#utopian thought

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The choice we have is not between reasonable proposals and an unreasonable utopianism. Utopian thinking does not undermine or discount real reforms. Indeed, it is almost the opposite: practical reforms depend on utopian dreaming.

-Russell Jacoby, Picture Imperfect

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The great utopians have all borne witness to their anger at the world, their disgust with society. - Frank E. Manuel

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utopian thinking

"If there is any hope of utopian thinking, there must be a broad-based change in thinking about long-term futures, in ways that go beyond relief of the current problems.  Would-be utopians must supply complex detailed images of the social, economic, political, and personal lives of all people if they are to have any credibility or have any value in directing the evolution of society.  Utopian visions must be at least as grainy and engaging as their dystopian competitors.

Numerous things underline the absence of positive thinking about the future but at its core is a fundamental lapse in education, in thinking positively, in thinking systematically, and in thinking optimistically.  A recent issue of the New Scientist reported on a contest looking merely to 2050; none of the contestants dealt well with the social and personal aspects of life.

My own experience, reported elsewhere, in conducting 250 people at a World Future Society meeting through a three-hour exercise on the next thousand-year future, was disappointing.  People were asked as a wrap-up to create a picture or an image of some tiny piece of life in the world 3000.  The responses could have been drawn from situations found in the previous six months of the New York Times."

-Joseph Coates, chapt. 4 Utopia--An Obsolete Concept, pp. 29-34, in Viable Utopian Ideas - Shaping a Better World