LITR 5439 Literary &
Historical Utopias
Lecture Notes
millennial event
Callenbach, Ecotopia
2 heal the fratricidal breach that rent the nation—so the continent can stand united against rising tides of starvation and revolution.
2 stand-off, helped by national economic crisis
1 cf. More’s
Utopia,
frontier of fact and fiction, journalistic development
1 secession, independence
1 unofficial figure
2 heal the fratricidal breach that rent the nation—so the
continent can stand united against rising tides of starvation and revolution.
2 Hawks > retake “lost lands of the west”
2 Ecotopian ideas are seeping over the border, detoxified
2 Can things really be as weird there as they sound?
2 nuclear mines
2 political organization, led by damned women
2 got control of the armories and the Guard.
2 stand-off, helped by national economic crisis
3 being totally out of touch, no phone service, wire service
indirect, uncanny isolation
3 Government’s control over population seems to be primitive
compared to ours. Americans are heartily hated.
William Weston on his Journey to Ecotopia
3
3-4 cf.
4 counterdevelopment: union of Scandinavian countries
4 terrible shortages
4
4 nagging
challenge to the underlying national philosophy of
4 no more deaths from air and chemical pollution. Our own
death rate has declined
5 [shift to diary entry]
5 cowboys, “cannibals”
CROSSING THE ECOTOPIAN BORDER
6 [news report?]
6 prohibits international flights, air and noise pollution
6 special dispensation to allow an internal combustion engine
6 keep everything except .45, standard garb in NY
7 small booklet,
Ecotopia
Explains
7 soft, almost insinuatingly friendly tone . . . national
trait
7 found a smile on my face as well
7 trains, skiers; train more like a wingless airplane, no
seats
8 marijuana
8 hanging ferns and small plants, botanical names with
assurance
8 “recycle bins”—no embarrassment, rigid practices of
recycling and re-use
8 magnetic suspension and propulsion
8 long-range economic policies, diversification and
decentralization of production in each city and region
9 total social cost per person
9 use of metric system universal
9 dressed in raggedy attire, secondhand-looking fur jackets
9 pointed out changes in the fields and forests
10 breast-shaped green hills
10 allergic to paint, build with rock , adobe, weathered
boards, lack the aesthetic sense, rather cover a house with bines or bushes
10 look like oldtime westerners, theatrical freakiness, but
not crazy or sordid like 60s hippies
10 manners unsettling, women stare me directly in eyes
11 as if they had endless time on their hands
11 none of the implicit threat of open criminal violence that
pervades our public places, but an awful lot of strong emotion, willfully
expressed! . . . curiosity . . . lost sense of anonymity
11 [cf. Looking Backward] can’t approach an Ecotopian
functionary as we do, deal with him as a real person
THE STREETS OF ECOTOPIA’S CAPITAL
11
12 strange hush over everything
12 boulevard > mall, trees, electric vehicles, bicycle lanes,
fountains, sculptures, kiosks, gardens
12 no fare on buses < general tax fares, collecting fares cost
more than fares could produce
13 like many ecotopians, he tended to babble
13 bucolic atmosphere, creeks, little falls
13 street musicians playing Bach
13 clothes loose with bright colors, denim common
14 children miniature versions
14 bicycles available to all, night crews, cheaper to lose a
few bicycles
14 spout statistics, “social costs” (cf. social capital, human
capital)
14 abolition of cars
14 skyscrapers > apartments
15 small signs
15 hotel room full of contradictions
15 Despite their aversion to many modern devices, the
Ecotopians have some that are even better than ours.
16 Minister of Food, “stable-state” ecological systems
16 dog not needed for company
16 hunters hunting just outside town, deer numerous
16 streets pitch dark at night > crime panic?
17 see stars even in the city
17 Ecotopians don’t pick flowers
17 new wardrobe
17 x-synthetics, lecture, x-recycled
17 Both fabrics and garments all domestic-made—and the prices
seem sky-high
FOOD, SEWAGE, AND “STABLE STATES”
18 Assistant Minister in work overalls outfit . . . like many
Ecotopians, unnervingly relaxed
18 not agriculture but sewage, food production cycle,
compostable and recyclable categories, x-“disposal” system, wasteful and
unnatural
19 accused of
“sewer socialism,” like our
19 farm animals not kept in close confinement
19 considerable
cheaper, if we add in
all the costs
19 workable political terms—especially since our country is
relatively sensible in scale
20 Of course the Ecotopian situation has allowed their
government to take actions that would be impossible under the checks and
balances of our kind of democracy
20 returned western agriculture to the dark ages, and cooks to
their chopping blocks and hot stoves (microwave ovens being illegal in Etotopia)
20 our problem was how to shrink our agricultural output
drastically
20 reduced the normal work week to about 20 hours
20 [contrast
Looking
Backward] economies in food distribution. As
your grocery executives know, a store handling a thousand items is far less
difficult and expensive to operating than one handling five thousand or more, as
yours do.
20 x-processed and packaged foods, outlawed on health grounds
or put on Bad Practice lists
21 totalitarian rat?
21 not enforced > mechanism of moral persuasion, purely
informal, demand drops
21 scientists forbidden to accept payments or favors from
either state or private enterprises for any consultation or advice they offer
all your oil experts, agricultural experts in pay of oil and
agribusiness
21 Ecotopians eat better food than any nation on earth,
because we grow it to be nutritious and taste good, not look good or pack
efficiently
22 pamphlets, depressing because of moralizing tone, humorless
approach, soda as plot against mankind, relentless tendency to fix
responsibility on producers
22 room: trio of recycle chutes
23 almost nothing painted
23 horribly over-emotional
24 [couple
fight] theatrical, cf.
24 Evidently restraints on interpersonal behavior have been
very much relaxed here, and extreme hostility can be accepted as normal behavior
24 x-appetite for sugarless Ecotopian food
24 missing years with Pat and kids
25 wire office, couldn’t help smiling back
CAR-LESS LIVING IN ECOTOPIA’S NEW TOWNS
26 strange new minicities, decentralized society
26 Individually
owned vehicles were prohibited in “car-free” zones soon after
26 Alviso: cluttered collection of buildings with trees
everywhere . . . all jumbled amid apartment buildings [cf New Urbanism]
26 built almost entirely of wood, reforestation program
26 apartments very large by our standards, 10 or 15 rooms to
accommodate communal living groups
27 streets cf. medieval cities
27 groceries home in string bags or bicycle baskets
27 supplies for shops, like most goods, moved in containers,
electric trucks
27 entire population w/in half mile of transit station, many
small park-like places, no large paved areas exposed to sun
28 factory x-assembly line, quiet and pleasant, extreme
simplification of ecotopian vehicles
28 “do it yourself” > parts of vehicles > own design
29 primitive and underpowered x urge for speed and freedom
29 a girl’s hair blowing in the wind
29 lunch with wine, soups, sandwiches
30 existing cities razed, preserved as living museum displays
(of “our barbarian past”), land returned to grassland, forest, orchards, or
gardens
30 reversion process, signs of a once busy civilization
obliterated, sobering
30-1 something peculiar going on, reminding me of something,
confronted with some fine personal opportunity, as if I was a child
31 or throwback, or skip ahead, so American
31 stuck on vacation in the country
31 in surprisingly good touch with the rest of the world
31 more attention to sunrise, sunset, tides than to actual
hour time: “never catch an Indian wearing a watch.” Many Ecotopians sentimental
about Indians, envy lost natural place in American wilderness
32 references to what Indians would or wouldn’t do . . . Who
would use an earth-mover on his own mother?
32 “
32 no electric typewriters, but video recorders
32 secure sense of themselves as animals, like a bunch of cats
33 kind of leisurely talk I associate with college days
33 politics and
science writer (not an odd combination here) . . . surprisingly skeptical about
33 “Doesn’t this stable-state business get awfully static?” .
. . “system provides stability, and we can be erratic within it”
33 x-progress? . . . in practice there’s no stable point
33-4 quarrelsome, can afford to be because of root agreement
[cf. Americans polite because armed]
35 x-commitment as going off by yourselves, just two of you
35 American
strategy in
35-6 women totally escaped dependent roles . . . above all, no
need to manipulate men, x-loading on sex roles, people as people
36 technology and social structure at service of mankind,
instead of other way around
36 sisterly, x-touch, hung up on my own patterns
THE UNSPORTING LIFE OF ECOTOPIA
37 no baseball, football, basketball, ice hockey
Sports pages: oddball individual sports: skiing, esp.
cross-country, hiking, camping, swimming, sailing, gymnastics, ping-pong,
tennis, chess.
Set up purely for benefit of participants
> Ecotopian citizens remarkably healthy-looking
walk everywhere, carry backpacks, groceries, higher level of
physical activity
women esp. look healthy, x-standards of style
fat and broken-down street people absent
“nature has equipped us well”
38 network of unobtrusive physical activities, almost Spartan
in intensity
volleyball
38 Ecotopian schools, looser scheduling, higher levels of
physical activity, expeditions
38 wild game returned to reforested areas
38 hunting usu. With bows and arrows; shotguns in living units
39 expropriation law made all waterfront properties into
“water parks.” [property!]
39 dynamite dams, interfered with salmon runs
39 school construction projects
39 excitement of major sports diverted to “the war
games”—never described in print
40 bloody rituals, hundreds of youths perish every year
40 President Allwen, dedication of solar energy plant, rather
plain but strong unidentified woman who’s chatting and laughing with them
41 warmth + menace, no us-against-them gambit
41 maybe as much of a religious leader as a politician? Head
of the state ecological church, chief priestess?
ECOTOPIAN TELEVISION AND ITS WARES
42 employ video devices more extensively; seldom travel on
business > picturephones, same cable as television (cf. web?)
42 no rule of objectivity, “bourgeois fetish”
43 commercials awkwardly bunched between shows
43-4 x-variety in department stores, bath towels
44 Ecotopians repair own things, no guarantees, but must pass
repair review
45 cooperative
criticism (cf.
46 little emotional dramas, embarrassing and low-class but
delightful, energizing
THE ECOTOPIAN ECONOMY: FRUIT OF CRISIS
46 20-hour work
week, revision of Protestant work ethic upon which
46 forced to isolate its economy from the competition of
harder-working peoples
46 mankind not meant for production > modest place in
seamless, stable-state web of living organisms, disturbing web as little as
possible
46 sacrifice of present consumption
46 almost religious objective, perhaps akin to earlier
doctrines of “salvation”
47 economic disaster not identical with survival disaster for
persons, deliberately engineered
47 forced consolidation of retail chains
48 out of work > construction of train network & sewage &
recycling facilities > stable-state life systems
49 20-hour work week doubled number of jobs
50 basic biological survival unifying force, generosity with
food
51 cf. Indians, treat technology and materials in spirit of
respect, comradeship
52 collaborating with wood in shaping a building
(x-resistance)
52 gruff-sounding man, pleased to hear of my visit, surprise .
. . businessmen of some kind: the Opposition!
52 okay ecological reforms, but stifle spirit of enterprise
53 let the managers manage
53 Progressive Party? . . . Survivalists.
53 asking for explosives, guns? . . . journalist, not CIA
54 Marissa Brightcloud. A self-adopted Indian-inspired name .
. . many Ecotopians use them.
54 forest camp
55 our chimp ancestors
55 ceremonial bath
55-6 buy lumber, care for forest
59 whole American psychodrama of mutual suspicion between the
sexes, demands and counterdemands and our desperate working at sex like a
problem to be solve, has left my head. Everything comes from our feelings.
59 won’t let me use my mouth on her breasts. “You’re not a
baby”
59 children have many others besides their parents to love
them. . . . “If I was doing it again I wouldn’t leave.”
IN ECOTOPIA’S BIG WOODS
60 deep and lasting interest in wood, outdated material . . .
no clear cutting
60 tree worship, fierce looking totem poles
61 “tree service” cf. ballet
62 leaves topsoil intact, cuts down erosion, and preserves
fish
62 boards sold in county-sized area around mill
62 debate in progress over diesel trucks > electric vehicles
63 occupation of cowboy has come back
65 economy of ecological abundance > generosity
65 Ecotopian counter-intelligence; your government’s
clandestine operations
DECLINE WITHOUT FALL? THE ECOTOPIAN POPULATION CHALLENGE
66 popn slowly declining for 15 years
. . . abortion and infanticide? . . . humane measures
66 industrialized society: increased number of children
outweighs benefits of family
67 lessen pressure on resources and other species
67 3-stage program: massive educational and medical campaign;
abortion upon demand; counterbalance still growing longevity
second stage: radical decentralization, dismantled national
tax and spending system > local communities, collective lives
68 medical services dispersed
68 commune and extended-family farms encouraged
68 substantial annual surplus per capita
69 number of Indians who inhabited territory?
69 nuclear family rapidly disappearing
70 “families”
70 right to select fathers of children
71 solstice and equinox holidays, sexual promiscuity
71 old people seldom alone, early childhood education
71 x-eugenics, cloning
73 x-get job done with > worth doing, should be enjoyable
74 immediate consciousness
77 eye contact
SAVAGERY RESTORED: ECOTOPIA’S DARK SIDE
77 Ritual War Games: first American ever to witness chilling
spectacle
77 small homemade shrines
78 war chant cf. athletic cheers
79 body arranged crucifix-like . . . think of our family: I
bear wounds for them . . . It is finished . . . signal for women to leave
79 I feel like a man . . . Once more I have survived
80 test ourselves . . . how good it feels to be frightened and
come through
80 photography dark-magic side: freeze time, cheat biology,
defy change and death
80 regard anthropology as field with great practical
importance
80 essential to develop some kind of open civic expression for
the physical competitiveness that seemed to be inherent in man’s biological
programming—and otherwise came out in perverse forms, like war
81
81 few fatalities, 50 die a year cf. highway toll of 75,000
and war dead average to 5k a year
81 focus women’s competitiveness in other ways: contests for
political leadership, organizing work, rivalry over men to father children
81 cf. high school athletic contests but on even smaller scale
81 cross and Judeo-Christian heritage . . . We make the best
of it.
82 the raising
82 dream about . . . myself all painted up, women smile, I
want to make love
THEIR PLASTICS AND OURS
83 huge amounts of plastics, but derived from living
biological sources (plants) rather than from fossilized ones (petroleum and
coal) . . . make them all biodegradable [84 “dying”], returned to fields as
fertilizer > new plastics
83 almost religious fervor, a “stable-state system”
84 OK to litter
84 entirely scrap-based metals industry
84 built into molecules “keyholes,” opened only by soil
micro-organisms
85 purists live only in wood houses, etc., future may belong,
strong trend to abandon fruits of all modern technology
85 collective work? X competitive and detached
86 [children] What would their lives be like if they had been
born Ecotopian kids? No ballet classes, station wagons, shopping expeditions to
department stores. They’d do actual hard adult work in gardens and shops and
schools, live in welter of dozen or more people . . . scares me (want them
protected)
87 wet-suit-like garments, “bird-suits,” story confused,
alleged properties quite magical
87 bicycles as “preventive transportation”
88 chemistry > biology
88 American + curious French influence, severe systematization
88 Money
89 x-sense of privacy . . . . I see myself through them as
well as through myself
90 close touch with land, shrines
WOMEN IN POWER: POLITICIANS, SEX AND LAW IN ECOTOPIA
91 Survivalist Party woman-dominated; cooperative- and
biology-oriented policies < female attitudes and interests
Progressive Party = male attitudes to individualism,
production
92 greatly extended powers of local governments
92-3 political
meetings: ventilation > consensus +
enjoy
meetings
93 Bill of Rights, lawyers, courts
x-victimless crimes
but gentlemen’s crimes, x-anonymity
94 flight of capital
95 waterways transportation
97 sex cf. eating, walking, x-heavy emotional expectations
WORKERS’ CONTROL, TAXES & JOBS IN ECOTOPIA
97 socialist? Mixed economy but different balance
98 massive
flight of capital cf.
chaotic but not anarchic > local governments and courts
99 no inheritance
tax loopholes > corporate / production taxes
workers = partners
land tax > compactness
100 no super-rich
x-direct absentee investment
101 national bank
“small is beautiful”
lower profit and wage levels > comfortable pace, relations
101 draconian
tariffs keep out sweat-shop products from
101 arms establishment is small
101 many functions of government which for us are very costly
(such as education) are organized, strangely enough, on free-market principles
101 relative total tax burden is much lower than ours
102 lifetime guarantee of minimal levels of food, housing, and
medical care
103 I don’t seem to have an attitude to write from anymore;
all I can do is call the individual separate shots as I see them. Is that losing
my objectivity?
105 license no behavior-control drugs at all
105 adapt schools to children
105 guiding genius Archibald Fir, an architect
106 attack on megastructures
RACE IN ECOTOPIA: APARTHEID OR EQUALITY
107 black population control own
territory,
107 intermarriage frequent
108 black architects bred in ghetto: people-centered rather
than car-centered
108 curbing of heroin traffic by taking over as government
monopoly
108 severity of current sentences for violent crime
108-9 prisoners dispersed in small institutions
109 Swahili in the schools, many black youngsters already
bilingual
109-110 cf.
ENERGY FROM SUN AND SEA
111 massive thermal-gradient power plant
111 watching atomic fusion energy, but something unnatural in
processes that concentrate gigantic quantities of energy at any one point . . .
generating energy near where it is needed
111 historic tendency for energy-rich cultures to conquer or
dominate energy-poor ones
114 fanciful people, Ecotopian “family,” radio powered by a
waterwheel
115 in tune with her own biological being, contagion
116 changing my whole idea of what men and women are like
together
118 x-guilt
COMMUNICATIONS IN ECOTOPIA: PRESS, TELEVISION, AND PUBLISHING
119 laws were passed [passive!] broke up existing media
corporations
119 one operation in each city
119 now six daily papers in SF
120 newspapers sold through electronic print-outs at kiosks
121 enormous
national library at
121 devoted to fine eating, links to French
122 Helicopter
War? . . . most serious suppressed story since
125 detonate mines in American cities?
ECOTOPIAN EDUCATION’S SURPRISES
126 schools cf. farms; age of biology x physics-dominated
126 only hour or so daily in actual class work > “projects”
127 two hours actually working
127 work normal part of every person’s life, no “bosses” in
shop
129 schools collectively but personally owned by teachers who
run them
129 national examinations
129 brisk competition among schools, children switch around
129 greater ability doesn’t seem so invidious as with us,
where it is really valued because it brings rewards of money and power.
131 hundreds of wrecked U. S. Army helicopters
131 War Ministry, militia system, guerrilla bands
LIVING IN PLASTIC TUBING
133 oval-cross-section tubing, about 13 feet wide and 10 feet
high
133 plastic derived from cotton
134 truly industrial continuous-process basis, instead of by
handwork
134 “integrated systems,” devices that cater to several of
their ecological fetishes at once
135 avoid florescent tubes
137-8 [love talk b/w Will and Marissa leads to theme]
138 rootless x Ecotopian who always has a strong collective
base to return to
SEPARATION OF FUNCTIONS: RESEARCH AND TEACHING IN ECOTOPIA
139 proliferation of small research institutes
139 Mt.
139 playful, coffee or tea or marijuana
141 political science, sociology and psychology x-scientific
standing
History has blossomed
141 universities broken up into colleges
143 graduate instruction > apprenticeship programs
ECOTOPIAN MUSIC, DANCE, OTHER ARTS
145 little distinction b/w professional and amateur
147 like the Balinese, no art, just do everything as well as
we can
148 cf. high school football games of my youth
153 people recover best if they’re happy. We don’t separate
medicine and life
HOSPITALS AND
HEALTH CARE: THE
154 compare in sophistication, contrast in scale
154 nurses
longer hours and vacations (cf.
Looking Backward)
155 personal presence and care of nurse, recuperative
specialties, esp. massage.
155 authority of doctor diluted, conversations livelier
155 x-import foreign-trained doctors, med schools doubled
156 babies delivered at home by midwives
156 hard-hearted / fatalistic attitude toward death, also
prefer at home, cf. Indians preparing for death
156 ecological religion: recycled
156 mental illness in decline
156-7 security and confidence, never being alone
157 opposite-sex nurses
157 Do you think I’m your slave or something?
158 Ecotopian novels . .
. security, almost like 19c English novels; world is decent, satisfactory,
sustaining despite some difficulties . . . . At first the stories seemed
puzzlingly vapid to me. I couldn’t figure out why anybody would find them
interesting . . . x-exciting nightmare quality
Ø
Come to think of
it, Ecotopia itself is beginning to feel a good deal more reassuring: when I
needed care, I was taken care of.
158 This country has certainly taught me to cry
160 Vera Allwen powerful as a
person, not as a bureaucrat or head of institution. Cf. some of the old-time
communist leaders, Ho Chi Minh and Mao Tse-tung
160 cf. outclassed in chess
160 unrest
already generated by Ecotopian ideas among our youth, secessionist movements in
161 on every major social index Ecotopia would lose by
reunification
161 problem is
how the
161 “You are not as personal in your columns as our
journalists tend to be, so we have not been able to judge if you have had good
experiences among us.”
162 Even the president wants to mess with your soul
162-3 [disorienting conclusion to interview with president]
ECOTOPIA: CHALLENGE OR ILLUSION?
164 secessions
within Ecotopia: Spanish-speaking and Japanese communities of
165 after failure of integrationist campaign of 60s, ever more
segregated—though somewhat less unequal
165 balkanized
continent, separatism, quietism, a reversion toward the two-bit principalities
of medieval
166 kidnapped, conversation about “vibrations”
170 “It all concerns us.”
170 It isn’t real, it just isn’t real.”
“It’s real for us—you’re not letting it be real for you.”
171 “Why job? Also adventure.”
172 [end of chapter sets up next and final chapter]
WORK AND PLAY AMONG THE ECOTOPIANS
172 can’t even tell when an Ecotopian is at work or leisure
173 intellectual people part of factory and farm work force
173 x-jobs as separate from “real life”
174 propensity to touch one another
175 looseness in personal contact may be a result of
widespread marijuana usage
175 most smoke with considerable discretion, large source of
tax revenue
177 [cf.
Looking Backward]
Dream: I am at home . . . .
178 mirror scene
[cf. Anthem?]
179 “Good place to conceive a child.”
180 this new me
181 I’ve decided not to come back
181 It let me home.