in Louisa, Virginia, had been founded in 1967. At the time I visited it, it was nearly fifteen years old, already longer lived than most 1960s communes. I have not been back since my visit, but it’s easy to see from articles and the community’s own web site that Twin Oaks is still going strong 51 years after it was founded, even though all of its eight founding members have moved on or died. It’s longevity, I think, is due in part to an inspiration that it had already largely abandoned by the time I visited. Twin Oaks, alone among 1960s communes, was inspired by a utopian novel by behaviorist psychologist B.F. Skinner, Walden Two.
utopia 1 often capitalized : a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions. 2 : an impractical scheme for social improvement. Meriam-Webster
“Utopia” comes from the name of a famous novel by Sir Thomas More. Utopia, “nowhere.” It has two meanings. So, if I ask you, what’s your utopia, you might take me to mean, “what’s your view of ideal laws, government, and social conditions”? What are the ideals and dreams that inspire you?
Or, you might take me to mean, “OK, there, tell me your impossible dream, and why you think it’s practical.” What’s your dream that’s blind to reality, false to human nature, for which you would sacrifice the joys and lives of real people?
We use “utopia” in its first meaning, generally, when we talk about “utopian novels” or (for all their imperfections) “utopian communities.” (Hence, though Twin Oaks is of course not everyone’s human ideal, you don’t think I’m sneering at the community if I lightly refer to it as “utopia.”)
We use the word in its second meaning when we talk about utopian politics. Whatever our dreams, none of us think our own politics are utopian. It’s always the other guy’s politics.
Was Thomas More’s Utopia meant to represent his ideal of human life? That’s a matter for some debate. He presents a society that’s in some ways idealized, one that’s free of some of the contemporary wrongs that he saw in Europe. But did the good Catholic Thomas More really aspire to Utopia’s easy divorce, or to its acceptance of euthanasia? As fictional utopias go, Utopia is like the Neanderthal half of Robert J. Sawyer’s Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, a world that both displays the author’s ideals and some elements that the author must have seen as serious flaws. (In the Neanderthal Parallax, that would include the intersection of eugenics and the Neanderthal criminal justice system.)
Other fictional utopias followed, though, that were more straightforwardly utopian, ideals not so marred by significant flaws, or at least so marred by elements one would expect the authors to see as flaws. Perhaps you like the ease of divorce in Thomas More’s Utopia, but More probably didn’t. Perhaps you hate the socialism of Bellamy’s Looking Backward, but to Bellamy it was an ideal. In this vein we get works like Ecotopia, and like Walden Two.
But I’ll get back to Walden Two, and the community it inspired, later. First, I want to talk about the second meaning of utopia, the one where it’s an impractical scheme for social improvement.
One of my cousins, the Republican one, likes to ask me sometimes what is my view of utopia. Naturally, I take him to mean “utopia” in the impractical way. Republicans generally see liberal ideals as impractical, right? Impractical like Communism and Five Year Plans. Just as I, for example, see Ayn Rand’s views as impractical, out of touch with a human nature that is, yes, in some ways selfish, but also shaped as cooperative by the fact that our young our born helpless, that we need to share child rearing to raise them to adulthood. So I once replied to my cousin:
Dick, I have never defined my idea of utopia because I don’t believe in utopia. As a teenager, I was a Marxist, as I told you, but as an adult I’m an anti-utopian, suspicious of grand utopian revisions of the world, whether in the form of Marx’s idea that a socialist revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat would lead to a world where all are equal and the state to withers away, or Ayn Rand’s utopia of selfishness, where a system no one has ever actually lived will make everything right.
I believe in the imperfection of humanity, in careful, moderate changes, and in an economic system that balances respect for market forces and opportunity for entrepreneurs with a sufficient safety net, a reasonably progressive taxation to collect more from those who benefit most and allow for equality of opportunity, and some Keynesian and monetarist amelioration of market swings. I believe in free trade agreements that allow countries to pursue their areas of Ricardian advantage, rather than distorting the economy with trade barriers, and I want those trade agreements negotiated by people who understand that we don’t live in a zero sum world of winners and losers, but one in which trade agreements can expand the pie for all sides.
I believe in respect for constitutional checks and balances, and in a government that values freedom, including a vigorous free press. I believe in being cautious about military intervention abroad, while valuing our alliances and stopping abroad dangers like Ebola, which would eventually bite us at home if we didn’t help douse the fire where it starts.
I believe in judging people by the content of their hearts rather than by the color of their skin, in rejecting race baiters, and in keeping our law enforcement system watchful for terrorists whether they are jihadi terrorists or KKK terrorists. I believe in an immigration system that takes into account how many people we can assimilate and what skills we may particularly need, but that doesn’t discriminate by skin color or country of origin. And I believe in collective international action to address situations that may lead to disruptive levels of mass migration, such as climate change.
None of these believes involves a hope for perfection; all of them involve a hope for finding moderate ways of managing the imperfection that will always be with us.
None of us see our own politics as utopian in the negative sense, because none of us see our own politics as out of keeping with human nature.
But what about when it’s our present world that’s out of keeping with human nature, not conducive to human happiness? What about when it’s our present world that desperately needs change? Sometimes even radical change (think slavery, or think Jim Crow).
The other day, on Twitter, Osita Nwanevu brought up the last two sentences of an old David Brooks op-ed on Reading Ta-Nehisi Coates While White
By dissolving the dream under the acid of an excessive realism, you trap generations in the past and destroy the guiding star that points to a better future.
It was remarkable because, as I said yesterday, the centrist move is usually to cast yourself above purity and utopianism on Both Sides. But sometimes they openly admit they’re committed to a vision detached from reality.
better world imaginer replied
If I may hazard a possibly excessively kind reading of Brooks here: perhaps he’s saying that people need a vision of the future to believe in that tells them the troubles of the present aren’t permanent, and that The American Dream is such a vision.
Whether you take better world imaginer’s kind reading of Brooks or Nwavenu’s critical reading, you have to allow that, appealing though The American Dream can be as a vision, it has often failed to reflect reality. “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”, as Frederick Douglas said.
We need to be wary of “change” as a lit match, the kind of blind desire for change that grasps at whoever will tear down what is, without regard for its reason for being there, or for the dangers of what might be put in its place. As Chesterton put it,
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
I’m been bemused as I’ve watched self-styled “conservatives” forget this caution, and cry that I should be bound to support Trump because he is for “change.” Change? Don’t I have to ask what change, or what is being torn down, before I judge whether I’m for it, or whether it’s a change I should resist with all my might?
But when it’s not simply a matter of not seeing the use of a thing, but a matter of plainly seeing the grave harm, then it may be time to proclaim Why We Can’t Wait, a time not to defend a present fence, but to dream of a future without it.
I have a dream that my four little chi1dren will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream … I have a dream that one day in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right here in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
When I look at what ideals people proclaim, what vision of the good inspires them, I can find dreams not just at my own end of the political spectrum, but at several others, with which I can empathize. Take the views of Grace Olmstead, of The American Conservative on the benefits of localism
Now, Mark Mitchell and Jason Peters have reassembled the FPR team to craft a new volume of essays titled Localism in the Mass Age. The essays cover a broad array of topics—from homecoming to foreign policy, urbanism to economics, agrarianism to the hookup culture. But as always, a uniting set of principles bind the contributions together: the authors all highlight the importance of limits—geographic, economic, and political—alongside the necessity of cultural and personal virtue. The essays are not about an idealistic or nostalgic return to village living, nor do they contain tribalistic or nationalistic tendencies. Rather, the authors here remind us that localism is most often discarded because it forces us to confront the imperfections and sins in our midst, as well as those of our neighbors. It is much easier to leave a place than it is to reform it. And it is far easier to prescribe solutions for far-off terrains than it is to serve our neighbor, as Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan so aptly demonstrates.
Understanding limits, valuing personal and cultural virtue, care for our neighbors, all of these are things that I can appreciate. One of the reasons I sometimes read The American Conservative (bypassing Patrick Buchanan and heading for Grace Olmstead) is for reminders of these values.
Or take neoconservative Jennifer Rubin and paleoconservative Daniel Larison, for the moment on the same side of an issue, but coming from two different world views. That side would be the “killing a dissident journalist and taking him apart with a bone saw is a terrible thing” side, in opposition to the “hey, it’s no biggie that Jamal ‘Indiana Jones’ Khashoggi had a fist fight with 15 people who just happened to bring a bone saw to a fist fight” side.
Here’s Jennifer Rubin on Why transactional foreign policy is destined to fail
Second, rogue regimes are by their nature unstable and unreliable. Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt was a case in point. In providing nondemocratic partners with undiluted praise and support, we encourage behaviors that ultimately make them less stable, less prosperous and more corrupt….
This does not mean that all of our alliances must be grounded in shared, democratic values. It does, however, require that we not outsource our foreign policy to autocratic regimes and that we hold them accountable for their conduct. We must continue to stand up for universal human rights….
And here’s Daniel Larison on The Boundless Bad Faith of Iran Hawks
It is telling that the only person that Schanzer cites as being in favor of sanctions on Saudi Arabia is Lindsey Graham, who is almost always in favor of imposing sanctions on other governments. Graham likes to “sanction the hell” out of lots of governments, so it doesn’t tell us very much that this is his first instinct now. The “same experts pushing for sanctions against Saudi Arabia” remain strangely anonymous, perhaps because there aren’t very many who are actually calling for these measures now. The far more common response to the Khashoggi murder has been to call for halting arms sales and cutting off military assistance to the Saudi coalition war on Yemen. Most of the people calling for this were already in favor of doing these things, and now they are being joined by others that want to make Saudi Arabia pay a price for what the crown prince has done.
…
Sanctions typically don’t change regime behavior, but then this has never bothered Iran hawks, who are interested in sanctioning Iran for the purpose of isolating and hurting the country. There is also a crucial difference between targeted sanctions that are applied to individual officials within a regime and broad economic and financial sanctions that harm an entire country and its population. One can rightly reject reimposing illegitimate sanctions on Iran because of the harm it would do to the people while supporting targeted sanctions on leading members of another government. As far as I know, no one that opposes Iran sanctions is suggesting that the U.S. copy the collective punishment it is inflicting on Iran in order to punish Saudi Arabia. That would be foolish and wrong for the same reason that it is foolish and wrong when we do it to Iran: it punishes innocent people for things they aren’t responsible for and cannot control. Holding specific officials accountable for their role in an outrageous crime is very different from strangling a country’s entire economy and choking off its access to humanitarian goods. Schanzer and his organization are enthusiastically in favor of doing the latter, so it is remarkable that he thinks he is in any position to lecture anyone on this issue.
You can see, here, the differences in their guiding ideals. Jennifer Rubin loves freedom, opposes rogue regimes and autocracy, and wants the USA to be a beacon for human rights. Daniel Larison wants a cautious foreign policy that avoids wars and broad sanctions, and is fine with sanctions narrowly aimed, Magnitsky style, at individual officials, and strongly in favor of doing away with arms sales that feed foreign wars. And both Rubin’s ideals and Larison’s ideals, in this case, sound like good things. At a certain point, I’ll have to differ with one or the other, but it won’t be because I’ve decided that freedom doesn’t matter, that reckless wars are good, or that our foreign policy should be purely transactional and about money alone.
Still, it’s not just leaders with dismal character, like our current President, who do harm. Even with sound ideals it’s hard to agree on policies for such a large and diverse country as the US. And political philosophies aren’t just defined by their best ideals, but also by their weaknesses, the dangers they fail to see and to resist.
Perhaps that’s why, when we use “utopian” in at least a semi-positive way, it’s generally to talk about small, local communities, rather than dreams to set the whole country (let alone the world) right. Even a failed small scale utopia, like Brook Farm, generally doesn’t do the harm of a failed large scale utopia. (OK, there are exceptions – hello, Jim Jones – but there are more harmless failed small scale utopian communities than harmful ones. Probably because usually people who are unhappy can leave.)
And so I return to Walden Two, B.F. Skinner’s behaviorist utopian novel. Skinner imagines a world in which scientists can shape human behavior to promote happiness. Children are trained for future happiness:
We give each child a lollipop which has been dipped in powdered sugar so that a single touch of the tongue can be detected. We tell him he may eat the lollipop later in the day, provided it hasn’t already been licked. Since the child is only three or four, it is a fairly diff-
In some respects, Walden Two is utopian in the impractical sense. Consider its undemocratic ideal of leadership:
“In Walden Two no one worries about the government except the few to whom that worry has been assigned. To suggest that everyone should take an interest would seem as fantastic as to suggest that everyone should become familiar with our Diesel engines.”
Skinner’s “Planners” are so quietly noble in their arrangement of his fictional community that most community members don’t bother to learn who they are at any given time. And they give themselves no preference. I’m more partial to Niehbuhrian skepticism about what humans do, when given power with no democratic feedback mechanism:
“Men will not cease to be dishonest, merely because their dishonesties have been revealed or because they have discovered their own deceptions. Wherever men hold unequal power in society, they will strive to maintain it.” — Reinhold Niebuhr, “Moral Man And Immoral Society” (1932) (quote tweeted by James Comey
By the time I made my visit to Twin Oaks, it had long since abandoned its behaviorist roots.
… when I mentioned being a psych major, Ingrid asked if I was interested in finding out about behavior modification at Twin Oaks and told me, “There isn’t any.”
Its feel was more New Left counterculture than behaviorist. My notes on my visit say
Arriving at Twin Oaks was less of a culture shock than I expected. The kitchen (in Llano) is reassuringly like Synergy: chopsticks alongside the forks and knives, organic vegetarian food (though they sometimes provide meat), refrigerators which anyone can eat out of and another place for private goodies. Thin Oaks, however, makes its own tofu, soft cheeses, and canned vegetables, as well as yoghurt, granola, and bread, and the milk is fresh from their cows and unpasteurized. At one end of the kitchen are labeled bins for plates, bowls, and cups, and nearby are cans for compost, also labelled (some is eaten by the pigs and some isn’t).
and
an impressed with – lack of sexism, men and women in construction, cooking, farm, childcare, laundry
egalitarianism
the whole caring atmosphere
the dogs (they don’t bark or growl at strangers)
I remember Faerin leading the neo-pagan equinox ritual, the bulletin board discussion of whether the community would finance Josie’s desire to become a doctor, the discussion of how to deal with the loss of a major hammock contract (Twin Oaks has since diversified its economic activities) and the large communal clothes supply.
Paradoxically, though, Twin Oaks’ long survival owed something to the roots it had mostly abandoned. If Twin Oakers had left Skinner’s behaviorism behind, they had kept a basic structure that included Planners, Managers, and a credit system of tracking hours of labor. (As a visitor, I too was assigned hours, some of which I spent making hammocks, while others were spent tending the cows.) This structure helped the community survive where more loosely organized 1960s communes failed. At the same time, Twin Oaks built into its system more democratic feedback than Skinner had allowed in his fictional one. My notes say
though they have planner-manager system, interest in participatory government – planners’ meetings open, planners can be overruled, enough managers jobs for everyone
and report on one meeting
In place of the Planners’ meeting a man from New Alchemy talked. They work on grants and study methods of organic farming, solar heating, aquaculture, and windmills. The man explained the things they had been working on and showed slides. I was very much impressed, also with the intelligent questions the Twin Oakers asked.
Childcare, at the time I visited, was inspired more by the history of the kibbutzim than by Skinner’s book.
… a children’s house (named Degania after a kibbutz) [where] metas work in four shifts a day plus a night meta. One meta takes care of little kids (up to about five or six), while another takes care of big kids (older than that). All children live in the same house. Big kids are allowed to go around the community if they have an adult with them. Little kids mostly stay at Degania…. Evenings are set aside for the children to spend time with their “primaries.” These include but are not limited to their parents. Amy, for example, had Josie for several days a week, with about three other people during the rest of the week. The common pattern seems to be two people (probably the parents …) to be primaries most of the time, with one to three other people taking up one or two days a week …
In place of lollipop experiments, Twin Oakers had developed their own methods of child care.
Conversations with Molly (a meta) and other Twin Oakers about child care…
Molly told me they tried to teach the children their values.
“What values?
“Nonviolence.”
“How do you teach the children nonviolence?”
“Any time they quarrel, over a toy or something, we sit them down until they come up with a solution which is acceptable to both of them. If one of them refuses to negotiate, the toy goes to the other one. They start coming up with solutions very quickly, and soon they are coming up with them even before we sit them down.
Was it utopia? Well, certainly not everyone’s idea of utopia. Some of the practices I observed when I was there have now been left behind like Twin Oaks’ Skinnerian origins. My notes speak positively of the community’s pride in its children. But, just like the kibbutzim that Twin Oaks imitated, Twin Oaks eventually found this degree of communal child rearing unsatisfactory to its parents. Twin Oaks’ web site reports that they have abandoned the system of metas and the special children’s house in favor of childcare labor credits for parents and other “primaries.”
It may not be utopia, but Twin Oaks still fulfills its members ideals of an Ecovillage
An ecovillage is a human scale, full-featured settlement which integrates human activities harmlessly into the natural environment, supports healthy human development, and can be continued into the indefinite future….
Twin Oaks fits the contemporary definition of ecovillage in numerous ways. In many ways past and present we have tried to consider what might be sustainable for the long term. Photos here show some of the ways this manifests in the physical realm: examples shown include food, fuel, recycling, transportation, etc.
And as a small community Twin Oaks has been free to reflect the values of its members and change as they decided certain experiments weren’t working, to draw in people for whom the life works (and spawn satellite communities East Wind and Acorn) while allowing those it doesn’t fit to move on and remains friends of the community.
An article last year relates Josie’s view of Twin Oaks
Josie has mostly happy memories about her life at Twin Oaks.
“I learned how to milk a cow, I learned how to run a printing press, and I learned how to cook, and to cook for groups. Want me to whip up a meal for 60 people? No problem,” she says.
Josie’s view of what constitutes family was shaped during her time there, she says. “For me, I don’t differentiate between family and close friends. And it’s Twin Oaks that created that for me.”
…
As for Twin Oaks, Josie says she still loves it, but would never return.
She says the community consists of a kind group of people living lightly on the land, fully engaged in life. On the other hand, she says the egalitarian nature of the community means that it is governed by committee.
“And I just don’t have the patience for that.”