As a musical movement that stemmed from youthful cynicism towards societal values and a contracting economy (as well as a disappointment and disgust with both the hippie movement and disco), punk rock would inevitably embrace dystopia as methods of musical storytelling and social critique. From its early days, punk was obsessed with death, the apocalypse, corrupt societies dominating and controlling the lives of ordinary people. The MC5, a populist rock band with a notable impact on early punk, was noted for association with the White Panthers, a Black Panther splinter group. The band espoused a ten-point plan that included “total assault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock’n’roll, dope, and fucking in the streets”, and would detail this vision further in the song “Motor City is Burning”.

As the genre developed, so did its sense of style when it came to utopian and dystopian critique. Seminal and highly political band The Clash loved the apocalypse as a lyrical topic. “London Calling” was a reaction to the Three Mile Island incident depicting a London on the verge of collapse due to human incompetence and cruelty; “Armagideon Time” was much the same. “Know Your Rights”, meanwhile, had a speaker who espoused the three rights of a fictional but all-too-real society: “1. You have the right not to be killed…unless it was done by a policeman or an aristocrat. 2. The right to food money as long as you don’t mind a little investigation, humiliation and rehabilitation. 3. The right to free speech, as long as you’re not dumb enough to actually try it. There are those who suggest that these are not enough – to these people we say, get off the street.”

The trend continued as the genre diversified. Devo, a band originating from Kent State students who had witnessed the 1970 National Guard shooting, built its mythos on the concept of “de-evolution”, or the regression of human society into more simple-minded creatures. Frequently sarcastic, their most unsubtle song is “Beautiful World”, which proclaims: “it’s a beautiful world we live in. For you.” The Talking Heads, a notable post-punk/art-punk band entrenched in the early scene, would detail an anti-utopian vision of total convenience and natural destruction on the song “Don’t Worry About the Government”, as David Byrne sings lyrics that read like he’s been indoctrinated, and a post-apocalyptic portrayal of perpetual war on “Life During Wartime”, where it is implied that Detroit, Houston, and Pittsburgh have been wiped out or seriously damaged in some way. A year later, the seminal dystopian punk band, the Dead Kennedys, would release their debut album.

The Dead Kennedys had a particularly satirical streak, and so wrote songs like “California Uber Alles”, depicting lyricist Jello Biafra’s nightmare world: an ultra-gentrified, cool and hip California run by then-hippie Jerry Brown. “Uncool nieces” and the like are escorted by the “suede-denim secret police”, a literal fashion police, into “organic poison gas” chambers. Elsewhere, the anti-utopian “Kill the Poor” describes the simplest method for doing away with poverty, crime and slums: neutron bombs, endorsed to the liberals by Jane Fonda. “I Am the Owl” on their second album is sung from the perspective of a Nixon-esque “Plumber”, spying on you in every capacity – even through the person you sleep with.

There are obviously many more bands with dystopian themes in their songs, and obviously all of these songs are open to interpretation as far as those themes go. But the capacity for music to depict societies and apocalypses in an effort to criticize current societal trends and values is a vast and important one, often untouched on in the same way as literature.

Usually when we think about the idea of “sex houses” we think of brothels, sex trafficking, and or prostitutes. Cooper’s writing looks at this particular “sex house” as a good thing, potentially a utopia. She talks about how this bath house is a place for women to find pleasure. Its main goal is to please all women of different sizes, gender, and color. The volunteers are provided with proper materials for safe sex procedures and are all told never to discriminate against a client whether they be trans, or a color other than white.

In a needs assessment survey that i found done by, the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality,  they did a study on bisexual and gay East and South East Asian males that live in Canada who visit bars and/or bath houses in Toronto. Asian AID/HIV cases among East and South East Asians in Canada had increased since 1998 from 1.8% to 3.2% in 2000. Many Asians who took the surveys admitted that they believed AIDS/HIV were Western diseases, therefore are 1.) not very educated on the matter and 2.) Feel like they are less likely to ever contract one of the diseases.  In the surveys given participants were asked mostly about their sexual history in these places, if they had ever been tested for HIV’s, and if they wear condoms. Then during the end participants where asked if they would like to be more educated on these diseases. Only 53% said they used condoms every time they participated in sexual activities in the bathhouses. 31% had never even been tested for HIV/AIDS. The goal of this study was to better understand the needs, behaviors, and characteristics of East and Southeast Asians who participate in these modern day utopias. They had a goal to better educate these people on AIDS/HIVS and the prevention outreach services that are provided withing the community.

I find both of these readings to be very eye opening. For one i never knew an Utopia like these existed. And i am very surprised it has been as accepted as much as it has been. But can this really be a Utopia?? No form of rules, no jobs, no real life activities that are required in today’s society? Is this meant to be just a temporary Utopia to escape from the real world? If so could modern day norms be changed to accept this type of Utopia??

Poon, M. K., Ho, P. T., & Wong, J. P. (2001). DEVELOPING A COMPREHENSIVE AIDS PREVENTION OUTREACH PROGRAM: A NEEDS ASSESSMENT SURVEY OF MSM OF EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIAN DECENT WHO VISIT BARS AND/OR BATH HOUSES IN TORONTO. Canadian Journal Of Human Sexuality, 10(1/2), 25.

In many respects the reading we have done thus far has given a misleading impression about the question of sex and utopia. Starting from the dystopian world of sex trafficking and internet porn from Oryx and Crake to the eugenicist breeding of Plato’s Republic we then moved to two texts, More’s Utopia and Bellamy’s Looking Backward, that are largely silent on sex (other than brief discussions of reproduction). But surely sexual intimacy is also a potential part of the “tissue of the everyday?” So is there a place here to think differently about sexual intimacy and to do so in a utopian way? Here I want to consider Cooper’s chapter on the Toronto bathhouse alongside this recent article in the Atlantic Monthly.

There are three ways to approach Cooper’s chapter: first as a description of the norms of the Toronto bathhouse; second as a “site of judgment” concerning the intent of the Bath House, and third as a way to work through the question of success or failure: insofar as Cooper is describing a site that both enacts something potentially utopian and critiques the society in which we live then how should we think about its impact on the world in which we live? These questions work parallel to Traister’s Atlantic article , which is asking a related question: when feminists focus exclusively on the issue of consensual sex does the idea of good sex fall by the wayside? And does that matter? It seems that Cooper’s chapter clearly answers the second question – clearly pleasure matters and it matters not just sensually but as a potential feature of human existence that is worth experiencing (if one so chooses). And Cooper’s chapter also explores one (potentially limited) response to the first question in terms of presenting a space for described “casual sex” that is supposed to be about “educating desire” (quite literally.

So while Cooper’s chapter uses an example that might seem more radical to readers, Traister’s article highlights why talking about sex after consent might be worthwhile.

The introduction to Davina Cooper’s Everyday Utopias provides an overview of the six utopias discussed in her book as well as the characteristics that make these alternative communities utopian. The author describes “everyday utopias” as “networks and spaces that perform regular daily life…in a radically different fashion.” The goal of these communities is to create a safe space where ideas can be shared with others. For example, at the Speaker’s Corner in London’s Hyde Park, “for over a century, people have come to orate, to gather in throngs to discuss current affairs, and to listen.” Places like the Speaker’s Corner are valid utopian institutions that serve as important ideological centers where society’s status quo is thrown out the window.

Cooper mentions the work of famous utopian scholar Ernst Bloch and builds upon his ideas of what it means to be a utopian society. One of Bloch’s important points is the difference between “abstract utopias” and “concrete utopias.” Cooper believes that everyday utopias fall more under the category of concrete utopias (planned utopias that are more plausible and have an achievable future goal) than abstract utopias (utopias that are unrealistic and difficult to carry out). Although everyday utopias share some of the same characteristics as Bloch’s abstract utopias, Cooper makes the argument that because everyday utopias break the assumption that anything outside of ‘normal’ is impossible,” these communities should be recognized as a kind of concrete utopia and not an impossible fantasy.

Angela Jones of the Sociology and Anthropology Department of Farmingdale State College noted that Cooper’s idea of everyday utopias goes against some the traditional idea that “utopia is what radical social change looks like.” Despite not appearing to cause monumental change, everyday utopias like those described by Cooper are effective in that they provide a place where “imagining of utopia is actualized in everyday practice.” Everyday utopias are practical and “show the process of moving from imagination to actualization.”

Jones also highlighted the importance of Cooper’s idea that everyday utopias are not static, but a fluid process that promotes utopian values. Although many everyday utopias do not fit perfectly into the box of what is traditionally thought of as utopian, they are still valuable and are far greater than the abstract utopias Bloch deemed as inefficient and simple fantasy.

Work Cited:

Angela Jones (2015). Review of ‘Everyday Utopias: The Conceptual Life of Promising Spaces’ International Journal of Law in Context, 11, pp 213-216. doi:10.1017/S1744552315000014.

Cooper, Davina. Everyday Utopias: The Conceptual Life of Promising Spaces. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

As discussed in class, how can we define success versus failure in the case of intentional communities? Most often in the Utopian rhetoric, success is directly correlated with the longevity of the community. However, success can also be measured by the community’s ability to maintain the ideas and beliefs that it sought to uphold. Further, how is the failure of an intentional community defined? If it is the destruction or desertion of an intentional community, what can be learned from the cause of its decline?

The Catholic Worker farm experiment promotes the Catholic ideals of environmentalism and charity in conjunction with one another. Created during the Depression era, the purpose of the experiment was to provide jobs and a sustainable food source, as well as offering adult education, a life away from cities, and better working conditions. The first farms were established outside of New York City, and welcomed families, the unemployed, recovering alcoholics, and those seeking a retreat. Several historians have declared the Catholic Worker farm experiment to be a failure, especially in response to its highly varied nature, even going so far as to describing it as a “virtually unmitigated disaster”, while others have deemed it a great success.

A scholar of intentional community in New Zealand described three types of failure – character failure, failure of the land, and economical/contextual failure. Catholic Work farms have failed due to all three. This has included the lack of practical leadership, poor farmland choice, and the onset of World War II during the initial years of formation. All of these failures have been a lesson, however, and the Catholic Work farms have sustained and improved. While some of these farms have simply failed and ended, others have adapted. These farms have existed since 1933 – moving away from drawing from urban centers to include rural inhabitants, adopting new environmental practices, and generally keeping up with the times.

In the typical vision of a radically better utopia, it seems counterproductive to consider failures. While it is still up to debate whether the Catholic Work farms can be qualified as a success, it is no small feat that more than 200 of these communities now exist. Perhaps the changes in the initial nature of the project mean that the original idea was a failure. However, perhaps the adaptability is the very quality that has made it successful.

Stock, Paul V. “The Perennial Nature Of The Catholic Worker Farms: A Reconsideration Of Failure.” Rural Sociology79.2 (2014): 143-173. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Oct. 2015.

The simplest definition I found for an intentional community was on Wikipedia, which described it as, “a planed residential community designed from the start to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork.  The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, or spiritual vision and often follow an alternative lifestyle.” Different types of intentional communities include ecovillages, co-housing communities, communes, co-ops, and religious communities.  I decided to focus on ecovillages and co-ops since they were very different and provided two distinct sides of intentional communities.

On the database, Fellowship for Intentional Communities, I found an ecovillage in Georgia called Enota Mountain Retreat.  Here’s the link to their page: http://www.ic.org/directory/enota-mountain-village/ It is a community that is dedicated to sustainable living but also follows strict moral codes and requires like-minded individuals.

Another community I found was a co-op in Madison, Wisconsin and it included a large Vista with about 30 families living there.  Here’s the link: http://www.ic.org/directory/ambrosia-cooperative-house/ They are environmentally conscious but focus more on community and communal living.

Although there are many different kinds of ecovillages and co-ops I thought these were interesting to look ate because of their difference in location.  An article from the Journal, Geografiska Annaler Series B: Human Geography, Transgressing Urban Utopanism: Autonomy and Active Desire, discusses different biases concerning urban and rural utopias.  The author, Rhiannon Firth, argues that too many utopists have the opinion that future utopias will be urban, and that it is the preferred and more evolved option. However, rural and agricultural utopias are essential when considering food production and the end of non-renewable resources. As we discussed concerning Bellamy’s utopia, it is strange that utopias who focus on urban spaces tend to not address rural areas.  Raw materials must come from somewhere and food production must happen somewhere, so wouldn’t a logical utopia have a cohesive system that connected a society directly to it’s inputs and outputs?

A larger point made by Firth is that there are many different kinds of Intentional Communities that have formed for many different reasons, and that by resisting society in one way or another they are a form of utopias.  For example, the co-op in Madison along with other urban communities I looked at lived on the grid and provided alternative short term or long term living to pretty much anyone.  In contrast, I looked at many off the grid, or at least only a little bit on the grid, communities that wholly lived off the land and have essentially made themselves autonomous.  Both communities have, in one way or another, established an alternative lifestyle that has made them autonomous from at least one part of the system, an important part of utopia according to the author.  Looking at intentional communities as utopias is a very interesting exercise.  We tend to think of utopia as futuristic, but maybe some form of a utopia is occurring in intentional communities all around the world.

Firth, Rhianon. “Transgressing Urban Utopianism: Automany and Active Desire.”
Geografiska Annaler Series B: Human Geography 94, no. 2 (June 2012):
89-106.

To begin the discussion on intentional communities, I thought it would be practical to provide a definition from a scholarly source: “There are, however, a small and fascinating collection of cohabiting groups around the country which could be described as Intentional Communities. This is an umbrella term which encompasses ecovillages, co-housing communities, residential land trusts, and alternative cooperative living, and suggests that participants share an intention or common vision” (Kleiner, 68). Furthermore, there is a wide array of intentional community types and functions that is vital to keep in mind: “There are many variables, such as the core reasons for bringing people together, the allotment of land, individual or shared food production, community facilities, the level of interaction between members, and measures for dealing with conflict and the wellbeing of members” (68).

With this background knowledge in mind, one can begin to conceptualize types of intentional communities and the challenges that come along with forming one. As Kleiner notes, there are a variety of legal obstacles to forming an intentional community, noting that most of them exist in New South Wales in Australia, in which participants much jump through hoops to secure legal and financial grounding for the community (69). Furthermore, as Kleiner notes, one interesting characteristic of intentional communities is that “Most of the communities that [she] visited prefer keeping mainly to themselves, treating their home as a sacred haven with an occasional open day or special event. A few are keen to reach out to the wider community by providing regular public events or learning programs” (70).

Using Kleiner as a source of background knowledge, I wanted to apply the ideals she highlighted in a more abstract sense by drawing comparisons between Japan and intentional communities; for my final paper, I would like to try and address Japanese perfectionism and exclusion as characteristic of intentional communities. Before doing any further research, it is interesting that already Japan demonstrates nearly all of the qualities of an intentional community: isolation and shared intention/vision are two of the strongest.

Interestingly, when typed simply into the search bar “Japan intentional community,” a periodical showed up analyzing a Japanese intentional community: for the purpose of this blog post, I will provide information on this particular intentional community to serve as a springboard for later research. The agricultural based intentional community is called Toyosato and follows Yamagashi teachings, thus are known as jikkenji, roughly translating to ‘demonstration communities for the world’ (Callenbach 43). There are a variety of these types of communities and have existed in Japan for some time (43). Daily life is categorized as “comfortable,” and Callenbach makes a point to note that unlike much of Japanese culture and language, there are no distinctions in social class, thus making Toyosato and similar communities quite different from traditional and contemporary Japan (45). Callenbach also confirms that Toyosato qualifies as an Ecotopia to a certain extent as they are focused on efficiency in production and ecological factors (47).

It will be quite interesting to study intentional communities in comparison to their respective home cultures; in other words, the values of an intentional community in Japan could in fact run quite contrary to values in another intentional community depending on national norms; however, this is yet to be seen.

Bibliography

Callenbach, Ernest. “ECOTOPIA” IN JAPAN? (Cover Story).” Communities 132 (2006): 42-49. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.

KLEINER, E. (2014). Sharing a Vision: Intentional Communities in Australia. Social Alternatives, 33(2), 68-72.

While there are many interesting aspects to Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, a fixation on the books description of the specifics of utopian Boston in the year 2000, ignores the centrality of Boston itself to the story. This issue is touched on in an article from Utopian Studies by John R. Mullin entitled “Edward Bellamy’s Ambivalence: Can Utopia Be Urban?” While the article compares the urban utopia of Looking Backward, to the alternative vision of a rural paradise Bellamy constructs in his follow up novel Equality, what is of particular importance to me is Mullin’s conclusion that Looking Backward depicts a “distinctly urban utopia” (Mullin 56).

Through chapter 22, Bellamy has scarcely mentioned the countryside at all.  While he does briefly discuss the comparative inefficiency of village shopping to urban shopping, beyond this the rural world is entirely absent from Looking Backward.  As Mullin notes this emphasis on the urban was probably at least partially due to Bellamy’s own background and interest in urban reform ideas (52).  That said, it is also clear that he “sees the city as the central focus of his new society” (52).

The concentration of capital and creation of an industrial army, both speak to a desire to enhance modes of production most commonly associated with city life.  Though the endgame of Bellamy’s utopian vision is a world with economic parity and equal opportunity, his choice method for achieving these goals almost seems more important than the goals themselves.  In other words, Bellamy’s emphasis on centralization as the means of reforming society overtakes the normative values he is advocating for.

More to the point, this focus on scaling up, suggests to me an extreme urban bias.  For Bellamy in Looking Backward, bigger is not only better, it is the only way.  Given this, the only form of organizing people in a geographic space is one in which there is a large enough population to fuel the industrial productivity that makes a society great in Bellamy’s eyes.  As a reader, this focus on the urban and absence of the rural leaves me wondering whether or not Bellamy viewed the countryside as incompatible with his utopian vision or if he just saw it as an irrelevancy that would be swept away by the rising tide of progress.

Mullin, John R. “Edward Bellamy’s Ambivalence: Can Utopia Be Urban?” Utopian Studies. Vol. 11, No. 1 (2000): 51-65. Web.

In the complete absence of any individualism in Mores Utopia, the one freedom these citizens have is what they decide to worship. When I mean freedom, they get to choose who dictates what happens in the universe, but citizens “must” choose a realign.  Atheism is for the birds in this fictional society that More has made.  Not believing in anything is frowned upon in a correlating fashion to the Catholic church in the time More writes this.  In Mores Utopia, they believe that forcing a religion on someone has extremely negative effects.  There is more that meets the eye when looking into why religion is one of the only freedom they have.  “He Supposed that if one religion is really true and the rest are false, the true one will sooner or later prevail by its own natural strength” (More 98).  So by giving his people the choice to choose allows them to have a freedom of expression. And if its end game allows for one universal religion to be used, its a win win for Utopia.

Sanford Kessler explains in his essay Religious freedom in Thomas More’s Utopia that More actually didn’t agree with most of the things he wrote about in Utopia.  He states that Thomas More was a huge supporter of the Catholic Church. “More, however, rejected religious freedom for the Catholic Europe where Revelation anchors orthodoxy and heresy threatens the integrate of legitimate regimes” (Kessler 211). This is why King Utopis punishes people who do not believe in any type of religion.  In a way, Mores description of how King Utopis rules is a form of propaganda at the time he wrote this.   If you look back to Roman times, Virgil wrote the book The Aeneid for Augustus.  Virgil was on a trip with Augustus at the time of his death and the book was never finished by Virgil. He told Caeser that if he died to burn the book.  Augustus didn’t burn the book, finished it, and it became a huge  historical piece of propaganda.   Religious freedom is a huge thing in our society.  The ability to practice ones own personal religion is of the upmost importance.  Also, wars over religion have been happening forever and it will be interesting to see if there will ever be a universal religion later on in our lives.  Whether it be forced by war or by process of elimination.

Work Cited

Kessler, Sanford. “Religious Freedom in Thomas More’s Utopia.” ROP The Review of Politics 64.02 (2002): 207-29. JSTOR [JSTOR]. Web. 4 Oct. 2015.

More, Thomas, George M. Logan, and Robert M. Adams. Thomas More: Utopia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. Print.

Thomas More’s Utopia hinges much of its ideal society on the abolition of private property. Utopians do not own the land on which they live and work, instead serving as “cultivators…by citizens who come in succession to live there [farmland]” (More 59). The idea that “ownership” contributes to division and social conflict can be traced throughout history, starting with Plato’s Republic and continuing to the modern era with the advent of Marxism and other socialist ideologies. Stephanie Elsky, in her piece “Common Law and the Commonplace in Thomas More’s Utopia,” notes one important result of the non-existence of private property in Utopia, namely the absence of laws. She writes: “The function of the law is to protect private property…by contrast in a land with no private property, laws are almost superfluous and customs take their place” (Elsky 193). In the absence of law, customs govern daily life. These customs serve to unite the community into one body, doing away with the distinctions made by law and the divisions made by private property. However, the abolition of law and reliance of custom does not imply that Utopia is a democratic society that values the freedom of its inhabitants. In fact, Utopia is extremely repressive of its citizens, doing away with any form of individualism and self-expression (More 59). This transformation of society into one totalitarian body has been compared by some scholars to Maoist China and other forms of the absolutist state (Elsky 199). This brings us back to original question of the role of private property in society. While private property may indeed cause conflict, is the abolition of this conflict worth the cost of doing away with social liberty? This is a question that must be debated and subsequently answered by political philosophers in search of a “better world.”

Works Cited:

Elsky, Stephanie. “Common Law and the Commonplace in Thomas More’s Utopia.” English Literary Renaissance 43.2 (2013): 181-210. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 Oct. 2015.

More, Thomas. Utopia. Broadview Press: Toronto, 2010. Print.