utopia

In 'The future of thinking about the future', Ruth Levitas concludes that utopia is necessary however difficult it is to locate (as a real or imagined perfect or ideal society or place, but literally is 'no place' from 'ou' not and topos a place - negative dialectics? in that by finding fault with society and then by imagining a perfect society, some improvement is made possible). This is quite unfashionable in some circles - not least because of its relationship to Marxism. She cites Karl Popper (a well known critic of Marxism) who is sceptical of all blueprints for a better future as they inevitably lead to totalitarianism in his view (Marxism leads to Stalinism for instance). Levitas proceeds to define utopia more carefully using old distinctions of form, content and function.

Utopia is broadly understood as 'the desire for a better way of life expressed in the description of a different kind of society' that makes this possible (1995: 257); the political significance of which is that the vision of a better society may itself act as an agent of change. In this way, it seems a useful concept in the digital realm - what is virtual in a sense is a prediction of what reality might become, or at least a blueprint. This is the intention of much science fiction of course (and there are plenty of examples of this in the essay). Although she doesn't go on to discuss technology in detail, this is more our concern: How is technology used as an agent of change? What is its role in social transformation (but be careful not to simply think that technology can determine this). Although we might be sceptical of some of its claims of social transformation, following the argument of Levitas, we would still probably see it as important and necessary because of the possibility of better change and agency - the idea of progress. The alternative is conservatism to the point of stasis. Here lies the politics in the idea of transformation and on a fundamental level, digital technology appears to hold all sorts of possibilities for transformation.

The problem and hence the title of the essay has been identified through that body of thinking that people call 'postmodernism' (and a shift from temporal to spatial conditions). Levitas argues that since utopias are necessarily ideological, postmodern thinking in itself is a product of late-capitalism (that despite its marketing sound-bites) obscures reality and ultimately sustains the status quo. This leads to the paradoxical idea of needing to examine examples of previous utopian visions - the history of thinking about the future in order to understand the future of thinking about the future.

Clearly, we need to continue to think in terms of time and history. The following quote emphasises the importance of this: 'Utopia changes its form and function, and indeed its location, with the context in which it arises' (1995: 258). Levitas provides many examples, including art as offering glimpses of utopia (citing Adorno, 1995: 262) or that art might not only be critical of reality, but also 'posits an alternative and can act at least indirectly as an agent of transformation' (citing Marcuse, 1995: 263). The work of Henri Marcuse is a useful example perhaps as he sees a problem in the Marxist idea of social agency in the proletariat as they have been incorporated into consumer-capitalism, and suggests that art is part of the idea of the 'Great Refusal' -  as an expression of agency, opposition and new social movements as collective agents. Postmodernism has tended to interprete this in terms of the rejection of meta-narratives (like history and progress) and the rise of identity politics - and for a while this seemed useful but these groups have been aggressively incorporated into consumer-capitalism too (think of the 'pink-pound' for instance). In other words: 'The personal ceases to be political if and when we take away the capacity to think time and history' (1995:262).

It would seem that the diversification of constituencies of oppression (even evident in the fragmentation of the self) works against the idea of agency. Slavoj Zizek sees this as the failure of identity politics, whereas Levitas quotes Stuart Hall: 'The multiplication of new points of antagonism... further fragments the political field, dispersing, rather than unifying the different social constituencies' (1995: 264). The recent protests against globalisation and the W.T.O. (Seattle, London, Prague, etc) might figure here - though they tend to only highlight opposition, and unfortunately tend not to suggest any kind of working alternative. Or think of the empty politics (and tanks) or the so-called petrol crisis - collective action (great) but to what purpose (a utopia in which petrol is cheaper)? I prefer to see the proletariat as a useful metaphor (actually metonym?) for social agency and transformation that now operates under global conditions (similar to Jameson's 'international proletariat' and 'cognitive mapping' which is probably just class consciousness recoded). Did anyone see that TV programme the other night about contemporary forms of Slavery ('Slavery', C4, 28 Sept) - there's a good example of history's reverse ideological function to convince us that this is only a thing of the past?  Slavery remains a working part of the global economy.  

Levitas concludes:
'The main reason why it has become so difficult to locate utopia in a future credibly linked to the present by a feasible transformation is that our images of the present do not identify agencies and processes of change. The result is that utopia moves further into the realms of fantasy. Although this has the advantage of liberating the imagination from the constraints of what it is possible to imagine as possible - and encouraging utopia to demand the impossible - it has the disadvantage of severing utopia from the process of social change...' (1995:265)

But what about examples of utopias that relate to technology? Can anyone think of good examples? How might agency be enhanced by technology? Or does technology merely enhance fantasy and hence fall into the problem that Levitas identifies above? Do you have any thoughts on thinking about the future in this way?

Yet, Utopia as the place of reconciliation of conflicts (in the Hegelian sense as mentioned earlier) is often seen as a dull simplified model of sameness where difference and conflicts have been resolved. This is why the reconciliatory view of dialectics is rejected for one that strives for betterment but reinvents dialectic play at the point of synthesis - in this sense, it remains generative, and describes no simple operation but one made more complex and unfinished - perhaps in a series of anti-utopian revolutions. For Adorno and Horkheimer in Dialectic of Enlightenment, any reference to an essential 'golden age' beginning (or end) is also examined as 'an always-ready process whose structure lies very precisely in its generation of the illusion' (Jameson, 1991: 337). For Adorno, utopia remained impossible (and all the more so for witnessing the utopian shopping mall of the United States - the 'technocratisation of society').