Why Utopias are Bullshit

We have a lot of growing to do as a species and that starts with letting this toxic idea go.

I am a huge fan of Ursula K. LeGuin and a Trekkie.

And up until about a year ago I like most people who read and write fantasy fiction (sci-fi is just fantasy with tech instead of magic) believed Utopia was possible, humanity just wasn’t trying hard enough.

An utopia is loosely defined as an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its citizens (wikipedia, n.d.).

The problem with utopias lay in the definition. The fundamental driving assumption is that there is a perfect state where everyone is happy.

As a parent with three small children I can tell you that’s a fucking lie from the pits of hell.

Whoever establishes the utopia is the one that defines what perfect is and perfect for one person is terrible for another.

As it should be.

Humanity is not homogeneous. We are diverse by design, it’s the only way to continue evolving as a species. Nature gets this but for some reason humans don’t.

We think different = scary.

That’s why I firmly believe works extolling the virtues of an utopia are produced by minds that haven’t done the hard and honest work of understanding that diversity is a law not a theory.

This is part of why the whole racism must end thing is being fought against so hard. America started out as an utopia for ex Europeans but was simultaneously hell for Africans transported here and the Indigenous who were nearly eradicated in the search for the perfect country.

Racism is shielded by the idea of utopia being possible if we try hard enough.

And it requires the complicity of well meaning white people to continue to function. Folks that think if we all just love and do the right things a perfect society will emerge whole and complete out of thin air.

People who think like that need to wake the fuck up.

That’s a pretty sharp attack Jael? So you saying we have no hope for seeing a better tommorrow?

That’s not what I’m saying at all.

I am saying that just as humans must make peace with the idea that the only constant in life is change, we must also relinquish the idea of things being capable of remaining the same.

If we want hope for a better tommorrow, we need to do the hard work of growing up and accepting that a society that does not account for diversity and changes to both its people and environment is a society built to fail.

Oh…

Yeah. It’s time to return to Kansas and face the music.

I’d like to thank both N.K. Jemisin and Ursula K Leguin for showing me the way out of that backwards ass thinking and forward to the future.

I pray you’ll join me in this way of thinking one day so together we can build a better and sustainable society.

Till all us free, none us free.

Resources
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K LeGuin
The Ones Who Stay and Fight by N.K. Jemisin.