To Be Chosen

By Stephanie Brumit

There was a time when Charleston was only Charleston to some.

See, there were men and women of all ages who did not know that name because it no longer existed for them. For the Quashie, the city was called something that couldn’t likely be shaped into a word. It wasn’t a grouping of letters. It was a marriage of disarrayed sounds. I can’t write it for you here- but that’s the point isn’t it? You can imagine a sound, if you like. It might be close. Then again, it doesn’t really matter.

The Quashie were the poor, the criminals, the religious, the liars, and the sexually adulterous. Some of them were hopeless from the start. You could always tell because they didn’t have true names like you and me. Theirs were just sounds that never quite fell into the patterns of real language. They couldn’t be written down because, well, they never were. Someone like this had parents who were Quashie and grandparents and maybe great-grandparents who were all Quashie. By that point, the child was so detached from the written language that a true name was impossible. Or improbable. Or impractical. Or, something. A few of the Quashie tried to use our common names for their children, even though they couldn’t write them. But then law was passed. And that was over. To use a proper name for your cub, you had to be able to write it and read it. They went back and took their names, the ones given before the law. None of them have true names anymore.

I guess the law wanted to  make it easier to see them.  As if it wasn’t already. Their portion of town was saturated with the sweet aroma of their labour. Sweet, but foul. And each of them wore the stench like a uniform. You would know one had arrived before your eyes stirred. And their speech, of course. It was basic. It was limited. It was wrong. But we didn’t have much need to talk, did we? Never. They had their jobs, their families, their communities, and they knew it all well. What would we have to say? They walked the streets with us of course. We weren’t unjust. They could shop at our stores, come to our clubs, and enjoy our city. Their city, too. Of course. The Quashie had that right. They were perfectly able. I don’t know why they would have joined us though, the poor souls. They had no need. And, our parts of the city weren’t designed for them. They couldn’t make sense of the signs or tags in stores. And they couldn’t afford many of our products–though they had their own products, just as good- probably. It was never unjust. Just practical. Sensible.

The Quashie were the ones who couldn’t afford Education Path. Or they were disqualified from it. Or their parents were. Well actually, the child of a Quashie was able to participate in Education Path. But, the family had to make the payments like everyone else. It was fair that way I suppose. Unfortunately, a Quashie family could typically only pay for a child to have a few weeks or even days of lessons- enough time to learn a few letters or words at the most? There’d be no sense in that. It was so hopeless for them. All of them. And it breaks my heart.

The Quashie were our heroes, though. Our tragic heroes. They were the city’s servers. They produced a bounty for us. For themselves too, of course. They aided the Whole in the long run, probably. Yes, definitely. And they relied on us to provide for them. We had to provide for them. We couldn’t be unjust! See, we all needed each other. And we worked in harmony. And it was beautiful. It was smooth and designed. They had their woes, of course. They grew hungry on occasion. And their children died sometimes. But sometimes they didn’t. Yes, they were longing most days. But they were never lonely: there were so many of them. The Quashie loved who they were in their own way, I think. Hell, probably more than we did. Intelligence only brings you to a fuller consciousness of your own desires and hopes. And if they’re never realized? Well then intelligence only shows you the intricacies and expanses of your unhappiness. When you cultivate intelligence, you learn your capacity for meaninglessness. I’m sure that’s true. So I guess that’s the price we had to pay. It was how we served them. Protected them. And so there was balance in the city. And with balance came a most perfect function.

And they had their sex. And their drugs. And a few of them had their gods.

Some were always destined to be Quashie. You could even say chosen. To be chosen? What a pleasant thought! I envy them a little.   

You may be wondering what to call the rest of us. You know, those who weren’t the Quashie. Such a silly notion! Why would we have a label? We were just people. We weren’t like the Quashie. We knew better.  

It all made sense. Sameness never has. Without relativity, how can we be fulfilled by anything? If we had all utilized Education Path, it would have been meaningless. If every parent took hours each week for reading with the young ones, who would take the Odd Shifts? If every citizen completed Education Path, who would take the Line 4 jobs? If every home kept books, what would books be worth? Without the Quashie, how would we know our place or our purpose? How could we know where we are? Without the Quashie, there is no value. That’s why we treasured them so dearly.

It was hard for them of course. But, it was needed. And it was good for them, too. It was easier living that way. Though, we were the ones with the porches and the fountains. Oh, the enchanting fountains with tiles like the moon. And as we lay in our gardens, the trickle of pure water loved us to sleep. And we knew beauty and light in its truest. And in those moments, It was everything. And the Quashie wanted It. And we knew then It was precious. If you could only have seen them! But the fountains were just fountains, too. The Quashie weren’t missing anything. They didn’t need It. They had their baskets. And they were beauty and light- I’m sure they were. They had something like It.

Charleston was the world then. And I could know every facet of her perfection. And the fullness of everything precious she had to seduce me with. And it was sweet. I hurt for the Quashie, of course. We did not forget their suffering. We tried to help them. We were not unjust.   

But this Charleston has never been. There are no Quashie. What a relief, of course.

But one can dream.    

The commons are a relevant topic to a discussion of Utopia, as they are a collective entity that can be shared by all. In Hardin’s perspective the commons, we see where a collective resource is depleted when certain individual’s seek to gratify their own utility, preference orderings and desires. The commons is relevant in multiple ways to modern discussions of political science and world views. The COP 21 conference for instance, a perfect example of the commons being taken advantage of in a damaging and terrifying way, yet the collective UN based conference is seeking to follow the footsteps of Kyoto and the UNFCCC to create a world that is more similar to a utopia than the dystopia realities of climate change without limits. Really when speaking of any realm of IR or IPE it is valid to consider the eco-wholist ideals of sustainable development that are seemingly Utopic in that they necessitate the education of desire element in order to be brought to any meaningful fruition. The individuals in charge of making the world better in terms of limited or sustained growth must envision in the imperfections of reality, a better more harmonious world order. I think it is bold for these men and women to step forward into a conference hall to think in terms of a distant future where universal fellowship and expanded consciousness allow for the formation of a more perfect world that is solved by the collective ordering of commons. Another example is the underwater commons. Between the fiberoptic cables of telecommunications and the pipelines there is a shared responsibility to protect these globalizing connections. While in no way this is representative of an idea utopia, in what way does our responsibility to common resources resemble an intentionally constructed community built on educating desire rather than squandering the resources of our planet?

These two stories are intended to provide opposing paths that the institution of the police could take in Charleston, though the implication is that they occur within the same timeline.  The first is dystopian, the second is utopian.

—————————————–

Woke up early again to light piercing through my blinds.  Not sure what the point was to getting up at the crack of dawn; the checkpoints are always there, have always been there as far as my memory serves.  Waking up to arrive early to the security checkpoint into the service sector is tantamount to waking up early to bang your head on a brick wall.  Somehow, whether I awake for work at 6:00 or 9:00, I will be arriving there at 9:15.  Perhaps they gained some mastery over time in the Expansion.

It is now 6:30 and I’m in the line to get to work.  At the front of the sprawl of civilians are four officers: they are decked out in black and blue tactical armor, and the visors of their helmets are blurry and distorting.  In the top right corner of their bulletproof vests are name-tags, but the names are blotted out like secrets in a government document.  There is no way to know who you are presenting your workforce papers to, but you do know the roles.  It is the Melian dialogue reduced to the individual level: the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

A tank rolls down King Street past the blockade and suddenly I feel like I’m in Tiananmen Square.  Up ahead there’s shouting.  We all shuffle backwards and avert our eyes from the confrontation, everyone aware of where it was headed.  Still, the faint echoes ricochet down the line and worm their way into my ear where they will doubtlessly remain through the night.  I can’t help but look, and I see a black man not much older than myself being dragged off, his papers scattered on the ground.  Probably some papers out of order.  They’ll shake him down if he complies and remove him if he doesn’t.  Though perhaps they thought he had some connection to the insurrection, though whether he was or wasn’t that would be what’s said on the nightly news.  They would loop the footage of his beating or shooting over and over and analyze every movement of self-defense he made as an act of aggression.  There are several each day – it occupies most of the news cycle.

It is now 9:15.  I hand over my papers to the nearest officer, who looks at me through his grimy and scratched visor.  I can make out pale flesh and that’s it.  When he tells me to move along, it’s in an artificially deepened voice, the pitch-shifter in his throat rendering his tone inhuman.  He jabs me with the end of his gun and I walk forward onto King just as the sky opens up.  I try to duck underneath the awnings of the restaurants as I make my way down the street.  At first there is nothing, but then there is a sudden wrench of anger in my gut.  A sense of resistance has hit me.  I pull out my cell phone and dial the numbers I’ve heard mythologized as deadlier than that of the Beast.  But that’s just what those rumors were, myth, propaganda to scare off anybody from getting through the bureaucracy who were supposed to keep the police leashed.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“Hi, I’d like to lodge a complaint of an incident I witnessed this morning passing through the checkpoint.”

The pleasantness of the reply struck me.  “Hold on one second, I’ll put you in touch with someone right away.”  Hold music played and my hand tensed on my phone.  This had been a terrible decision, what was I thinking?  But no, the music stopped and there was the click of someone picking up.  “Hello?” I said.

“We’re sorry, the number you have reached is no longer in service.  Thank you.”

Behind me I heard jackboots slapping on wet concrete, a wailing siren, and felt the tip of a rifle in the small of my back.

—————————————–

It was a quiet day on the job.  Brook was strolling through her neighborhood, a region of downtown Charleston tucked away in the middle of the peninsula.  The sidewalk was cracked and worn, but the neighborhood was vibrant and full of life, people on their way to class, the barbershop, King Street.  People waved to her or greeted her as she walked past, and she would smile and reply in kind.

Brook had been elected eight months prior to serve as the head officer for this district.  She was dressed casually, a dark blue polo shirt and some khaki pants.  The only marks to distinguish her from the populace were a badge pinned to her right sleeve and a pair of handcuffs fastened to her hip.  It was a stark contrast from the outfit of police decades prior, all black affairs coated in metal and plastic hoisting hefty military-grade weaponry; human faces buried beneath dehumanizing garb.  Stripping away the uniform had been one of the first steps in the institution of the new policing program of Charleston.  And it had been a good choice – even with the handcuffs, people saw the officers as part of just another occupation necessary to the function of the city, rather than an authority figure capable of brutalizing or abusing you at their whim without fear of repercussions.  Of course, it also helped that the officers had been chosen for the people, by the people.

Not everything was solved by the institution of the new program.  Some of the autonomous zones functioned well, but some of them were extraordinarily messy and had to be reabsorbed into the main program after only a short period of independence.  Similarly, South Carolina’s domestic violence problem, though thankfully on the downturn, was still notable, and Brook had seen some troubling scenes over the past few months.  But Brook would never know the awfulness of the old days; massive incarceration rates tied into a “War on Drugs” that pitted police and citizen against each other.  

She would probably never have to watch a video of a fellow officer, gunning down a citizen as he fled because he couldn’t afford child support or excessive municipal violations, a story that had been lost in the years of the police state but had resurfaced when the historians did some digging post-revolution.  Walter Scott had become an icon in the Charleston police force, a symbol of what the position must avoid lest they plunge back into the dark ages of the Expansion.  Brook was particularly troubled by the abuse of power and monopoly on legitimate violence held by the police of just a few decades prior – her mother used to tell her about how her father, Brook’s grandfather, was one of the last people to be executed by the State before its overthrow.  It had been what inspired Brook to be an officer – not to work out feelings of aggression or to live out a personal hero fantasy, but to redeem the title of “police officer” by treating people with dignity and respect.

No sooner had Brook stepped into her car, which was still marked as in the old days for practical purposes, than the radio crackled.  “Hey, we’ve got reports of a rumble getting worked up down on the next street over from where you’re at.  Think you could check it out?” She sighed.

“Sure, I can go de-escalate.  I’ll be right over there.”

For my long paper, I focused on a short story out of Brave New Worlds called “The Perfect Match” by Ken Liu. Basically, the story takes place in a futuristic society in which each individual is constantly accompanied by a technological presence known as “Tilly”. Tilly essentially monitors, records and interprets the actions and supposed needs of each individual, making regular suggestions that range from what to eat for breakfast, to who to date and for how long. While the concept is initially portrayed in the story as helpful, I think many of us would view this is as both creepy and invasive. It made me wonder what kind of innovative, “helpful” technology actually exists today that could be considered potentially  threatening to the privacy and independence of individuals.

I came across this article titled “10 Mind-Reading Tech Projects that might freak you out” (http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/323668/10-mind-reading-tech-projects-that-might-freak-you-out), and, needless to say, they all did. The first project introduced (and possibly one of the most unsettling) is Mind Sense, an initiative put forth by NASA and car company Jaguar “which will measure a driver’s brain waves to see if they’re alert enough to drive and then warn them if they’re not”. The researchers allege that this technology is not meant to read driver’s minds, but rather determine their level of focus and attention to surroundings. In other words, a car would be able to assess whether or not its driver is fit to drive. I do understand how this technology could be revolutionary in preventing auto accidents and, to that effect, saving lives – but at what cost? Initially, the program could be designed as a beeping alert reminding the driver to pay attention, but who is to say it wouldn’t escalate into someone not being able to start their car because their mind was focused on other things?

Modern technology is often viewed at some utopian solution to human fault, but I think there needs to exist a delicate balance between man and machine. Allowing technology to monitor or make decisions for us – even if it is in the name of safety – effectively reduces our free will. This, in my eyes, is more reflective of a dystopia.

The crumbling remains of a fortified sea wall rose out of the water in the distance, the remnants of a last ditch attempt to stop the ever rising waters of the Charleston harbor. Radius wasn’t supposed to be in this part of the city, since it had been abandoned very shortly after the crisis began. Once, he knew, this was where the rich elite lived. There had been palmetto trees and actual sidewalks made of old, uneven cobblestone. Once, tourists used to stroll down the streets to see the sights.
Not anymore, though, this whole area was condemned now. Dangerous, the council said. Not really any more dangerous than the rest of the city, in his opinion, but what could you do? There was no arguing with the council.
He cranked the throttle of the handmade engine attached to his old stand up paddle board and turned away from Broad Canal and headed back up towards the center of the city. As he went, the decaying houses, that must have once been beautiful, transitioned into the concrete blocks of the new “flood proof” buildings that now took over the old historic city. Each house was shaped like a box, including a flat roof to allow for outside leisure replacing what used to be called backyards. Once you got passed the uniformity, it was kind of beautiful. Every house had flourishing plants on the roof, in window boxes, and floating gardens. Bright blue barrels, made of recycled plastic, collected rain on the top of each roof. Collecting water was the only way to get clean water in the city. The light building with their bright adornments were a stark contrast with the brown, reeking water below.
Surprisingly, the odor coming from the contaminated water wasn’t as bad today. Maybe they were making strides over at the Filtration Plant. His grandfather told him that when the wall failed, all the harbor water rushed into the city, harbor water that had been polluted by an incessant parade of cruise ships and tankers for decades. And if that wasn’t bad enough, surrounding industrial and even a nuclear plant nearby was destroyed by the floods and the waste was carried downtown.
Factories and cruise ships weren’t an issue in Charleston today though. Surprisingly, the city had gotten its act together after being nearly destroyed twice- once when the floods began, and once when the wall failed. The people had turned roads into canals, sent their cars to a recycling center in mainland South Carolina, and gotten kayaks. Kayaks in every color- greens, blues, pinks, purples- kayaks made from the remains of old soda bottles and wasted plastic goods. “There’s no waste in nature,” Grandfather always said. Which was true enough, Radius supposed.
Speeding down King Canal, he quickly arrived at the Charleston Civic Center, which was where the council met and many of the adults in the city worked. There was the Recycling Center, back on mainland South Carolina, which employed a few Charleston residents, the Filtration Center, which churred the black water near what had once been Wentworth and East Bay St and the various farms and clean energy projects around the city. For some reason, the Charleston Civic Center was colloquially referred to as “C of C” but no one really remembered why- except Grandfather, in one of his rants, but Radius had stopped listening as years of living in a contaminated city had greatly impacted Grandfather’s brain.
As he passed the George Canal, Radius realized his mistake in traveling through the center of the city. It was Monday evening and the entire council, as well as politically ambitious students and active community members (which was most of the community) were gathered for the weekly city meeting. Every week the board, which was comprised of the 10 district leaders, met and discussed new issues, listened to citizen complaints and suggestions, and, last but not least, dealt with law breakers.
He quickly hopped onto a nearby dock, turned off his engine and flipped his board over. But it was too late. Reznor, head of the sanitation organization, had already heard the illegal rumbling of the motor and was paddling over. Without a word, he parked his kayak, grabbed Radius by the arm and hauled him into the atrium.
“Distinguished council members, pardon the interruption.” Reznor began, projecting his thin voice with all his might. Radius stared at the familiar surroundings- a half destroyed mural on the wall, rows and rows of seating and the raised platform on which the council was seated. Unfortunately for Radius, he was familiar with this building, and it wasn’t because he cherished an ambition to become a councilmember one day.
“Radius, Radius, Radius,” The Head of the Council, Apoch, sighed from his seat, shaking his head.
“Yes, council members, this young man has attached another motorized engine to his paddleboard. Which means he’s been stealing gas from the tank at the Recycling center, again.” Reznor inhaled, preparing to go on one of his long rants about the environment and what caused the flooding and the people who had come before but, thankfully, a councilmember cut him off.
“Assign him another public apology and let’s be done with it. There are more pressing matters at hand than one young man who doesn’t seem to understand his impact on the Earth.” This was Sona, the head of the Medicine district. She was in charge of the healers who tried to keep the danger of the chemicals at bay.
Apoch nodded, paused, looked at his fellow councilmembers to see if they had anything to add. When no one else spoke up, Apoch issued his decision. “At the next council meeting, Radius will deliver a public apology to the community and explain his bad decision making. And in preparation for that apology, he will spend this next week in my office with me.”
A whole week? In Apoch’s office? Radius groaned at that misfortune and left the council meeting. Screw Sona and her pressing matters, and screw Apoch and his stern punishment. He would have to paddle back to his home, to the north in the Recycling District, and tell his parents he was once again on the wrong side of the council.
~~~
After an excruciating first day of his punishment, where Radius spent a full twelve hours in Apoch’s office sitting and “reflecting,” Apoch planned an excursion. They hopped in a double kayak and paddled all the way to the east side of the city to the Filtration District. Radius had been told his whole life how pollution and poor waste management and the overuse of fossil fuels in earlier generations had doomed the city and had caused all the ills of his current society. But he had never been to the filtration plant. It smelled even worse than the rest of the city and was filled with workers in hazmat suits trying to filter the water, run experiments, and ultimately find a solution to the contamination.
Having never seen clean water except that which had fallen from the sky, Radius had never really understood what Charleston could be. But seeing the sludge, grime, and indistinguishable waste that was being sifted through the plant put things in perspective. Apoch and Radius went into the laboratory and listened as one of the workers described the newest idea for the city wide water decontamination project. Radius ignored him at first, tried to keep up his aloof persona, but soon found himself caught up in the excitement and dedication he could hear in the worker’s voice. These people were spending their whole lives trying to make Charleston beautiful, clean, and safe again. Radius had been told since childhood how dangerous the water was and how harmful the chemicals were…but seeing it was different and understanding the effort going into change was inspiring. The innocence of childhood was no longer an excuse and Radius realized he might have to start thinking about more than just himself.
~~~
Apoch was elected leader of the council because he was perceptive and practically evangelical in his environmentalism. Sona was elected to the council because of her technical ability. Together, they were the heart and the head of the city council, and so they decided for Radius’s last day working for Apoch, he would travel to the Healing Center. Apoch realized the perspective offered at the Recycling Center had gotten to his young charge, and he was hoping the Healing Center would have a similar impact.
Radius had spent the days in between his two trips in Apoch’s office, collecting citizen information and complaints. The residents of Charleston were not shy about making their opinion known, and the leaders of the community encouraged each citizen to be active and engaged with everything the council was doing. Thus, there were a lot of complaints to be dealt with. Funnily enough, Radius found that there was less tedium hearing about his fellow citizens lives than he expected. There were many challenges trying to live in a murky, underwater city but the resourceful citizens were finding solutions. Radius liked being a part, even a small part, of that process.
He was a little dismayed, however, when he learned he was going to the Healing Center. He did not like sick people-he spent enough time with his old crazy Grandfather as it was. Now we was going to spend a whole twelve hours following around some stuffy old healer and probably catching a cold. He’d much rather continue his work at C of C. But orders were orders, and this whole mess did come from his inability to follow community standards, so he woke up early on Sunday and paddled his way southwest towards the Medical buildings.
He was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by Nova, a twenty year old Healer-in-training. He was instantly much more excited to be following someone around all day. Nova was funny and smart but also dedicated to the community and willing to risk her own health to improve the lives of others.
Following Nova on her rounds demonstrated the horrible impact the flood has had on community members. There were many people sick with infections carried through the water, struggling with the minimal antibiotics the Medicine district was able to produce. The chemicals caused babies to be born small and sickly, and mothers to fight the infection which threatened their every step in the watery city.
Radius remembered, again, his Grandfather’s reminder: There is no waste in Nature. But at the Healing Center, there was so much waste. People were wasting away on the cots around him, and all he could do was try to ease their discomfort. Instead of contributing to the community, these folks would struggle to make it through the day. Some might recover and resume their lives as a part of Charleston, but others wouldn’t. Wasteful practices literally caused human death and near destruction- and his actions hadn’t done anything to alleviate it, and in fact, might have in their own small way, made the situation worse.
~~~

Radius woke up on Monday morning feeling tired but ready for his meeting with the council and the city. He had been up most of the night thinking about what he would say, knowing that it was going to be the last time he had to apologize to his community. He paddled his motorless SUP board down Rutledge Canal towards CofC, parked on the dock, and walked into the old theater packed with Charlestonians and the council, front and center.
“Council members and people of the community, I would like to formally apologize for undermining community efforts to improve our city. My actions were ignorant and selfish and I understand now what I did not before, and what the generations before the flood did not understand either. Although it was just one engine on one paddleboard, every action makes a difference. Charleston has proven that even in the most adverse conditions, we can thrive as a society, but only as long as we value community and find our place in the ecosystem. There is no waste in nature, and that fact has been made abundantly clear to me this past week. We have to work together so that we do not waste anymore of our precious resources, or our lives. I thank you for the opportunity to rejoin the community and will not make the mistake of indulging in wasteful practices again.”
Apoch smiled, and put his hand on Radius’s shoulder as the younger man left the stage and went to sit with the rest of his community. This time, he would stay to hear the rest of the pressing matters.

In an article I found called, The New Utopia: A Genderless Society, author Tim Wright tells about a grade school that practices gender-neutral, or gender-inclusive, environment in their classrooms. They practice this by doing things like avoid using words like boy or girl and instead use names like classroom camper, purple penguin, or other non-gender names. They let students choose at the beginning of the year what they would like to be called and encourage talks about gender neutral activities and roles that they may have experience outside of school. Study shows that “over 100 differences between the male brain and the female brain. Men and women are wired hormonally and chemically differently. These are not stereotypes. These are hard-wired differences that make males and females different (but equal). And those differences make for a far more creative world.”(Wright1). Wright believes that when we try to eliminate gender we only confuse the children and rob them of their uniqueness. “Life moves from vibrant colors to grey” (Wright1). He believes that we should protect the twenty percent of the population from bullying and segregation but thinks that changing the rest of the eighty percent isn’t the answer. He believes that this attempt at an Utopia is actually a dystopia because everyone else is being robbed of their uniqueness.

I disagree with Wright when he says that everyone else will be robbed or their uniqueness. I feel like if we can overcome racism, which we haven’t 100% but we are better than what we were, then we can learn to accept and work with transgender and others who choose not to go by a gender or choose not to have to follow the gender roles. I feel like this isn’t just an issue with trans genders it is also an issue for heterosexuals as well. Women who choose to join the workforce instead of being a house wife or men who choose to let their wife work while they stay at home with the children. The world isn’t what it was a hundred years ago and we should be more accepting to the changes that come with it.

The New Utopia: A Genderless Society?

I selected a TED Talk for this post because, well, it’s TED. And while the official title of this talk is “Rich Benjamin: My road through the whitest towns in America,” the concept he’s exploring is whitopia. The word “whitopia” is not subtle. The word blends white and utopia to form a concept Benjamin describes as a town that has three things: more than six percent population growth since 2000, ninety percent of that growth comes from white migrants, and an ineffable social charm, pleasant look and feel. From this point on, I’ll try and refrain from summarizing the points of the talk, since you have the ability to watch it above. Instead, this post will mostly consist of my initial responses and the questions that the talk aroused for me. In a sense, I don’t have a concise response or view of the talk. Rather, most of my response is in the form of questions. Hopefully you all—my critically thinking classmates—will be able to address or relate to some of them. One of my first responses was to pair the descriptions he gave of the communities with the idea or principles of utopia. I guess this is one of the questions we’re all dealing with: what exactly is a utopia? Where is the line drawn between a nice community and a utopia? Is there a line? Towards the end of the talk, Benjamin mentioned some things that whites (generally, I guess) flee: illegals, crowded neighborhoods, crowded schools, social welfare abuse, and so on. This struck me, and now I am wondering if this element of separation or fleeing is what makes whitopias more than nice communities. Are they not just places, but destinations, safe havens, “refuges” for those fleeing social problems? Can we regard these communities as utopias simply because by some measures—and according to some people—they are better than the surrounding areas? I really think this element of separation (or maybe relativity?) is what prompted Benjamin to use the word utopia at all—or maybe it just sounded catchy to him. Another thing I picked up on was that, unlike some of the utopias we’ve studied, these whitopias are not set up to necessarily create prosperity for their residents but rather to house the already prosperous. And yes, there are many definitions of prosperous; I won’t get into that here. But it struck me that these communities weren’t planned and designed to help a group of people reach prosperity and comfort but rather to provide a community for those already “there.” In these whitopias, is part of being “there” being white? Is that part of why they’re discriminatory? These questions came to my mind, and I think they’re somewhat resolved by Benjamin’s conclusion. Additionally, I thought the amount of focus Benjamin placed on leisure activities—an apparent characteristic of whitopia—was interesting. Lastly, I was intrigued by his interpretation of the meaning of his whitopia research. He said that generally these communities were not filled with racist people. Yet, these almost exclusively white communities do have a discriminatory effect. How can this be? Benjamin brought up the idea that whites coming into these communities often do not have racist reasons for moving but ultimately their migrations have racist outcomes. When I thought through this, it came to me that, generally speaking, most people want friendly, charming, safe communities that provide insulation from societal problems. Most (generalizing again) would move into such communities—“flee”—if they were able. So the question becomes who is able to flee. Because of the legacy of slavery and the institutionalized racism that have continued to hinder blacks in the United States, disproprionately less numbers of black Americans are able to flee to these nice communities—whether it be into the whitopias or blacktopias or somewhere in between. And so, while many whites are not intending to revitalize segregation with their actions, the outcomes are racist all the same. Now, this is not to say that some people in these white communities are not racist on an interpersonal level. And, I am sure there are many whitopias where blacks would and do feel unwelcome and unwanted. Some white people may truly leave their communities because of a minority presence. I’m not diminishing that at all. But, it was interesting for me to think through how these communities could be hypothetically “created” by non-racists and yet have such racist implications. In sum, it doesn’t make you racist to want to live in a community where people are friendly and the streets are charming. But the implications of your choices are more complex than we typically imagine. I think one of the take aways from Benjamin’s talk is that we simply need to be aware that our “good intentions” can have these types of outcomes. And, perhaps we can begin dreaming about how we can create a larger utopian society to eliminate some of the “need” for whitopia.

Last year I wrote a paper on Huxleys Brave New World and a correlation to Big Pharma in America.  I looked at how much of an influence prescription drug companies have on us. We take medicine for no reason at all sometimes.  Especially in college, students are prescribed Vyvanse and Ritalin when they don’t have an attention deficit disorder.  It is a little.ridiculous at this point.  Recently, the American Medical Association took a vote on banning televised drug advertisement.  This unfortunately will have no effect because congress is really the only entity that can make a ruling on that, but it brought to light the real effects it has on our society.

Big Pharma spends over 5 billion a year just on televised drug commercials.  They spend upwards of 10 billion a year on marketing in general.  The problem is it seems that we are trying to be put into a Utopia where everyone is happy and efficient.  I mean, if you are prescribed the right drugs like zoloft and aderall.  And these companies seem to be untouchable in their efforts to do so.

One of the main concerns the AMA has though is that it is also really affecting the people who need drugs.  Because of the marketing presence some of these companies have, they are more apt to sell “their” drug and it isn’t always the right choice.  Doctors find themselves writing prescriptions for medicine when there are obviously better alternatives out there.  There is a commercial I saw years ago for an anti-depressant called Celebrex.  It has a really catching song that swapped celebrate to Celebrex.  I still remember everything from that commercial. These ads effect us in many ways and in my utopia, I refuse to be drugged.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/11/19/american-medical-association-urges-ban-on-tv-drug-ads/?hpid=hp_no-name_morning-mix-story-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

As we all know, gun control is an enormous and highly controversial issue in American politics. As our country has experienced a tremendous amount of shootings the past few years, many are calling for stricter regulation of fire arms. The opposing side believes that stricter regulations will not increase safety but rather leave citizens unprotected.   Because of these extremely different point of views, it is truly unknown what the future holds for our country and gun control.

Because of this heated and frequent debate, I often find myself wondering if in  the perfect utopian society, or my idea of it, would I make guns available to everyone? Would I ban guns completely? What would be the best solution to this problem?

In my opinion, the perfect society would allow equal access to fire arms. You would have to be of a certain age, and pass a certain safety class. Additionally, I would make a semi-annual mental health evaluation mandatory. I would definitely have restrictions to the types of fire arms you could personally own. In my opinion, each and every citizen should have access to fire arms for their own protection and safety. I believe that if more of the “good” people carried, they would be able to prevent some of the “bad” or mentally disturbed people from doing terrible things. In a perfect or utopian society, I think it should be plausible to have citizens that can defend themselves and their families or peers from those that try to harm them. All in all, I think that some gun control is necessary but that fire arms should be available to all law abiding citizens.

I recently saw a New York Times article about the changing nature of apartment life for families in New York City today. The article pulls examples of families choosing to live in small apartments well below the family’s budget, purely because they have grown comfortable with their neighbors. These families have formed a community together where they share toys, clothes, meals, the responsibility of childcare, and leave their doors unlocked in New York City. This immediately reminded me of our discussion on intentional communities, and caused me to wonder about the intentionality of these communities.

Though the residents did not originally choose these apartments to form a community, that is essentially what has happened. As the families grew to trust one another, they basically formed a little utopia; reminiscent of the intentional communities we viewed in class. Where as many families move to the suburbs as their families grow, the families in this example reside in these less than ideal conditions for the sake of the community. One of the families in the article consists of five people who share one room, sleeping in bunk beds. Another family all share one half-bath. Though the families can afford larger housing, they prefer to sacrifice some of these little luxuries for the atmosphere they have created. The families have set up a meal trade-off system, and share in reprimanding and monitoring each other’s children. Even those without children have become members of this community, such as elderly neighbors that the article refers to as “surrogate grandparents.” In such a confined space, it seems it would be easy for conflict to occur, and for concerns about the lack of privacy to arrive. However, the article highlights several of examples of neighbors throughout the city who have made these sacrifices to benefit their children.

Coming from a large family, I personally could not imagine growing up sharing one room with my whole family, but it got me thinking about the sacrifices required to create a utopian community. I think The Dispossessed provides a great example of this “ambiguity” in utopias. It will be interesting to see how these communities change as the children grow up – perhaps they will find the space is too confined after all. However, for now it seems that these families are generally willing to tolerate sleeping in a bunk bed for the comfort of trusting the people next door.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/realestate/large-families-in-tiny-apartments-for-the-sake-of-the-kids-friendships.html?_r=0