Philosophical notions of Utopia and Progress

This paper introduces some of the aspects and philosophical questions related to the concepts of Progress and Utopia. It has been written as part of the Dreams of Progress video art exhibition and philosophical debate, serving as a framework for the selection of the artwork but also as an analysis of the resulting tensions.

Utopia

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, Utopia is “an ideal commonwealth whose inhabitants exist under seemingly perfect conditions”. It is taken from the title of a book written in 1516 by Sir Thomas More describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean, a pagan and communist city-state in which the institutions and policies were entirely governed by reason.

The ambiguity of the word resides in its etymology, the word comes from Greek: οὐ, “not”, and τόπος, “place”, thus meaning a place that is nowhere, impossible to find in reality. Its homophone Eutopia, derived from the Greek εὖ, “good” or “well”, and τόπος, “place”, is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as region of ideal happiness or good order. Thomas More could not have used the word Utopia without knowing it could be interpreted in two different ways. An Utopia can be perfect or fictional or both.

To help clarify the dissertation, I will be using the following terminology:

• Eu-topia, as explained above, derived from the Greek εὖ, “good” or “well”, and τόπος, “place”, is defined as region of ideal happiness or good order.
• Ou-topia derived from the Greek ‘ou’ for “no” and ‘-topos’ for “place,” is a fictional, unrealistic place.
• Dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος) is an imaginary place or condition in which everything is as bad as possible [Oxford English Dictionary]

These definitions can be represented on a graph with two axes. [Between Dystopia and Utopia* by Constantinos A. Doxiadis*, 1966]

The first axe defines how realistic an utopia is, from ‘topos’ (meaning that the utopia is reality), to ‘ou-topia’ (meaning that the utopia cannot be real). The definition of ou-topia is unclear on the time scale used to judge whether an utopia is realistic or not. This proves to be especially problematic if technology moves at a fast pace, shifting quickly the perception of an utopia from ou-topia to topos. It remains that some imaginary societies are truly impossible whatever the state of science, because they rely on contradictions or false postulates.

The second axe is between nightmares (dystopia) and dreams (eu-topia). However, the classification cannot be objective because it must be based on a system of values. A perfect social order, for some, can be perceived as a state of perfection but, for others, it could be a type of oppression.

I did not represent on the graph the notion of Heterotopia that Michel Foucault introduced in 1967. The concept goes way beyond the scope of this paper even though it is closely related to Utopia. I’m only going to quote the following text from Michel Foucault:

“First there are the utopias. Utopias are sites with no real place. They are sites that have a general relation of direct or inverted analogy with the real space of Society. They present society itself in a perfected form, or else society turned upside down, but in any case these utopias are fundamentally unreal spaces.

There are also, probably in every culture, in every civilization, real places – places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society – which are something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted. Places of this kind are outside of all places, even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality. Because these places are absolutely different from all the sites that they reflect and speak about, I shall call them, by way of contrast to utopias, heterotopias.”

The graph cannot be objective simply because our idea of Utopia depends heavily on one’s values and on how much the vision is seen as realistic or not. Would a ‘good’ society prioritise the well-being of people or would it refer to the macro-level of the society? Is CCTV and ‘Big Brother’ the achievement of safety or is it the end of personal space and privacy? Debates concerning utopias often end in confrontation of values and levels of optimism.

A final aspect to consider while analyzing utopias is their purposes. They can be multiple:

• An utopia can serve as an ideal that guides the effort of a society.  It can guide for example efforts in technology.  As Constantinos A. Doxiadis describes in his book Between Dystopia and Utopia (1966),  “Technological progress cannot start without any conception of the dreamland that we want and can create. Dreams are necessary and they must precede the technological achievements” . Technology might be motivated by the ideal of knowledge, with the assumption that knowledge brings happiness. It could also be motivated by the ideal of immortality, where medicine attempts to erase what is presented as the ultimate cause of sadness. Total knowledge and immortality are two utopias driving our efforts even though they will probably never be reached.
• An utopia can also be a means to criticise a society, by considering how it can be different. The goal then is not to necessary build a realistic vision, but to bring attention to the existing social norms. The use of Utopia is particularly relevant in a oppressive context where political projects cannot be debated openly. It is also adequate when social rules are so established that the possibility of change is not even thinkable. A science-fictional vision can help by relaxing conditioned judgements and by making the assertion look less confrontational. The Garden of Eden is another example, the purpose of the biblical story was not to be realistic, but to explain what the relation between man, god and nature ought to be.
• Many utopias emerge paradoxically in times of crisis, when they are the less likely to become real. This demonstrates an important capacity of human nature, the ability to reinvent the world when no hope remains, to see beyond its immediate future and draw the lines of a seemingly unlikely destiny.

Understanding the inherent contradictions of an utopia, the aims of its author(s), its historical and social context, how it was perceived by its contemporaries, is a precious insight into a society and its values.

Progress

Progress can be about anything: science, health, happiness, wealth, effectiveness just to give few examples. This paper focuses on social progress, which is loosely defined by Wikipedia as the “changing of society toward the ideal”. The difficult part is naturally to define what is the ideal.

As an example, here is a definition of Progress derived from a specific ideal: progress is a “developmental activity in science, technology, etc., esp. with reference to the commercial opportunities created thereby or to the promotion of the material well-being of the public through the goods, techniques, or facilities created” [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/progress]. The definition is clearly based on consumerist and scientific values. One should recognize this is not the only viewpoint on what Progress should be.

Another tension exists within the notion of Progress: does it exist and in which form? The typical Western view is that Progress exists and is linear, constantly improving lives of people. A more nuanced view is that Progress happens in the long run but is made of ups, downs and diversions. The Buddhist view is that there is no progress at all, but only an eternal cycle of repetitions.

Furthermore, what happens when societies and their ideals change? Is there a ‘macro progress’ clearly building up through a succession of visions of Progress, so that society is learning from its past mistakes and defines each time a better vision, from monarchical ideals to democratic ones for example? Or is it a cycle, with notions of Progress all being equivalent, all of them predestined to collapse so that the next one can emerge?

The nature of an ideal and the possibility of Progress are both central questions to the way a society works. Throughout history, societies changed the way they operate to maximize the chance to reach their ideals: monasteries are structures invented to reach religious goals, factories are made in the perspective of achieving economical ideals, Internet is made with the hope to create a world of universal knowledge. I believe that one of the biggest threat for a society is to not elicit its position on Progress, making it impossible to organise itself convincingly, to address the challenges of its time consistently and to inspire fellowship from its members.

References

http://curatedmatter.org/2009/06/18/book-references-for-the-dreams-of-progress-philosophical-debate/