Assignment

Dru Watkins

1 long essay + 1 brief essay

React to Progress: Political Implications of Emerging Literary Utopias

3b. Is utopia “progressive/liberal” or “reactionary/conservative”?

3e. Do utopian forms mirror and confirm social norms or oppose them?

        In three of our four course readings (so far), Utopias begin as “reactionary” in the root sense of the word. The authors react to their current sociopolitical/economic system. However, the pursuit and fruition of these Utopias are progressive endeavors since they entail an ideal reordering of social and economic systems. The dystopian novel Anthem is the exception. It has a somewhat reversed structure and a reactionary conservative message. Ultimately while the utopias in Utopia, Looking Backward and Herland seem progressive in nature, there are a few reactionary elements. The progressive/reactionary dichotomy seems to blur at times.

        The first part of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia starts with More, Peter and Raphael discussing the business of politics as usual. Raphael identifies many problematic realities of the reactionary status quo such as severity of punishment incongruent with the crime (p. 7), idle noblemen and others that live off others’ labor (p.7), the “increase of pasture” (p. 9), and the minimal distribution of wealth (p. 10). Next, Raphael addresses rulers. Princely/kingly virtue is always trumped by realpolitik and personal greed. They are more interested in maintaining power and hording resources than the greater societal good:

Where one proposes raising the value of specie when the king’s debts are large, and lowering it when his revenues were to come in, that so he might both pay much with a little, and in a little receive a great deal: another proposes a pretence of a war, that money might be raised in order to carry it on, and that a peace be concluded as soon as that was done…(p.19).

        Raphael’s breakdown and dismissal of power politics aggravates the inclinations of his interlocutors. They express the usual reactionary distrust of a new order for fear of losing what society as-is has actually achieved:

…if ill opinions cannot be quite rooted out, and you cannot cure some received vice according to your wishes, you must not therefore abandon the commonwealth, for the same reasons you should not forsake the ship in a storm because you cannot command the winds (p. 22).

        Raphael does exhibit the traits of a Christian Humanist (course site theme). It seems that the humanistic influence allows for a more progressive interpretation of an established (and potentially reactionary) religion. Raphael notes that Christ’s teachings are opposite of the status quo:

The greatest parts of His precepts are more opposite to the lives of the men of this age than any part of my discourse has been; but preachers seemed to have learned that craft to which you advise me, for they observing that the world would not willingly suit their lives to the rules that Christ has given, have fitted His doctrine as if it had been a leaden rule, to their lives, that so some way or other they might agree with one another (p. 23).

        Raphael’s description of the native religions of Utopia in part 2 demonstrates his humanistic tolerance towards other religions that might be viewed as “heathen” by more reactionary conservative Christians.

More’s dialogue begins with the reactionary preliminaries that make it relevant and anchor it in the here and now (or 16^th century for More) and moves to Utopia with a progressive vision meant to address the root problems of their current society. The citizens of Utopia do not expand or horde surplus beyond their means.

…no town desires to enlarge it bounds, for the people consider themselves rather as tenants than landlords (p. 29).

          All citizens receive an agricultural education (p. 33) and then specialize in their trade of choice. No surplus and profit motive exist that might fuel greed and unsustainable growth.   Keeping in mind the pattern of a problematic beginning that is solved by evolving into a utopia, let's move to Looking Backward.

        Looking Backward begins with Julian West reflecting on living in the gilded age as an isolated and nervous insomniac. After he awakes 113 years later, Dr. Leete gradually reveals the utopian world of Boston in the year 2000 to Julian. Like Raphael in More’s Utopia, Dr. Leete serves as the gatekeeper of the utopia for the reader. However, Dr. Leete uses the history that Julian slept through as a case example for the status quo of 1887 and how it changed into a utopian society in 2000. Industrial Capitalism was proving disastrous yet it naturally exhausts itself and evolves:

Oppressive and intolerable as was the regime of the great consolidations of capital, even its victims, while they cursed it, were forced to admit the prodigious increase of efficiency which had been imparted to the national industries, the vast economies effected by concentration of management and unity of organization, and to confess that since the new system had taken the place of the old the wealth of the world had increased at a rate before undreamed of (p. 36).

        Compared to the remote location of Utopia, Looking Backward has a detailed history and a natural evolution of events that lead to a utopia. Because of More’s lack of historical anchors, his Utopia seems more distant and ideal while Bellamy’s suggests that his vision is realizable and will flow naturally and inevitably from the current strife of Industrial Capitalism. The citizens of Boston see the path and accept it. “Public opinion had become fully ripe for it, and the whole mass of people was behind it (p. 38).” It is difficult to say whether the spirit of this evolution is reactionary or progressive. In some sense, the citizens just passively accept and react to the inevitable shift in government while in another sense, their changing world makes apparent the need for a more humane form of government.

“Human nature itself must have changed very much” I said. “Not at all,” was Dr. Leete’s reply, “but the conditions of human life have changed, and with them, the motives of human action…” (p. 40)

        While it is hard to pinpoint whether the initial emergence of the utopias in these two works is reactionary or progressive, both utopias share progressive values. In Looking Backward, Dr. Leete uses the period of history that Julian comes from as a problematic example in which he shows how Industrial Capitalism is erroneous and how Socialism responds to and corrects the injustices of Capitalism. More and Bellamy’s utopias oppose the social norms of their respective time periods and correct social injustices yet More follows the Christian Humanist meta-narrative while Bellamy uses historical perspective to justify his utopia. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland follows Bellamy’s pattern.

        Like Looking Backward, the feminist utopia in Herland is triggered by necessity. However, the ancient citizens of the developing Herland eventually become more proactive rather than reactive:

What happened to them first was merely a succession of historic misfortunes such as have befallen other nations often enough. They were decimated by war, driven up from their coastline till finally the reduced population, with many of the men killed in battle, occupied this hinterland, and defended it for years, in the mountain passes..But this succession of misfortunes was too much for those infuriated virgins. There were many of them, and but few of these would-be masters, so the young women, instead of submitting, rose in sheer desperation and slew their brutal conquerors. This sounds like Titus Andronicus, I know, but that is their account (p. 54 &55).

Following this, a miracle occurs. A woman has a “divine” childbirth. This seems to further strengthen the bond between the women and anchor the values of Herland with a religious narrative. Historical circumstance is trumped by proactive will (the virgins fighting back) and a miracle birth.  Historical justification seems to be a defense of reactionary conservatives. In Ayn Rand’s Anthem, history is suppressed.

I initially had some trouble assessing Anthem in relation to the other texts (aside from it being more reactionary) until I read Joshua Shuetz’s 2009 midterm. He mentions the status of history in Rand’s utopia-gone-wrong and quotes an important passage from chapter one:

But we must never speak of the times before the Great Rebirth, else we are sentenced to three years in the Palace of Corrective Detention. It is only the Old Ones who whisper about it in the evenings, in the Home of the Useless (p.19).

Present in the narrative is the fear of losing history and its beneficial inheritance. Since history is forbidden in Anthem, the reactionary/conservative instinct is suppressed.  This might be Rand’s critique of progressively rooted utopias.  Yet, the more progressive novels Looking Backward and Herland not only retain their histories before the millennial shift, the authors incorporate the histories to help develop and give context to their respective utopias.   I enjoyed the contrast of the novel and the upside down structure compared to the other novels. Rand starts with an unfulfilling utopia and the protagonist works his way out of it while More, Bellamy and Gilman Perkins start with critiques of the status quo and lead the reader to understand the necessity and humanity of their utopian constructions.

Ultimately, I feel that the reactionary/progressive dichotomy breaks down or becomes blurred when considering the emergence of the literary utopias covered in class. However, the end result of the three utopian novels contains progressive ideals. More’s Utopia is similar to Plato’s Republic. There is a more isolated, timeless, idealistic rendering of a utopian society. Bellamy and Gilman Perkins’ utopias initially evolve from historical necessity. In some sense, this subtle difference might make the latter two utopias more realizable.

Works Cited

1.    More, Thomas. Utopia. New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 1997.

2.   Bellamy, Edward. Looking Backward. New York: Signet Classics, 2009.

3.   Perkins Gilman, Charlotte. Herland. New York: Pantheon Books, 1979.

4.   Rand, Ayn. Anthem. New York: Signet, 1995.

5.   http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/terms/C/ChristianHumanism.htm

6.   http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5439utopia/models/midterms/mt09/mt09schuetz.htm

Utopias and Literature of Ideas

Highlight personal interests in the course.

1c. Can Utopias join science fiction, speculative fiction, and allied genres in a literature of ideas?

5c. Why do American curricula emphasize dystopias?

        As a high school student, I enjoyed (leisure and assigned) reading dystopian novels and literature of ideas. I did not categorize what I was interested in as “dystopian” at the time as this class made me aware of my high school interest. I particularly liked Orwell, Huxley, Burroughs, and Kesey. My two favorite authors were Herman Hesse and Leo Tolstoy. During Chrissie’s presentation, the class observed how grade school students relate and identify with dystopian fiction. I related because of the institutional, trapped atmosphere of public school kept me in a constant state of fear and tension. The bells and limits of mobility were too much for even a Ritalin-pacified youngster such as myself. For young students, dystopian fiction is a more immediate entry into the literature of ideas. Maladjusted or ill at ease public school students can relate to the sentiments in dystopian fiction.

        Horace believed that the purpose of literature was to entertain and inform. Generally speaking, younger children are more receptive to “being entertained” than “being informed”. The emotionally involving spectacle is at first more appealing than the abstract contemplation of big ideas and perennial problems. However, with those problems looming in the background, the emotional response towards the entertainment can eventually act as a bridge to the bigger ideas. Not only does this bridge increase the entertainment value of a novel of ideas, it generates thought and becomes intellectually relevant in the student’s life. Dystopian fiction is a good preliminary to utopian novels and literature of ideas.

        Dystopian and Utopian fiction fit into the literature of ideas because they both involve speculation. Science fiction often pursues this as well. The literature of ideas generally sizes up a current and/or perennial tension or concern and builds a speculative scenario that responds to this tension. Hesse and Tolstoy address spiritual, ethical and interpersonal concerns. Sci Fi authors like Philip K. Dick address sociopolitical, metaphysical and psychological concerns while more “hard science” sci fi authors address technological, biological, and ecological concerns. The utopian authors we have covered so far all address sustainability, economic fairness and interpersonal relations. A student who finds utopian fiction too pedantic and preachy at first might connect faster to a more narrative-driven  dystopian novel such as Animal Farm or Anthem. After that, he might become aware of the perennial issues and actually enjoy a novel such as Looking Backward or even a dialogue like Thomas More’s Utopia. Come to think of it, Herland is more utopian but has the action and intrigue of a dystopian novel. I think high school students would particularly enjoy it.

Works Cited

1.   http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/terms/L/LitOfIdeas.htm

2.   http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/xcritsource/classical/Horace.htm