LITR 5439 Literary and Historical Utopias UHCL lecture notes

3f. Are utopias limited to Western Civilization, rationalism, and social engineering, or may they exemplify multiculturalism?

[5.56] As to geography—at about the time of the Christian era this land had a free passage to the sea. of Aryan stock, and were once in contact with the best civilization of the old world. They were "white," but somewhat darker than our northern races because of their constant exposure to sun and air. [Progressives made some advances in multicultural tolerance but many remained embarrassingly "racialist."]

2011 Sarah C.: 1 leadership, 2 membership; Chrissie 2 on teaching, Amy 2 on teaching; Jenna 2nd on symbol

"reaction of a changed environment upon human nature . . . a society which was founded on the pseudo-self-interest of selfishness . . . has been replaced by institutions based on the true self-interest of a rational unselfishness, and appealing to the social and generous instincts of men."

"the means of subsistence distributed from a common stock as among children at the father's table"

Anthem: Background: As literary genre, Anthem is not a utopia but a dystopia, but these genres remain co-dependent.

Discussion Questions: 1. compare / contrast Anthem to utopian texts. How are utopias & dystopias co-dependent for identity?

1a. What automatic appeals or "readability" do dystopian texts enjoy over utopian texts, at least for a modern American audience? (e.g. romance narrative; Decline or progress?; Millennium)

1b. Rand's status in the literary canon is controversial, but Anthem offers some strong if limited literary appeals. How may we characterize Rand's style? What appeals to fundamentalist freemarket capitalism +- evangelicalism? Continue discussion of Rand's style and its potential appeals (or demerits). Suggestions: biblical-scriptural, mythical, superlatives / extremes?

1c. What do utopian texts scant or blur that Rand emphasizes and develops? What consciousness does she demonstrate of utopian texts and structures? (Obviously she despises them, but her text shows occasional knowledge of utopian forms.) 1.28

2. Why do Americans and American schools emphasize dystopias or satirical utopias? What literary and ideological appeals?)

2.53 some word, one single word which is not in the language of men, but which has been.

8.5 We picked a stone and we sent it as an arrow at a bird. It fell before us. We made a fire, we cooked the bird, and we ate it, and no meal had ever tasted better to us. And we thought suddenly that there was a great satisfaction to be found in the food which we need and obtain by our own hand.

2a. Resemblance to other early-mid 20c dystopias or satirical utopias like Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies? What resemblances or differences relative to teen dystopias, zombie apocalypse, etc.?

2b. How does Prometheus's new home resemble modern suburbia or exurbia? How would you like Prometheus for a neighbor? Can "planned communities" be related to utopias or intentional communities? (Obj. 3b) Conclusion to Anthem: does it expose some upsides to utopia?

[9.27] Some day, we shall stop and build a house, . . . [first hint of suburbia: house for individual family unit]

[10.10] . . . colors, colors, and more colors than we thought possible, . . . great pieces of glass on the walls, but it was not glass, for when we looked upon it we saw our own bodies and all the things behind us, as on the face of a lake. . . . globes of glass . . . metal cobwebs inside, such as we had seen in our tunnel. [colors: cf. The Giver in which utopia reduces all to colorless, gray sameness]

12.12 Then I shall build a barrier of wires around my home, and across the paths which lead to my home; a barrier light as a cobweb, more impassable than a wall of granite; a barrier my brothers will never be able to cross. [single-family home as castle or fortress] For they have nothing to fight me with, save the brute force of their numbers. I have my mind.

1.28 five members of the Council, three of the male gender and two of the female.

7.41 bring ruin to the Department of Candles. The Candle is a great boon to mankind, as approved by all men. Therefore it cannot be destroyed by the whim of one." [utopians prize stability, fear "creative destruction" of freemarket capitalism]

9.31 these joys belong to us alone, they come from us alone, they bear no relation to our brothers

3. Among many ideological issues raised by Rand's writing, what to make of a woman writer who exalts patriarchy? How rationalize “I” always being “he”? Is the Golden One / Gaea a real character or more like a mythic symbol? Since Anthem is a woman-authored text, how deal with masculine privilege and womanly devotion? Is "Man" for humanity a period-style, or does it really mean man? (Compare and contrast Herland.)

4.30 they moved stepping back, as if they could not turn from us, their arms bent before them, as if they could not lower their hands. [devotional posture]

9.28 the Golden One following . . . they wait obediently, without questions, till it pleases us to turn and go on. [please help with passage; my only guess is that Golden One is becoming a fertile earth-mother as well as sex partner; cf. Gaea at 12.8]

[10.18] We did this work alone, for no words of ours could take the Golden One away from the big glass which is not glass. They stood before it and they looked and looked upon their own body. [narcissism?]

3a. Continue discussion of Rand's style and its potential appeals (or demerits). Suggestions: biblical-scriptural, mythical, superlatives / extremes?

2.9 felt as if a hand had touched our body, slipping softly from our lips to our feet.

3.5 wires that led to strange little globes of glass on the walls; [defamiliarization]

[5.6] Then we thought of the meaning of that which lay before us. We can light our tunnel, and the City, and all the Cities of the world with nothing save metal and wires. We can give our brothers a new light, cleaner and brighter than any they have ever known. The power of the sky can be made to do men's bidding. There are no limits to its secrets and its might, and it can be made to grant us anything if we but choose to ask. [impressive mix of spiritual and material figuration]

[6.11] The lash whistled like a singing wind. We tried to count the blows, but we lost count. We knew that the blows were falling upon our back. Only we felt nothing upon our back any longer. A flaming grill kept dancing before our eyes, and we thought of nothing save that grill, a grill, a grill of red squares, and then we knew that we were looking at the squares of the iron grill in the door, and there were also the squares of stone on the walls, and the squares which the lash was cutting upon our back, crossing and re-crossing itself in our flesh. [figuration]

[9.17] "Your eyes are as a flame, but our brothers have neither hope nor fire. Your mouth is cut of granite, but our brothers are soft and humble. Your head is high, but our brothers cringe.* You walk, but our brothers crawl. We wish to be damned with you, rather than be blessed with all our brothers. Do as you please with us, but do not send us away from you." [cf. conservative defense of traditional gender + disparagement of liberals as “girly-men”]

[11.6] Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are false, but only three are holy: "I will it!" [individualism + will + undefined object (objectivism?)]

Manageable strangeness of we, us, our for I, me, my—does the plural pronoun reach out to include reader?

1.32 In five hours, the shadows are blue on the pavements, and the sky is blue with a deep brightness which is not bright. [heroic or mythic simplicity; or biblical—cf. Gospel of Mark]

1.37 mythically simple setting [diminution of setting increases heroic stature of human figure]

3.3 The frog had been hanging on a wire of copper; and it had been the metal of our knife which had sent a strange power to the copper through the brine of the frog's body.

[4.1] Many days passed before we could speak to the Golden One again. But then came the day when the sky turned white, as if the sun had burst and spread its flame in the air, and the fields lay still without breath, and the dust of the road was white in the glow.

Ritual but not stale ritual; rather original, newborn [4.27] Then they knelt by the moat, they gathered water in their two hands, they rose and they held the water out to our lips.

[5.4] We stood, and we held our head in our hands. We could not conceive of that which we had created. We had touched no flint, made no fire. Yet here was light, light that came from nowhere, light from the heart of metal.

[5.5] We blew out the candle. Darkness swallowed us. There was nothing left around us, nothing save night and a thin thread of flame in it, as a crack in the wall of a prison. We stretched our hands to the wire, and we saw our fingers in the red glow. We could not see our body nor feel it, and in that moment nothing existed save our two hands over a wire glowing in a black abyss.

[9.13] "We heard that you had gone to the Uncharted Forest, for the whole City is speaking of it. So on the night of the day when we heard it, we ran away from the Home of the Peasants. We found the marks of your feet across the plain where no men walk.”

1.21 from our Teachers. We learned that the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around it

1.28 five members of the Council, three of the male gender and two of the female.

1.29 we would work for our brothers, gladly and willingly, and we would erase our sin against them, which they did not know, but we knew.

[1.60] "Then," we said, "keep silent. This place is ours. This place belongs to us,

1.65 We melt strange metals, and we mix acids, and we cut open the bodies of the animals

1.67 We have come to see how great is the unexplored, and many lifetimes will not bring us to the end of our quest. We wish nothing, save to be alone and to learn

[2.1] Liberty 5-3000 . . . Liberty five-three thousand . . . Liberty 5-3000 . . . .

2.9 felt as if a hand had touched our body, slipping softly from our lips to our feet.

2.11 our second Transgression of Preference, for we do not think of all our brothers, as we must, but only of one, and their name is Liberty 5-3000

2.13 Time of Mating. . . . City Palace of Mating. And each of the men have one of the women assigned to them by the Council of Eugenics. Children are born each winter, but women never see their children and children never know their parents.

2.18 triumph in their eyes, and it was not triumph over us, but over things we could not guess.

[2.22] "You are not one of our brothers, Equality 7-2521, for we do not wish you to be."

[2.23] We cannot say what they meant, for there are no words for their meaning, but we know it without words and we knew it then.

[2.35] And we sighed, as if a burden had been taken from us, for we had been thinking without reason of the Palace of Mating.

2.41 forbidden, not to be happy. For, as it has been explained to us, men are free and the earth belongs to them; and all things on earth belong to all men; and the will of all men together is good for all; and so all men must be happy.

2.48 many Uncharted Forests over the land, among the Cities. And it is whispered that they have grown over the ruins of many cities of the Unmentionable Times.

[2.49] And as we look upon the Uncharted Forest far in the night, we think of the secrets of the Unmentionable Times. And we wonder how it came to pass that these secrets were lost to the world. We have heard the legends of the great fighting, in which many men fought on one side and only a few on the other. These few were the Evil Ones and they were conquered. Then great fires raged over the land. And in these fires the Evil Ones were burned. And the fire which is called the Dawn of the Great Rebirth, was the Script Fire where all the scripts of the Evil Ones were burned, and with them all the words of the Evil Ones. Great mountains of flame stood in the squares of the Cities for three months. Then came the Great Rebirth.

2.53 some word, one single word which is not in the language of men, but which has been.

3.4 we had found the greatest power on earth. For it defies all the laws known to men. It makes the needle move and turn on the compass which we stole

4.1 the sky turned white, as if the sun had burst and spread its flame in the air, and the fields lay still without breath, and the dust of the road was white in the glow

[4.20] The head of the Golden One bowed slowly, and they stood still before us, their arms at their sides, the palms of their hands turned to us, as if their body were delivered in submission to our eyes.

[4.27] Then they knelt by the moat, they gathered water in their two hands, they rose and they held the water out to our lips.

4.30 they moved stepping back, as if they could not turn from us, their arms bent before them, as if they could not lower their hands. [devotional posture]

[5.1] We made it. We created it. We brought it forth from the night of the ages. We alone. Our hands. Our mind. Ours alone and only.

5.10 this wire is a part of our body, as a vein torn from us, glowing with our blood. Are we proud of this thread of metal, or of our hands which made it, or is there a line to divide these two?

[classic plotting: “pride” in chapter 5 leads to fall of being “caught” as reported below]

[6.1] We have not written for thirty days. For thirty days we have not been here, in our tunnel. We had been caught.

tonight, we knew that we must escape. For tomorrow the World Council of Scholars is to meet in our City.

7.3 others from distant lands whose names we had not heard. [implying that utopian/dystopian community is global]

[7.9] Then it was as if a great wind had stricken the hall, for all the Scholars spoke at once, and they were angry and frightened.

7.15 huddled together, seeking the warmth of one another's bodies to give them courage.

7.25 How dared you think that your mind held greater wisdom than the minds of your brothers?

7.29 "we cannot decide upon this, our brothers. No such crime has ever been committed, and it is not for us to judge. Nor for any small Council. We shall deliver this creature to the World Council itself and let their will be done."

7.42 This touched upon thousands and thousands of men working in scores of States. We cannot alter the Plans again so soon."

[7.50] We swung our fist through the windowpane, and we leapt out in a ringing rain of glass.

8.4 The forest seemed to welcome us. We went on, without thought, without care, with nothing to feel save the song of our body.

8.7 our face and our body were beautiful. Our face was not like the faces of our brothers, for we felt no pity when we looked upon it. Our body was not like the bodies of our brothers, for our limbs were straight and thin and hard and strong. And we thought that we could trust this being who looked upon us from the stream, and that we had nothing to fear from this being. [faith in individual self]

[8.9] We are writing this on the paper we had hidden in our tunic together with the written pages we had brought for the World Council of Scholars

9.13 we ran away from the Home of the Peasants. We found the marks of your feet across the plain where no men walk. So we followed them, and we went into the forest, and we followed the path where the branches were broken by your body."

[9.18] Then they knelt, and bowed their golden head before us. [ritual of submission]

[9.24] And that night we knew that to hold the body of a woman in our arms is neither ugly nor shameful, but the one ecstasy granted to the race of men. [cf. hands-off or functional sexuality in utopia]

[9.26] We have made a bow and many arrows. We can kill more birds than we need for our food; we find water and fruit in the forest. [nature as cornucopia rather than resource requiring management] . . . We sleep together in the midst of the ring, the arms of the Golden One around us, their head upon our breast. [heroic-survivalist fantasy?]

[9.27] Some day, we shall stop and build a house, . . . [first hint of suburbia: house for individual family unit]

9.31 these joys belong to us alone, they come from us alone, they bear no relation to our brothers

[9.38] "We are one . . . alone . . . and only . . . and we love you who are one . . . alone . . . and only."

[10.1] We are sitting at a table and we are writing this upon paper made thousands of years ago. The light is dim, and we cannot see the Golden One, only one lock of gold on the pillow of an ancient bed. This is our home.

[10.4] . . . on a broad summit, with the mountains rising behind it, stood a house such as we had never seen, and the white fire came from the sun on the glass of its windows.

10.9 we thought that not more than twelve men could have lived here. We thought it strange that man had been permitted to build a house for only twelve.

10.13 manuscripts, from the floor to the ceiling. . . . letters on their pages were small and so even that we wondered at the men who had such handwriting. . . . written in our language

[10.15] "We shall never leave this house," we said, "nor let it be taken from us. This is our home and the end of our journey. This is your house, Golden One, and ours, and it belongs to no other men whatever as far as the earth may stretch. We shall not share it with others, as we share not our joy with them, nor our love, nor our hunger. So be it to the end of our days."

[11.2] My hands . . . My spirit . . . My sky . . . My forest . . . This earth of mine . . . .

[11.3] What must I say besides? These are the words. This is the answer. [i.e., I, my, mine]

[11.6] Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are false, but only three are holy: "I will it!" [individualism + will + undefined object (objectivism?)]

[11.7] Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding star and the loadstone [magnet, compass needle] which point the way. They point in but one direction. They point to me.

11.8 my happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.

12.6 He took the light of the gods and brought it to men, and he taught men to be gods. And he suffered for his deed as all bearers of light must suffer. His name was Prometheus."

12.8 mother of the earth and of all the gods. Her name was Gaea. Let this be your name, my Golden One, for you are to be the mother of a new kind of gods."

12.14 They will follow me and I shall lead them to my fortress. And here, in this uncharted wilderness, I and they, my chosen friends, my fellow-builders, shall write the first chapter in the new history of man.

[12.16] At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled.

[12.17] But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his savage beginning.

[12.18] What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word "We."

12.19 Those men who survived—those eager to obey, eager to live for one another, since they had nothing else to vindicate them—those men could neither carry on, nor preserve what they had received. Thus did all thought, all science, all wisdom perish on earth. Thus did men—men with nothing to offer save their great numbers—lose the steel towers, the flying ships, the power wires, all the things they had not created and could never keep.

[12.21] Perhaps, in those days, there were a few among men, a few of clear sight and clean soul, who refused to surrender that word.

Literature of Ideas: forgiveness for bad writing often comes via agreement with ideas

3g. What is utopia’s relation to time and history? Does a utopia stop time, as with the millennial rapture or an idea of perfection? Or can utopias change, evolve, and adapt to the changes of history?

3h. Since our major texts are all set in North America, what is the relation of Utopia to America? What problems does the USA’s cultural context present for discussing utopian issues? (Especially contexts of the Cold War, the collapse of Marxist-Stalinist Communism, the ascendance of religious and freemarket fundamentalism, and stress on the family?)

Personal history: When in high school in late 60s I knew a family of serious conservatives, who at the time were regarded with the same sense of eccentricity as liberals are regarded today. The lady of the house (a realtor) knew my interest in literature and gave me a copy of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.

Intrigued: The writing had a raw power rougly comparable to that of Theodore Dreiser

Perplexed and challenged: Around the same time I heard a speech by Ronald Reagan and felt similarly.

Most of my moral education had been that selfishness and the pursuit of personal wealth and power came naturally to human beings. Such qualities had to be recognized but not encouraged or glorified.

Instead of repressing such feelings, both Rand and Reagan seemed to elevate them to a heroic level.

Overall I backed off for the same reason I remain what others call a liberal or leftist but which I associate simply with intellectual morality as I've seen it modeled and as I've aspired. Namely, I learn little from celebrating or exploiting what is already known or accomplished. Selfishness and greed / ambition may be a given of human existence, but they're only interesting insofar as they can be transformed to something finer, higher, more liberating. Also Reagan and Rand seemed to enjoy an odd sense of intellectual superiority, proclaiming not a special knowledge but a plain, simple, common-sense knowledge that others were inferior for not sharing. More like conversion than learning.

Mostly saw Rand being read in airports--seemed to send a signal to other passengers much like reading The Wall Street Journal, namely: I'm not just a traveler but someone who's on serious business.

Otherwise Ayn Rand Institute very active, constantly contacting profs about contests, scholarships, or writing letters to the editor.

Popular philosopher. As with many popular philosophers, she's not taken very seriously in academic philosophy. A popular following may begin to resemble a cult-of-personality.

Intellectual influence on Conservative Movement of late 20th-early 21st centuries.

Randians may deny this connection, but Rand's themes sound like phrases and titles associated with Nietzsche:

	Utopian tradition	Dystopian, satirical, or counter-utopian tradition
economic system	socialism plus or minus incentives--equality over freedom	freemarket capitalism--freedom over equality
human unit	collective, nation-as-family, equality	individual plus or minus patriarchal, hierarchical family

Vii Objectivist philosophy integrates facts with values . . . the actual nature of man with an exalted and secular admiration for it