(en) Britain, AFED Organise! #81 - Beyond Perfection: - What we can learn from science fiction anarchist utopias

One of the major criticisms levelled at anarchism as a political philosophy is that it is 
utopian. Many would argue that this is a misunderstanding of anarchism, that the basis for 
an anarchist society does not rely on naivety, impracticality or a simplistic and overly 
positive view of humanity. I want to argue that this is a misunderstanding of utopianism. 
Of course anarchism is utopian. Anybody who thinks their own ideology is not utopian 
either hasn?t thought it through properly or, for some reason, wants to live in a society 
that?s doomed to inequality, misery and eventual self-destruction. And anybody who thinks 
utopianism is simplistic, impractical or naive clearly hasn?t read enough utopian fiction. 
There are a plethora of distant worlds that can boast anarchist societies as complex, as 
pragmatic, as inspired and inspiring, as troubled and as troubling as any historical or 
contemporary earth-bound revolution, and they all have utopian characteristics.

Then again, those critics may have a
point when it comes to some of the
19th Century utopias (e.g. William
Morris? News from Nowhere, H.G.
Wells? A Modern Utopia, Edward
Bellamy?s Looking Backward), but
as a science fiction reader I have a
greater criticism to level against these
than their naivety or even their comi-
cally dire gender politics: they?re
really dull stories. Which isn?t to
say they aren?t interesting utopias.
As portraits of the utopian ideals of
anarchists and socialists of the time,
they?re a fascinating insight, and
there?s plenty that?s still relevant in
their lengthy and technical explana-
tions of the organisation of labour
and property. But in terms of plot,
character and a sense of place with
more depth and veracity than the
stage set for a school pantomime,
they pretty much fail. Take News
from Nowhere, the most anarchist of
these early utopias: it?s a guided tour
of a pre-industrial pastoral idyll, with
no nations or borders, no heavy in-
dustry or money, all produce shared
freely, all objects beautiful and
practical works of artisanship, where
the words ?work? and ?play? mean
much the same thing. Fair enough,
as holiday brochures go. I?m sold on
the week?s stay, but if I?m looking to
take up residence in a utopia I gener-
ally want to dig a bit deeper and cast
a more cynical eye. I might ask ques-
tions like: ?What happens if the har-
vest fails??, ?What if a natural disaster
requires the speedy need for mass-
produced tools and shelters?? and
?If child-rearing and home-making
are such highly respected, reward-
ing professions, haven?t any of these
sexually free and socially emancipat-
ed women ever wondered why there
aren?t any men doing them?? There?s
something about those unflappably
amiable, instant responses the tour
guide has to all the protagonist?s
questions that suggests a script, or at
least a party line, recited by rote and
possibly under threat. You want the
protagonist to, just once, say some-
thing like: ?I don?t buy it, beardy. It?s
too perfect, and the ?work is play?
crap sounds distinctly Orwellian to
me. Put down the exquisitely carved
pipe and tell me where they?re hiding
the gulags.?

This might be a little unfair. News
from Nowhere was written to explain
how an anarchist society can be pro-
ductive and stable in the conditions
of the time and place it was written,
not to explore its responses when
faced with environmental crisis or
massive social change. But you?ve
got to admit, answering those ques-
tions would make it a much more
interesting novel. The utopias that
really capture our imaginations are
those that are less concerned with
the solutions an anarchist society
can offer than the problems it might
face.

If you?re wondering whether a story
exploring problems within an anar-
chist society is really a utopia, let?s
do definitions. The word ?Utopia?,
coined by Thomas More, comes
from a pun on the Greek for ?no
place? and ?good place?. So really,
the essential qualities of a utopia are
just that there?s something desir-
able about the society, and that it
doesn?t exist. Anybody who thinks
that establishing a better society will
instantly bring blissful contentment
to all is destined to spend the revolu-
tion forcibly re-educating dissenters
(and until then, they?ll probably be
selling you The Socialist Worker). A
utopia doesn?t have to be a flawless
place, where day to day problems
are entirely eliminated. It?s about
demonstrating an alternative and
preferable way of living. You can do
that with a guided tour of a perfect
society, but it?s more interesting
and more persuasive to show how
that society deals with imperfection
and conflict, both from within and
without.

Iain M. Banks sets his Culture novels
in a context that gives his advanced
anarchist society something to kick
against, namely a universe full of
distinctly less utopian societies. The
Culture is post-scarcity, high-tech,
wish-fulfilment utopianism at its
most decadent. Resources are near
infinite, labour is unnecessary, and
infallible sentient computers (the
Minds) with a wry sense of humour
and impeccable ethical judgement
ensure the smooth running of all en-
vironments. The enhanced human-
oid residents of The Culture?s many
worlds have nothing to fill their
near-immortal existences except
for games, sex, drugs, the pursuit of
intellectual and creative fulfilment,
and interference in the development
of other societies. This last is the job
of an organisation known as Contact,
a popular career choice with those
who remain strangely unsatisfied by
the literally limitless opportunities
The Culture has to offer, and take to
the stars to see and ultimately save
less fortunate worlds. These are
the most interesting characters, as
their stories tell us most about The
Culture itself, and about our own
ambivalence towards utopianism.
We fear and mistrust perfection even
as we strive for it, because it will ulti-
mately leave us with nothing to strive
for, no jeopardy to brave, no cause
to defend, no meaning to our exist-
ence. The Culture, like Nowhere, is
a static society, but unlike Morris?
utopia it isn?t merely holding itself
in place with a distaste for further
development, it has reached the peak
of its possibilities ? of all possibili-
ties ? and has nowhere to go. This is
the problem that leads to the restless-
ness of those who join Contact, and
who then struggle with the ethical
dilemma of what they do, of whether
the worlds they visit even want to be
saved, of whether they are, in fact,
saving them or dooming them to
their own state of existential stasis. It
would all be quite angsty if it weren?t
for the humour of the Minds, who
inhabit armed spaceships that can be
as large as planets and give them-
selves names like Prosthetic Con-
science, Of Course I Still Love You,
You?ll Thank Me Later, Jaundiced
Outlook, Frank Exchange Of Views,
Honest Mistake, Zero Gravitas and
God Told Me To Do It.

Don?t be fooled by the presence of
warships and conflict into thinking
this is a trick utopia. There are no
false walls here, and the Minds are
not secretly megalomaniacal control-
lers who keep humanity enslaved in
luxury for their own ends. They are,
themselves, complex and sympathet-
ic (if somewhat ineffable) characters,
as caught up in the ethical dilem-
mas of utopian life as their human
companions. While some of them
can be manipulative, they seem to be
genuinely trying not to be, though
they?re so much more intelligent and
aware of action and consequence
than their organic friends they can
hardly help it. The point of this anar-
chist utopia is not that there?s some
ignored power relation at work that
compromises its integrity, or even
that you can have too much of a good
thing. It?s a more subtle and complex
message about inertia and entropy,
of the nature of power and privilege,
and the need for change and devel-
opment, personal and societal, even
in the face of seeming perfection.

At the other end of the scale is
Anarres, a scarcity society set on
a near-desert moon in Ursula Le
Guin?s universe of the Ekumen. It
is most fully explored in The Dis-
possessed, which is subtitled ?An
Ambiguous Utopia?. Anarres is
neither the simple idyll of Morris?
Nowhere nor the paradise of Banks?
Culture. An isolated community,
self-exiled from its capitalist neigh-
bour Urras, the Anarresti have built
their utopia in far from ideal condi-
tions. This anarchist society suf-
fers famines, labour shortages and
social upheavals, and has plenty of
technological development still to
strive for. Because we see Shevek
both growing up on Anarres and
explaining his homeworld to those
he meets on Urras, there are some
good, clear demonstrations of how
labour, property, security, family and
institutional decision-making work
in a world without money or leaders.

There are easy parallels to draw with
our own world?s revolutions and the
founding of Anarres, which reflects
the society many Russian revolution-
aries envisaged, and might have built
if they weren?t trapped in the context
of a capitalist economy. Even the
language and names sound a little
bit Russian. It?s a great utopia for
showing how anarchism can build a
society as stable as any other system,
but also how isolation and ideologi-
cal orthodoxy breed stagnation, and
the importance of revolution as a
social value, not a one-off event or a
means to an end.

For all these reasons, The Dispos-
sessed tends to be the go-to utopian
novel for anarchists trying to explain
to the cynical how a society without
money or authority could actually
work. We see a society in which
children are taught from the earliest
age that they can?t keep possessions
to themselves (though there?s little
for them to keep) but are free to do
as they choose (and there?s much for
them to do.) They learn together
through play and discussion, and
education continues into adulthood
through self-directed research. Work
is not compulsory and resources are
not rationed, but contribution to the
community and distaste for excessive
consumption are strong social values.
Personal freedom and social duty
exist in a balance that is, for the most
part, healthy, rational and fulfilling,
but this can change with a bad har-
vest. The story follows Shevek?s ca-
reer as a physicist whose momentous
discovery could affect all the known
worlds of the Ekumen. His desire to
follow anarchist principles, to avoid
propertarianism and unbuild walls,
leads him to Urras, which looks a lot
like contemporary western democ-
racy (except for those countries that
look a lot like contemporary state
communism). On Anarres, Shevek
battles environmental and social
upheavals, informal power structures
and the appropriation and censor-
ship of ideas, and yet the anarchist
society still manages to come out
favourably in comparison with Ur-
ras, in which the power structures
are even less clear to Shevek, and a
great deal more dangerous. Protest
and defiance of convention meets
with violence on both worlds, but
ultimately both have the possibility
of revolution, of growth and change,
and hope for the future.

Nobody does alternative societies
better than Le Guin, and she has
created a few besides Anarres that
could be viewed as ambiguously
anarchist, and more ambiguously
utopian. They tend to get less atten-
tion than Anarres, probably because
they?re less useful for anarchists hav-
ing arguments. They?re interesting,
though, for more subtle discussions
of anarchist society and utopianism,
ones that explore not the society
that anarchists would necessarily
wish to build but the many varieties
of anarchist society that are possi-
ble, the many ways in which human
societies could reject hierarchy. One
of the most acclaimed is Always
Coming Home, but though there is
no particular hierarchy of individu-
als in the societies of the Kesh, there
are a great many customs that dictate
social status of various kinds, and
the reliance on the spiritual and the
rejection of technology (aside from
some sort of internet that they don?t
use much) sends it into a static state.
In this way it would resemble News
from Nowhere if it weren?t for its
much more sophisticated investiga-
tion of cultural differences and in-
teractions, and its acknowledgement
of various forms of conflict, both
personal and societal.

More unusual, and less frequently
explored, is the world of Eleven-Soro
in the short story Solitude, a world
in which a post-cataclysm society
has developed social arrangements
that go to extreme lengths to guard
against the mistakes of the past. Any
exercise of power by one person
over another is taboo, referred to as
?magic?. This includes any attempt to
manipulate another?s behaviour, to
make them feel guilty or duty-bound
to follow a course of action for
another?s sake. The men live alone
and the women in circles of houses
known as ?auntrings?, where they
educate each other?s children but do
not enter one another?s homes and
rarely speak to other adult women
without good cause, in what seems to
be the ultimate expression of anar-
chist individualism. Nobody asks for
or offers help with any task, though
women are watchful of one another?s
health, send their children with food
to the sick and assist each other in
childbirth. Only children can ask
questions or be taught anything.
No adult tells another what to do,
or even offers advice except in the
most roundabout of ways and the
direst of circumstances. Looked at
as a society, Eleven-Soro is brutally
dystopian (especially for men), but
individuals within it can find a kind
of utopia that is achieved through
the fulfilment of total self-awareness,
becoming ?a self sufficient to itself ?,
and in many ways the lives of the
Sorovians are rich and happy beyond
imagining. It is a strange, sad, beauti-
ful story that consistently challenges
gut responses and judgements on the
nature of power and community. I
highly recommend giving it a read,
not as a model for an anarchist soci-
ety but as a challenge to some of our
ideas on interpersonal relationships
and social duty.

So which of these societies, if any,
comes closest to what we as anarcho-
communists aim for? For me, any
society claiming utopian status has
to be convincingly resilient; show
that it?s not going to crumble at the
first sign of change or challenge;
that its systems are robust enough
to undergo cultural, ecological and
technological developments without
compromising its ideological foun-
dation. Static societies are neither
believable nor desirable. Who wants
to live in a world where nothing ever
changes?

This is the mistake many make about
utopianism and about revolution.
They think it means embodying an
ideal within society and then try-
ing to hold back the tide of human
fallibility and outside influence to
preserve that moment of perfection.
No wonder so many people think it?s
a completely unrealistic perspective.
That kind of utopianism is not what
we strive for, either in life or science
fiction. I read utopias and work
towards anarchist communism not
because I believe in a perfect world
but because I believe in a better
world. The most inspiring and per-
suasive utopias are the ones that, like
Anarres, don?t just ask, ?Where do
we want to be?? or even ?How will
be get there?? but ?Where will we go
next?? That?s something important
for science fiction writers and activ-
ists alike to remember. Revolution
is not an event but a process, and
utopia is a journey, not a destination.