In Defence of Utopia

Abstract

My aim here is not to examine the historical evolution of the image of an ideal society. Nor is it to repeat the Marxist criticisms, inaugurated by Engels, against vain attempts to alter society radically, based not on the real contradictions of that society but on the imaginary projections of an ideal against which the reality must be judged and condemned. My purpose is much narrower. It is to stress that in the current context the absence of a vision of the future, of a project, of a radical alternative cripples and paralyses the potential movement from below and may divert it in dangerous directions. It is to ask why the Establishment, which has always tried to do so, is now so particularly successful in persuading the people that its regime is eternal, that there is nothing beyond its horizon.