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Utopia is the wonderful place. The word (ironically, it means ‘nowhere') comes from a 1516 book of that name by Thomas More who set forth his view of a good world.  In the years following, many novels set forth visions of Utopias. Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright (1942) was popular.  A recent one is Walden II (1972) by B.F. Skinner. The communes of the ‘60’s were by and large utopian visions. Utopias are lands or cultures of peace and plenty, still human but no severe disorder, no wars, and down the road things will get better, and there have been times and places where the Utopian vision may have seemed plausible.  

But the genre is being replaced by a modern vision: the dystopia, the terrible future. Early ones were l984 (1949), Brave New World (1932), and It Can’t Happen Here  (1935) by Sinclair Lewis. A recent book and movie, The Road (2009), is a grim example.

The ideas of utopia and dystopia form something of an arch over the past thousand years of our history. Things looked dark after the fall of Rome, but as the Renaissance moved north and west things brightened. Then the Reformation. Then the Enlightenment. Then the Industrial Age. Then the spread of science and technology, and it was possible before WW ll to think the future really was going to be better and better.

But the years since the end of WW ll make that optimism more difficult. As the world changes ever more rapidly, it seems that there is more and more suffering and disorder, and Utopias fade further and further away.  True, the bad news gets reported immediately everywhere, but allowing for that, it still seems that today is more threatening than yesterday. Utopia may be nowhere, but Dystopia is knocking at the door.