The Forgotten Utopias of the 20th Century

In his original study titled “Dreams of Peace and Freedom: Utopian Movements in the 20th Century (Yale University Press, 272 pages, $28), Jay Winter seeks to provide “glimpses into the visionary temperament,” or “imaginings of liberation on a smaller scale.” He writes: “The overall argument of this book is that the twentieth century is filled with moments of possibility, when groups of people rejected the logic of inertia and began to believe in the transformation of the world in which they lived.”Mr. Winter is concerned that the concept of utopia has become contaminated and discredited “through [its] association with the great murderers of the twentieth century. Hitler and Stalin wanted to transform the world and murdered millions in the effort.” He wishes to rehabilitate utopian longings and the associated idealistic impulses by finding more moderate utopian visions which had no disastrous consequences.The “episodes” or “visions” examined are supposed to represent a middle ground between such disastrous attempts at large-scale utopian social-engineering and the attendant disillusionment with all aspirations that seek alternative social arrangements and to “stretch our sense of the possible.” Mr. Winter designates the moderate utopian visions that seek only “partial transformations” as “minor utopias” and offers six case studies of such “episodes,” or “visions,” in recent times. The thrust of his study is somewhat weakened by the incongruous character of the “minor utopias” here assembled: fairs, declarations, movements, theories — barely comparable entities, except for representing a variety of unfocused good intentions.In the first group are “visions of peace” which include the so-called “Archive of the Planet” a little known, huge French collection of photographs taken at the beginning of the 20th century illustrating affinities between countries and cultures ostensibly hostile to one another. The other two such “visions” include the 1900 world fair in Paris, which was supposed to demonstrate the global triumph and humanizing influence of European technology and commerce, and the ideals put forward by the socialist Second International, whose congress of 1900 also took place in Paris.The second case study is the Paris Peace Conference in 1919; the third one, another fair in Paris in 1937, its central theme “the symbiosis of art and technology.”The fourth “minor utopia” was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The fifth series of these visions emerged in the 1960s: Liberation Theology, the Western student movements of 1968 and “the Prague Spring” pursuing “socialism with a human face.” Finally there are the ideals of “global citizenship” of the most recent times. The “global citizens” are supposedly “emerging out of ‘an array of transnational social forces animated by environmental concerns, human rights, hostility to patriarchy, and a vision of human community based on the unity of diverse cultures …'”Mr. Winter certainly makes a good case for the persistence of “the utopian temperament” displayed by peoplewith an initial ideal, a commitment to a mission … Utopians are those who commit, and then hit a brick wall. What distinguishes them from others is that they then get up and … do not turn cynical or passive but manage to take a leap in the dark and despite all, they dream dreams which reconfigure their initial commitment in new imaginative forms.This is a problematic definition that does not differentiate between the minor and major utopians. Arguably “major utopians” may also take “a leap in the dark,” renewing their efforts but with dire consequences. In turn some of the supposedly minor utopians discussed — such as those in the Western student-protest movements of the 1960s — were far from satisfied with programs of “partial transformation”; their goals were hardly moderate: eliminating the difference between the personal and political realm, creating universal sexual bliss, removing every kind of repression, creating equality of condition among all nations, ethnic groups, and individuals. They considered themselves revolutionaries, not people interested in “minor utopias”or incremental change.This failure to properly differentiate between minor and major utopias and their representatives leads to an uncritical attitude toward the “minor utopians” of the 1960s. While it is true that many of these Western students and intellectuals had a largely playful (as well as hedonistic and self-indulgent) disposition, their alleged anti-authoritarianism was selective and inconsistent. The protesters who rejected the authority of parents, professors, and academic deans (and that of Western politicians) admired Castro, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, and later the Sandinistas of Nicaragua. They were supportive of highly regimented communist dictatorships in the third world and perceived them as more authentic and revolutionary than Soviet communism. They also displayed a far from playful streak of intolerance and capacity to demonize those designated as the forces of evil and repression.Also questionable is the conflation of the 1968 Prague Spring and the Western student protests of the same period. The former emerged as a protest against very clearly defined, tangible political repression and demanded basic democratic and human rights such as the Western protesters took for granted or dismissed as meaningless. The aspirations of those who rejected the communist regimes in Eastern Europe were quite unlike the angst, alienation, and utopianism which motivated the young protesters of the 1960s in the West moved by an elusive pursuit of meaning and self-fulfillment as much as they were by the war in Vietnam, racism, and other social injustices.Although well aware of the failures of both the major and minor utopias, Mr. Winter is drawn to those who “imagine a radically better world.” He does not dispute that the minor utopias had also failed but refrains from asking why this has been the case and what the minor and major utopias might have had in common that was conducive to these failures. For example, outlawing war was among the goals of the minor utopians, but the major utopians of the Left too fantasized about “the withering away”of the state and the end of all conflicts between nation states after the proletars of the world united. It is certainly true, as the author argues, that defeat and disillusionment did not prevent the recurrence of utopian impulses and visions. But such recurrence does not mean that the minor utopias are necessarily more realizable than the major ones — if indeed a clear distinction can be made between them as far as human intentions and impulses are concerned.The desire to “stretch our sense of the possible” is common to both the minor and major utopias and can easily become the basis of increasingly coercive utopian designs.The attempt to recall and rehabilitate more moderate utopian projects which reflect the human desire for better social arrangements is not a waste of time, but the undertaking is incomplete unless some thought is given to the failures of both kinds of utopias. Mr. Winter does not explain why the minor utopias too had failed and does not entertain the possibility that minor and major utopias shared attributes that interfered with their realizations.Mr. Hollander is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and author, among other books, of “Political Pilgrims.” His “The End of Commitment: Revolutionaries, Intellectuals and Political Morality” and “From the Gulag to the Killing Fields” were both published this year.

The Forgotten Utopias of the 20th Century

The Forgotten Utopias of the 20th Century

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