Leo Strauss’ Philosophy of Deception

Leo Strauss’ Philosophy of Deception
By Jim Lobe, AlterNet
Posted on May 19, 2003, Printed on July 19, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/15935/

What would you do if you wanted to topple Saddam Hussein, but your intelligence agencies couldn’t find the evidence to justify a war?

A follower of Leo Strauss may just hire the “right” kind of men to get the job done – people with the intellect, acuity, and, if necessary, the political commitment, polemical skills, and, above all, the imagination to find the evidence that career intelligence officers could not detect.

The “right” man for Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, suggests Seymour Hersh in his recent New Yorker article entitled ‘Selective Intelligence,’ was Abram Shulsky, director of the Office of Special Plans (OSP) – an agency created specifically to find the evidence of WMDs and/or links with Al Qaeda, piece it together, and clinch the case for the invasion of Iraq.

Like Wolfowitz, Shulsky is a student of an obscure German Jewish political philosopher named Leo Strauss who arrived in the United States in 1938. Strauss taught at several major universities, including Wolfowitz and Shulsky’s alma mater, the University of Chicago, before his death in 1973.

Strauss is a popular figure among the neoconservatives. Adherents of his ideas include prominent figures both within and outside the administration. They include ‘Weekly Standard’ editor William Kristol; his father and indeed the godfather of the neoconservative movement, Irving Kristol; the new Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen Cambone, a number of senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) (home to former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle and Lynne Cheney), and Gary Schmitt, the director of the influential Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which is chaired by Kristol the Younger.

Strauss’ philosophy is hardly incidental to the strategy and mindset adopted by these men – as is obvious in Shulsky’s 1999 essay titled “Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence (By Which We Do Not Mean Nous)” (in Greek philosophy the term nous denotes the highest form of rationality). As Hersh notes in his article, Shulsky and his co-author Schmitt “criticize America’s intelligence community for its failure to appreciate the duplicitous nature of the regimes it deals with, its susceptibility to social-science notions of proof, and its inability to cope with deliberate concealment.” They argued that Strauss’s idea of hidden meaning, “alerts one to the possibility that political life may be closely linked to deception. Indeed, it suggests that deception is the norm in political life, and the hope, to say nothing of the expectation, of establishing a politics that can dispense with it is the exception.”

Rule One: Deception

It’s hardly surprising then why Strauss is so popular in an administration obsessed with secrecy, especially when it comes to matters of foreign policy. Not only did Strauss have few qualms about using deception in politics, he saw it as a necessity. While professing deep respect for American democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical – divided between an elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow. But unlike fellow elitists like Plato, he was less concerned with the moral character of these leaders. According to Shadia Drury, who teaches politics at the University of Calgary, Strauss believed that “those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right – the right of the superior to rule over the inferior.”

This dichotomy requires “perpetual deception” between the rulers and the ruled, according to Drury. Robert Locke, another Strauss analyst says,”The people are told what they need to know and no more.” While the elite few are capable of absorbing the absence of any moral truth, Strauss thought, the masses could not cope. If exposed to the absence of absolute truth, they would quickly fall into nihilism or anarchy, according to Drury, author of ‘Leo Strauss and the American Right’ (St. Martin’s 1999).

Second Principle: Power of Religion

According to Drury, Strauss had a “huge contempt” for secular democracy. Nazism, he believed, was a nihilistic reaction to the irreligious and liberal nature of the Weimar Republic. Among other neoconservatives, Irving Kristol has long argued for a much greater role for religion in the public sphere, even suggesting that the Founding Fathers of the American Republic made a major mistake by insisting on the separation of church and state. And why? Because Strauss viewed religion as absolutely essential in order to impose moral law on the masses who otherwise would be out of control.

At the same time, he stressed that religion was for the masses alone; the rulers need not be bound by it. Indeed, it would be absurd if they were, since the truths proclaimed by religion were “a pious fraud.” As Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine points out, “Neoconservatives are pro-religion even though they themselves may not be believers.”

“Secular society in their view is the worst possible thing,” Drury says, because it leads to individualism, liberalism, and relativism, precisely those traits that may promote dissent that in turn could dangerously weaken society’s ability to cope with external threats. Bailey argues that it is this firm belief in the political utility of religion as an “opiate of the masses” that helps explain why secular Jews like Kristol in ‘Commentary’ magazine and other neoconservative journals have allied themselves with the Christian Right and even taken on Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Third Principle: Aggressive Nationalism

Like Thomas Hobbes, Strauss believed that the inherently aggressive nature of human beings could only be restrained by a powerful nationalistic state. “Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed,” he once wrote. “Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united – and they can only be united against other people.”

Not surprisingly, Strauss’ attitude toward foreign policy was distinctly Machiavellian. “Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat,” Drury wrote in her book. “Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured (emphases added).”

“Perpetual war, not perpetual peace, is what Straussians believe in,” says Drury. The idea easily translates into, in her words, an “aggressive, belligerent foreign policy,” of the kind that has been advocated by neocon groups like PNAC and AEI scholars – not to mention Wolfowitz and other administration hawks who have called for a world order dominated by U.S. military power. Strauss’ neoconservative students see foreign policy as a means to fulfill a “national destiny” – as Irving Kristol defined it already in 1983 – that goes far beyond the narrow confines of a ” myopic national security.”

As to what a Straussian world order might look like, the analogy was best captured by the philosopher himself in one of his – and student Allen Bloom’s – many allusions to Gulliver’s Travels. In Drury’s words, “When Lilliput was on fire, Gulliver urinated over the city, including the palace. In so doing, he saved all of Lilliput from catastrophe, but the Lilliputians were outraged and appalled by such a show of disrespect.”

The image encapsulates the neoconservative vision of the United States’ relationship with the rest of the world – as well as the relationship between their relationship as a ruling elite with the masses. “They really have no use for liberalism and democracy, but they’re conquering the world in the name of liberalism and democracy,” Drury says.

Jim Lobe writes on foreign policy for Alternet. His work has also appeared on Foreign Policy In Focus and TomPaine.com.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/15935/

Music, dance groups make changes to avoid deficits

IN THE BLACK: Dance Kaleidoscope artistic director David Hochoy coaches DK dancer Melanie Schreiber. The city’s veteran modern dance company has a history of keeping annual budgets in the black, but some cutbacks had to be made.Copyright 2006 The Indianapolis Star. All rights reserved. Use of this site signifies your agreement to the Terms of Service.

April 9, 2006

Music, dance groups make changes to avoid deficits
By Whitney Smith
whitney.smith@indystar.com
April 9, 2006

Although Ballet Internationale closed last fall due to financial problems, most of the city’s best-known classical music and dance groups are not saddled with large deficits.
However, in the quest to improve financial standing and concert attendance, they all hope to make their groups more accessible. Some have experimented with new collaborations, while others have focused on small-scale events or reached out to younger, more diverse audiences.
The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra has progressed from six-figure deficits during the 2001-02 and 2002-03 seasons to small surpluses. The ISO has been able to rely on its substantial endowment, but also has been trying to make concerts more of an entertainment experience.
The International Violin Competition of Indianapolis posted a $37,712 deficit at the end of 2004-05 — the latest season with available budget figures. But annual budgets can vary dramatically, depending on the timing of large gifts. Managers plan budgets in four-year cycles because the contest is quadrennial.
The Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra’s budgets hover at just under $500,000. A recent move from Clowes Hall to the smaller Indiana History Center’s Basile Theater hasn’t improved attendance as expected, but the orchestra is focusing on small-scale chamber programs that may help in the long run.
Dance Kaleidoscope has been balancing its annual budgets for the past 12 seasons and has been trying to reach out to audiences through diverse programming and collaborations with other groups.
Here’s a more detailed look at each organization.
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra

Like many American orchestras, the Indianapolis Symphony battled large deficits after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The latest was in 2002-03 — a $545,000 deficit on a $23.4 million budget. Since then, the ISO has had modest surpluses — $5,466 on a $24 million budget in 2003-04 and $10,820 on a $24.5 million budget in 2004-05.
“In order to turn the symphony’s fortunes around, there was a great deal of work that went into looking very carefully at the budgets and income potential,” said Simon Crookall, who has been the ISO’s president and CEO since January 2005.
Crookall said the ISO receives revenue from its $112.3 million endowment, donations and earned income (including ticket sales) — “in roughly equal portions.”
“In the time since I’ve been here, part of the theme of our discussion has been that the endowment income is relatively fixed,” Crookall said. “Contributions we have been able to increase fairly dramatically the past three, four years, but there’s a limit to how much we can push that upward. In the current year, what we’re concentrating on is to try to maximize income from ticket sales.”
“We’ve been trying to enhance the concert experience,” said Ana Papakhian, the ISO’s director of communications. For the recent celebration of the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, the orchestra devised a festival, not only featuring concerts, but also a film, 18th-century dancing and a billiards demonstration.
International Violin Competition of Indianapolis

Year-to-year budgets for the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis vary significantly, said executive director Glen Kwok. In 2002-03 — the final year of the 2002 competition budget cycle — there was a $312,893 deficit, but in 2003-04, the organization posted a $520,512 surplus.
Kwok said such variations are planned, to an extent. “Our goal is to balance the budget for each quadrennial period, not annually,” he said. “Individual years may show a surplus or a deficit depending upon timing of gifts.”
For example, a large donation that was earmarked for the next Violin Competition opening in September, but presented back in 2003-04, accounts for some of the six-figure surplus that year.
The competition endowment, named for co-founder Josef Gingold, contained $1.8 million as of Oct. 31.
Attendance at concerts during the Violin Competition’s 2004-05 season averaged 50 percent, but is closer to 66 percent of capacity this season, Kwok said. He thinks attendance has improved because the Violin Competition is producing only six concerts per season featuring competition laureates, rather than the 11 concerts in past seasons, which also included the local Suzuki & Friends and the Ronen Chamber ensembles.
“Many of our audience members are the same people going to the symphony, the opera, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra and Ensemble Music Society,” Kwok said. “By reducing the number of concerts to six, they have a greater chance at attending more of our events.”
Dance Kaleidoscope

The city’s veteran modern dance company has a history of keeping annual budgets in the black, and it has tried to boost attendance through diverse programming, collaborating with other groups and a move from the old Indianapolis Civic Theatre to the Indiana Repertory Theatre.
When DK’s directors decided to present “I Got Gershwin” in early January, they didn’t know the Indianapolis Symphony had planned a Gershwin show for the same weekend. When they found out, they decided to team up to get the word out about both.
Jan Virgin, DK’s executive director, said the Gershwin show broke all attendance records with 2,306 patrons. She believes that a combined direct-mail campaign helped the dance company access people it might not have reached otherwise.
Dance Kaleidoscope crossed a financial milestone at the end of its 2004-05 season, when expenses totaled $1,048,000. Virgin said the company posted surpluses of $4,206 in 2003-04 and $8,699 in 2004-05.
To balance budgets, DK has occasionally had to make cutbacks. Most recently, it went two years without rehearsal and education directors.
Virgin said DK has a small endowment of $1,700.
Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra

Chad Miller, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra’s executive director, said budgets for the small-scale professional orchestra have been fairly consistent the last three seasons, between $450,000 and $470,000.
The ICO’s largest recent deficit, $72,000, came in 2002-03. In May 2003, the orchestra cancelled its final concert of the season to avoid further debt. At the time, Miller said the ICO had been coping with a decline in income from contract services.
For a group its size, Miller said the Chamber Orchestra is lucky to have an endowment that contained $1,737,000 as of June.
After performing at the 2,096-seat Clowes Hall for years, the orchestra, led by British-born conductor Kirk Trevor, moved to the Indiana History Center’s roughly 300-seat Basile Theater hoping that audiences would find an intimate space more suitable.
Miller said he has been disappointed that “our audience numbers have not really changed since we went to the History Center, as far as the number of people in the hall.”
Efforts to increase attendance are concentrating on making Chamber Orchestra concerts more intimate. Miller said that “Chamber Conversations,” the ICO’s newest series involving small groups of instruments, plus narration, “is designed both to reach our current audiences and younger audiences looking for something a little different.”
  Attendance Operating Surplus/Deficit
Current (average paid capacity) Budget (*denotes deficit)
Organization Endowment 2004-2005 2004-2005 2004-2005
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra $112.3 million 71% $24.5 million $10,820
Indianapolis Opera $895,000 80% $2.7 million $258,000*
International Violin Competition $1.8 million 50% $533,890 $37,712*
Dance Kaleidoscope $1700 85% $1 million $8,699
Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra $1.7 million 50% $452,830 $306

Note: 2004-05 is the most recent season with available budget figures.

Source: Star staff research

In search of utopia

In search of utopia
Does utopian thinking offer a route out of today’s political doldrums?

by Josie Appleton

A collection of leftist theorists is seeking to breathe new life into the old idea of utopia. They argue that the utopian tradition, which began in 1516 with Thomas More’s Utopia, could suggest a route out of our twenty-first century doldrums.

US academic Russell Jacoby has just published Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age, a followup to his The End of Utopia, calling for a return of utopian passion to politics and public life (1). US literary theorist Frederic Jameson’s new tome, Archaeologies of the Future, traces the utopian impulse in literature (2). On this side of the pond, academic Dylan Evans has lamented the ‘loss of utopia’ (3).

There is no doubt that we’re living in anti-utopian times. The political imagination is, if not dead exactly, certainly in a coma. Politics today is about fiddling, making a tweak here or there but not changing anything much. We can’t conceive of a future much better than the present. Perhaps we imagine that computers will be quicker and mobile phones cleverer, but there is little notion that human beings could live vastly more fulfilled and improved lives than our own. There is no sense that history holds possibilities that we haven’t yet imagined.

Utopian impulses persist, of course, but these impulses are for the most part expressed in banal ways. If you Google ‘utopia’ one of the top returns is Utopia Group, purveyor of ‘bathroom furniture, contemporary taps and modern sanitaryware’ that apparently ‘allow you to express your own individuality and design flare to your bathroom’. Others are ‘Utopia-Asia.com’, a company offering gay and lesbian holidays in Australia; a Medieval fantasy computer game that is ‘the world’s most popular interactive multiplayer game’; and Utopia Optics, ‘a unique brand of eyewear geared towards the lifestyles of action sports athletes’.

TV programmes follow couples looking to build their ‘dream house’ in the wilds of Scotland or France, while others feature families’ houses or gardens getting a magic makeover. Women nip and tuck their loose bits into shape or go on raw food diets. Others seek transcendence through drugs. ‘The restless search for bliss’, was how one aficionado described the ecstasy scene: ‘New World. New Sound. New life. Everything felt so right.’ (4) The perfect house, the perfect body, the perfect night꿻hat’s about the size of today’s utopias. None of these efforts leaves any trace on the world around you. However wonderful your new sitting room or your night out, it has no impact outside of your own life.

Why seek inspiration from the utopian tradition, as opposed to any of countless other moribund political traditions? There might be a good reason. Utopias tended to be written at times when the imagination overstretched the available means. They were about people feeling their way ahead, before there were yet any route markers. Thomas More came at the dawning of modernity, when the Middle Ages was receding and a new society stretching its limbs. Charles Fourier and the utopian socialists came at the dawn of the working-class movement, when some realised that bourgeois promises of freedom were inadequate but hadn’t yet worked out what to propose in their place.

Today the old political programmes are dead letters, and there is a dearth of decent ideas about how to go forward. Jameson describes utopias as ‘hallucinatory visions in desperate times’ (5). Perhaps those old dreamers can teach us something.

Utopias: from More to Wells

Different utopias see the future in very different ways, but there are certain common themes. Utopias imagine a time when human passions are channelled to productive ends, rather than being bowed and cramped. They imagine the removal of the bonds that tie people down – be they kings, corrupt landlords, or market capitalism – and the inauguration of a new realm of freedom.

Work lies at the bedrock of most utopias. Work should be the most creative part of the day, yet people have often worked out of a sense of obligation or necessity, writing off the working hours as belonging to somebody else. In utopias people work when and how they want, and they do it with enthusiasm and pride. Fourier said that the reason men abhorred work was because it stifled the spirit: the answer was to find a system in which they ‘constantly and passionately prefer work to idleness’ (6). He suggested that workers should be allowed to gravitate to the tasks they liked, and form work groups with groups of friends or lovers. The City of the Sun, a utopia by the Renaissance humanist Tommaso Campanella, reports that ‘everybody wanted to be the best at the work, to make it conform to custom and to make it less arduous and more fruitful’ (7). They would go to gather grapes ‘with music, trumpets and banners’ (8).

Many utopias abolished strict professions. People might excel at music, engineering or science, but any all-rounded member of a utopian society would be able to do many things. A model day in Fourier’s phalanx included: hunting, fishing, gardening, tending pheasants in the morning; and working at the fish tanks, sheep pasture, and two greenhouses in the afternoon. In addition to this there were five meals, mass, two public functions, a concert, and a spell in the library. Campanella argued that all activities could be the focus for debate, even the organisation of sewage systems. Neither cooks nor plumbers would work by rote, but instead would experiment and discuss the value of different approaches.

Intellectual work too could be freed from its isolation. In New Atlantis, published in 1626, Francis Bacon outlined scientific discoveries enriching the world, and honoured scientists as public heroes (9). Campanella had the discoveries of science and geography painted on the walls of the City of the Sun: learning would be a natural delight, and children would pick things up while running around outside, rather than by ‘slavish memory’ of ‘lifeless things’.

Bacon’s utopia was written some 400 years ago, but he envisioned a glittering array of possibilities for technical and scientific development. Plants would be ‘much greater than their nature, and their fruit greater and sweeter and of differing taste, smell, colour, and figure, from their nature’ (10) – a possibility that we’re perhaps just starting to realise with GM. There would be engines for controlling the weather, and towers half a mile in height and caves 600 fathom deep. In Campanella’s vision, people would all live to at least 100, and sometimes to 170 or 200. In his 1905 A Modern Utopia, HG Wells proposed pushing automation to its limits, using science ‘to show a world that is really abolishing the need of labour’ (11). There would be ‘faultless roads’, ‘swift trains’: ‘travel must be in the common texture of life.’ (12). People would travel as the need and desire took them: you might spend the summer in the Alps, for example, then the autumn in New York and the winter in the Caribbean.

Society is taken apart and put together again. Jameson describes this process well: ‘like the inventors, [utopias offer] a garage space in which all kinds of machines can be tinkered and rebuilt.’ (13) The description of utopia is designed to reveal the cracks in the author’s own society. ‘You English’, lectures Raphael Hythloday, narrator of More’s Utopia, as he criticises the irrationality and immorality of sixteenth-century England. Citizens of the City of the Sun are similarly contemptuous of the then Italian city-state. ‘They laugh at us’, reported Campanella, ‘because we regard artisans as ignoble and call those noble who learn no art and remain idle’ (14). Utopias tell the reader that things could be different. They are a vantage point from which the present is judged and found wanting. Set-ups that people take as natural – ‘the way things are’ – are shown to be foolish, temporary arrangements that will soon be overturned. This educates the imagination, the sense of what could be.

The education of the reader often occurs through a naive visitor to utopia. More’s Utopia is recounted by the traveller Raphael over dinner to two sceptical peers, one of whom is called More; the details of the City of the Sun are recounted by a mariner to a knight; New Atlantis is narrated by a traveller who washed up on the island by chance. The travellers’ initial scepticism, internal conflicts, then conversion to utopian ways serve to ease the reader through. They provide a model for our enlightenment.

Great attention is paid to the texture and feel of utopian life – the way people bring up their children, socialise, their philosophy of life. Utopias are often less a political programme than a taste of the pleasures and possibilities that history could hold. ‘Life could feel very different’, is the message William Morris wished to impart with his News from Nowhere (15). He wanted the reader to long for the kind of socialist society he had described, rather than just think that it was a good idea in theory. The last line of the book reads: ‘if others can see it as I have seen it then it may be called a vision rather than a dream.’

It’s a blurry vision, though. Utopias are about individuals feeling their way forward, without quite knowing how. They provide no credible plan of action, no way of getting between an imperfect present and perfect future. Jameson notes the ‘distance of utopias from practical political’ (16). It’s a ghostly sense of latent possibilities, which Morris describes as a ‘shadowy isle of bliss’. Hence the classic model of sailors coming across the utopian island: the perfect society is stumbled across, fully formed. The benevolent legislator who created More’s Utopia dug a gulf isolating it from the mainland, setting it up as a dreamplace apart from corrupt society. Indeed, the word ‘utopia’ comes from a fusion of the Greek words for ‘no place’ and ‘good place’. It’s an oasis, shimmering in the imaginations of parched desert travellers, but eluding their grasp. The City of the Sun ends with the mariner leaving to sail away. ‘Wait, wait!’, begs the knight, gripped by the vision of this city. ‘I cannot’, replies the mariner.

It’s telling that the authors of utopias often lived unromantic and frustrated lives. Their heads were reaching into the future, but their feet remained stuck in times that they were powerless to change. Campanella became involved in a rebellion against the Spanish viceroy, and spent years in prison being tortured. More became lord chancellor under Henry VIII and pursued non-conformists with a ferocity quite unlike the easy religious tolerance imagined in his utopia. Fourier was washed this way and that by the French Revolution’s Terror and Napoleon’s coup d’?at, without ever managing to influence the course of events. He spent huge sums sending his plans to France’s main men but his visions fell on deaf ears.

Those who did try to put their plans into action soon ran aground. The British industrialist Robert Owen spent his fortune setting up a utopian community in Indiana, but it soon collapsed. Meanwhile, in 1890 a Viennese economist Theodor Hertzka published a utopia called ‘Freeland: A social anticipation’, envisioning workers’ councils who organised their own labour and enjoyed the fruits of their work. He issued a rallying call: ‘This book is꿻he outcome of earnest, sober reflection, and of profound scientific investigation. The highlands of Equatorial Africa exactly correspond to the picture drawn in the book. In order that “Freeland” may be realised as I have drawn it, nothing more is required, therefore, than a sufficient number of vigorous men.’ (17). Within a year, Freeland societies formed with the aim of putting his plans into effect. An expedition even set out to equatorial Africa – but soon encountered difficulties and turned back, and the ideas of Freeland sank without trace.

It’s not just that the world wasn’t ready for utopians’ perfect plans. In actual fact, their plans were a mixed bag, containing sheer crankiness alongside brilliant foresight. They concocted their new societies out of their own heads; it was a leap into the unknown that often went astray. Sometimes, utopias become just a field for airing personal proclivities. Campanella says that his utopians ‘detest black, which they regard as the colour of filth, and for this reason they hate the Japanese, who are fond of that colour’ (18). He didn’t like Aristotle – and so we find that utopians ‘are opposed to Aristotle, whom they call a pedant’ (19). Fourier had some bizarre ideas about sexual passions, arguing that every adult should be guaranteed a minimum of sexual pleasure. Some utopias try to give substance to their vision by way of a deluge of details. Campanella informs us that city palaces’ external walls are eight-span thick; the inner walls are three-span; and the dividing walls are one-span. Fourier drew up plans for uniforms and the colour scheme in nurseries.

In addition, utopias often perfect some of least liberal ideas of their time. More had slavery in Utopia; and though Bacon’s scientific visions are dazzling and bold, his social vision was conservative as hell: he spends several pages describing a very dull set of rituals that accompany mealtimes. One description of a procession states: ‘The windows꿾ere not crowded, but every one stood in them as if they had been placed.’ (20) Meanwhile, Wells proposed rule by a master elite and eugenics for the elimination of feeble folk; and Campanella proposed that people organise their sex lives by the stars, saying that couples should choose a time for intercourse when Mercury and Venus are east of the Sun (21).

Whatever their imperfections, though, utopias often anticipated and paved the way for the future. German revolutionary Frederick Engels noted that many of Fourier’s plans were mad, but he praised their visionary boldness: ‘we delight in the stupendously grand thoughts and germs of thought that everywhere break out through their phantastic covering?’ (22) Sometimes the dreams of one generation became the practical reality for the next. Bacon saw skyscrapers and planes; some 300 years later, mankind made these a fact. The picture of work that we find in More, Campanella and Fourier became the emerging communist movement’s slogan, ‘From each according to his ability to each according to his needs.’ In State and Revolution, VI Lenin describes a future in which people would work freely and take freely from the products of labour: a pie-in-the-sky fantasy had become the programme of a regime about to take power. Other utopias had more immediate effects. Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward stimulated the growth of the US nationalist movement and hastened social reforms. New Atlantis helped to inspire the formation of the British Royal Society.

Over time, utopias tended to become less hazy daydreams and more something that people would fight to be realised. For a start, there was a shift from utopias being set on a remote island to being set in the future. Then the visions became grander. Wells saw his as a ‘world state’ rather than an isolated community: ‘Old utopias were꿢s localised as a parish councillor’, he criticised (23). And while More and Bacon imagined their utopian societies created by God or a benevolent legislator, later utopias imagined that they were created by people themselves. The vision of the future was a practical problem to solve. In 1922, the US critic Lewis Mumford judged in The Story of Utopias: ‘Our most important task at the present moment is to build castles in the air? If our utopias spring out of the realities of our environment, it will be easy enough to place foundations under them.’ (24)

There are perhaps times when utopias take things forward, and times when utopias are ways of escaping the challenges of practical politics. In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels outlined the development of socialism from utopianism to a science. Utopians were trying to conjure up the perfect society out of their own daydreams: ‘The solution of the social problems, which as yet lay hidden in undeveloped economic conditions, the Utopians attempted to evolve out of the human brain? [T]he more completely they were worked out in detail, the more they could not avoid drifting off into pure phantasies.’ (25) Scientific socialism, by contrast, sought to locate the resolution to social problems in the real movement of history. An approach that made some sense for Fourier became an avoidance strategy for many of his followers.

Utopianism for today

We could certainly use a shot of the utopian impulse at present. Today the old political landmarks are gone, and people have little idea about how to go forward. Past utopians’ brave leaps into the future could act as inspiration. However, there are limitations with today’s approach towards utopias. There are broadly speaking two different types of modern utopian project: escapist utopias, and mystical utopias. Both seek a dreamy happy ending, while sidestepping the problems of political life today.

Escapist utopias: Some seek to build their utopias in isolation from the modern world. A spate of ‘intentional communities’ has sprung up in rural reaches of America and Europe, based on low-tech principles, with people working together and pooling their efforts and resources. No doubt these communities offer a more humane relationship among group members, in contrast to the ‘dog-eat-dog’ ethic of modern work life. There is certainly a role for cooperation, taking time with one another, and working towards common ends. But these communities set up camp by cutting themselves off from everybody else. Moreover, they often spurn the technological innovations that have made our lives so much better, and which past utopians imagined pushing further still. Ducking out of modern life is no answer. Premodern idylls aren’t idyllic: they are based on needless drudgery and wasted effort. While Wells and Bacon stretched forward to the future, it seems that some today want to retreat back to the caves.

In any case, the utopian instinct shouldn’t be about peace and quiet. Lewis Mumford warned against the ‘utopias of escape’: ‘for it is an enchanted island, and to remain there is to lose one’s capacity for dealing with things as they are? Life is too easy in the utopia of escape, and too blankly perfect – there is nothing to sharpen your teeth upon.’ (26) Escapist utopias are about a quiet life, rather like going back to the womb or creating a Garden of Eden. But the true utopian impulse is about unleashing human energies on an enormous scale: bursting off the fetters that have kept people down and out. Not sitting still, but ceaseless and joyous activity. As Wells argues: ‘a modern utopia must be not static but kinetic, must shape not as a permanent state but as a hopeful stage, leading to a long assent of stages.’ (27)

Mystical utopias: Others today approach utopianism as akin to a religious faith. Jacoby seems to be attracted to the Jewish tradition of utopia, devoting a large chunk of his book to theories such as that of the German philosopher Ernst Bloch. In the 1950s, Bloch wrote a three-volume tome, The Principle of Hope, about how hope could be found everywhere from the Bible to cosmetic ads. There is an idea of the geist (spirit), constantly moving and developing through history. Jacoby says: ‘Like the future, God could be heard but not seen. “Hear, O Israel”? They offered an imageless utopianism laced with passion and spirit.’ The focus here is on yearning and inchoate striving. Jacoby argues that these ‘iconoclastic utopias’ hold more relevance to today than the ‘blueprint utopias’, which give a plan for how things should be organised.

Certainly, Fourier’s colour schemes for nurseries were of little use then, and are entirely pointless now. But perhaps Jacoby is letting himself off the hook by talking about utopian longings. He writes that ‘a future of peace and happiness – a world without anxiety – may not be describable. We hear of it in parables and hints. It speaks to us, perhaps more urgently than ever.’ (28) It’s good to have faith in the utopian impulse, but blind faith gets us nowhere. Some of those parables and hints are going somewhere, and others aren’t. The question isn’t whether the utopian impulse exists, for it will so long as human beings are alive: the question is whether this impulse takes us forward or just tightens our chains. Cosmetics ads do indeed provide a glimpse of transcendence, but in fact only take this transcendence further away. Mystical utopianism could be an excuse for passivity, sitting back and waiting for the geist to do the work.

Perhaps a better way forward is suggested in Jacoby’s conclusion: ‘To connect a utopian passion with practical politics is an art and a necessity.’ He broaches the idea of designing the perfect school, to set up against the failed schools of today. Three cheers for Jacoby’s idea that ‘history contains possibilities of freedom and pleasure hardly tapped’ (29). But what could these possibilities be? Twenty-four-hour nurseries, perhaps; the bullet train extended the world over; the six-hour day. It’s good to imagine the different possible ways in which we could organise things. The trouble, though, is that these could be pie-in-the-sky musings, given the political situation we have at present.

Ours is a society that doesn’t even believe in the possibility of changing things for the better. People tend to think that things just are as they are, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Whether it’s late trains or parliamentary legislation, we often just shrug our shoulders and say ‘typical!’. The world isn’t experienced as alive with possibilities, but as a stillborn fact of life. We don’t try to design the world in our own image. Instead, we’re seen as guests of the planet, humble managers of ecosystems. So long as this is the case, speculations about worldwide bullet trains won’t be worth the paper they are written on.

Not only do we lack visions of the future: society spurns possibilities that lie within its grasp. The potential of GM, for example, Bacon’s dream of centuries past, now lies within reach – for creating plants of dramatically new tastes and qualities that can be grown in completely different conditions. Yet new technologies are often discussed in grave tones, as if they were more of a burden than a blessing. We also shy away from experimenting with new ways of organising society; we are warned against trying anything too new or too ambitious. The organisation of the economy, for example, is off the political agenda – economic matters are decided by bureaucrats at the Bank of England and the Treasury, rather than being opened up to popular debate.

Indeed, many see utopianism as positively dangerous. As Jacoby argues, utopianism has dark associations, as if trying to improve things puts you on a slippery slope towards the death camps. That’s where the attempts to perfect society end up, cynics say: in Stalin’s gulags or in Auschwitz. This is a way of avoiding thinking about the future. It’s about retrenching in the here and now, limiting ourselves to managing the present. If changing things will only end in tears, there’s no hope for human beings trying to make history. There’s little point in thinking about how things could be, or planning over a timescale of centuries.

Humility is deemed to be the virtuous way. People aim to show that they are aware of the impacts of their actions and are seeking to limit them as much as possible. Those who confess their vulnerability are seen as sensitive and virtuous human beings. Some almost apologise for breathing, counting the units of carbon dioxide emitted and planting the requisite numbers of trees to make up for it. We’re approaching Wells’s vision of global travel as a way of life, yet there is constant breast-beating about cheap flights.

A first step, then, might be to counter today’s anti-utopian climate. Unless we believe that a better world is possible and desirable, the writings of More and co will read merely as historical curiosities or cute fairytales. Unless we regain a sense that human beings can and should be master of their destinies, Jacoby’s outlines for the perfect school could just end up in the wastepaper basket.

So, first: the future could be much better than today. We need to say with the French utopian thinker Henri de Saint-Simon: ‘the golden age of humanity is not behind us; it is to come, and will be found in the perfection of the social order.’ This isn’t as good as it gets, not by a long shot. Even in the most developed countries, people still sell train tickets and paint walls and clean the toilets. Whatever happened to automation? People’s time and efforts are cheap, and are being wasted flagrantly. Second: it is human beings who will build that future. The meek will not inherit the Earth. We should embrace and develop our powers, not shy away from them.

Unless we see reality shimmering with possibilities, it will hang heavy around our necks. The things around us will be a dull condition of existence, rather like the pen and hay provided to a farmyard animal. We need to start to see the world as something built by human beings, and resolve that we can build it much, much better for the twenty-first century and beyond.

Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-utopian Age, by Russell Jacoby, is published by Columbia University Press, 2005. Buy this book from Amazon UK or Amazon USA

Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions, by Frederic Jameson, is published by Verso 2005. Buy this book from Amazon UK or Amazon USA

(1) Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-utopian Age, Russell Jacoby, Columbia University Press, 2005

(2) Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions, Frederic Jameson, Verso 2005

(3) The loss of utopia, Guardian, Dylan Evans, 27 October 2005

(4) Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House, Matthew Collin, Serpent’s Tail, 1998, p301

(5) Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions, Frederic Jameson, Verso 2005, 233

(6) The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier, Jonathan Cape, 1975

(7) City of the Sun, by Tommaso Campanella. Download a copy here

(8) City of the Sun, by Tommaso Campanella. Download a copy here

(9) New Atlantis, by Francis Bacon. Download a copy here

(10) New Atlantis, by Francis Bacon. Download a copy here

(11) ‘A modern utopia’, in The Quest for Utopia, (ed) Negley and Patrick, McGrath, 1971, p236

(12) ‘A modern utopia’, in The Quest for Utopia, (ed) Negley and Patrick, McGrath, 1971, p230

(13) Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions, Frederic Jameson, Verso 2005, p14

(14) City of the Sun, by Tommaso Campanella. Download a copy here

(15) News from Nowhere and Other Writings, William Morris, Penguin, 1998

(16) Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions, Frederic Jameson, Verso 2005, p15

(17) ‘Freeland’, in The Quest for Utopia, (ed) Negley and Patrick, McGrath, New York, 1971

(18) City of the Sun, by Tommaso Campanella. Download a copy here

(19) City of the Sun, by Tommaso Campanella. Download a copy here

(20) New Atlantis, by Francis Bacon. Download a copy here

(21) City of the Sun, by Tommaso Campanella. Download a copy here

(22) Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Progress Publishers, 1970, Frederick Engels. Download a copy here

(23) ‘A modern utopia’, in The Quest for Utopia, (ed) Negley and Patrick, McGrath, 1971, p230

(24) The Story of Utopias, Lewis Mumford, New York: Boni and Liveright, 1922, p307

(25) Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Progress Publishers, 1970, Frederick Engels. Download a copy here

(26) The Story of Utopias, Lewis Mumford, New York: Boni and Liveright, 1922, p307

(27) ‘A modern utopia’, in The Quest for Utopia, (ed) Negley and Patrick, McGrath, 1971

(28) Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-utopian Age, Russell Jacoby, Columbia University Press, 2005, p144

(29) The End of Utopia: Politics and Culture in an Age of Apathy, Russell Jacoby, New York: Basic Books, 1999, xi