The Banishment of Utopia

Karl Ove Knausgaard is a very incisive author. His “My Struggle” novels turn his keen eye inward to examine his own life with sometimes excruciating honesty. His four books of essays, named after the four seasons in which they were written, continue that introspection, but also provide commentary on the world around him, without sacrificing any of the candor that makes his work stand out.

In his book “Autumn” Knausgaard is inspired by the impending birth of a daughter to set out his observations on a plethora of subjects, each essay only a few pages long. In one essay, considering abandoned rural churches in modern Norway, Knausgaard expresses his seemingly inexplicable sadness at the loss of small community life they represent. He has no connection to these churches or the life they once embodied, yet he feels nostalgia for the demise.

Knausgaard identifies this longing for an unknown past as a “shadow sickness”, dampening joy for what we have. He contrasts this to a “longing for that which still doesn’t exist, the future….” But he recognizes that the pull of the past is so much stronger because “utopia has vanished from our time, so that longing can only be directed backwards, where all its force accumulates”.

This is an amazing insight into our modern condition. The concept of an achievable utopia has been a large part of human social DNA since the enlightenment. However, within the last 70 years such a concept has seemed not only unlikely, but almost silly. We can no longer believe that human perfection is achievable, or even that the pursuit of such perfection is desirable.

It’s easy to forget how prevalent serious consideration of a heaven on earth, whether religious or secular, was throughout the 19^th Century and the first half of the 20^th Century. Utopian societies abounded. Owenists, Fourierists, Oneida Perfectionists, Mormons, Amana Inspirationalists, and New Icarians all founded utopian communities in America between 1820 and 1870. The Shakers were one of the oldest and longest lasting of these experiments in the achievement of peace and harmony.

Most of these societies were separatist, looking to create utopia on a small scale. However, the Social Gospel movement, started by Walter Rauschenbusch, had a much broader goal. He called on Christians to emulate the Kingdom of God, arguing that this Kingdom “is not a matter of getting individuals to heaven, but of transforming the life on earth into the harmony of heaven.” He and his followers wanted to establish a world where justice would govern relationships between individuals, regardless of ethnicity or religious belief.

The great secular utopian experiment was Communism. In our modern cynicism we are tempted to dismiss communists as nothing more than power hungry despots, but that is a mistake. Those that led the communist parties of the early 20^th Century truly believed that they held the key to implementing a world of total equality. As late as 1939 the British philosopher and novelist to be, Iris Murdoch, could write without hesitation, “I thank God that I have the party to direct and discipline my previously vague and ineffective idealism. I feel now that I am doing some good, and that life has a purpose and that the history of civilization is not just an interesting series of unconnected muddles, but a comprehensive development towards the highest stage of society, the Soviet world state”.

Hitler was utopian as well. To some extent this accounts for his allure to so many otherwise rational people. His philosophy of the world, which he imposed on the receptive German people, posited that if you could deal with non-Aryans either by eliminating them completely (the Jews), or making them slaves (the Slavs), you could create a 1000-year age of peace and prosperity. Of course, his utopian view only worked for the Aryans, but to him and his followers, that was beside the point.

The modern rejection of utopianism can be tied directly to Communism and Naziism. As the scope of Stalin’s crimes against his own people and those of Eastern Europe were brought into the open, it was clear that the Soviet authorities believed that the only way the “highest stage of society” could be achieved was through mass incarceration, rigid control of thought and creativity and a regular purging of those who did not fit the mold of the “Soviet world state”. The cost of trying to achieve this utopia could not offset the promise of its supposed realization.

With Hitler the costs of pursuing a utopia were even more stark. The horrors of the Holocaust and the general savagery of the German occupation of Europe made their ideal of an Aryan utopia repellent. Like the Communist experiment, the Nazi’s utopian dreams came at an unacceptable cost to humanity and drove a stake through the heart of any movement to implement heaven here on earth.

This loss of belief that any system, religious or secular, can create a perfect society is irreversible. I cannot conceive of a movement that can garner mass support with a pledge of global unity, peace, and harmony. The skepticism and cynicism run too deep. Considering the result of prior efforts, that is probably not a bad thing.

While utopianism may be dead, the desire for a better future is not. Unfortunately, as Knausgaard noted, that desire is often channeled into a nostalgic longing for the past that is both unrealistic and unrealizable. We long for a return to a never-existent golden age. It is part of the attraction of MAGA as a slogan and ideal.

The loss of a possibility of societal pefection also accounts for the continuing strength of fundamentalism. There is a thread of nihilism in the belief that the only solace mankind will find is in an afterlife. It can make what happens here not only secondary, but immaterial. Why worry about climate change when the ultimate award awaits on another plane of existence?      

Most of us do, of course, still look to improve the world we live in. We have not given up the hope that the future can be better than the present. We may not believe in the perfectibility of humankind, but we do believe that we can substantially improve life in the here and now.

Those hopes for the future are challenged daily by the realities of the present. Whether it’s the rise of militant white nationalism, the creeping calamity of environmental disaster, or the never-ending slaughter in the Middle East, it is difficult to hold onto any optimism for a better future. And yet we must.  

I do not think that the death of utopianism is a bad thing. People can justify almost anything if they “know” it will lead to a perfect world. However, if we lose a faith in the future generally, and succumb to the “shadow sickness” of a false nostalgia, we are truly f*#@ed.