In Praise of Utopia

In Praise of Utopia

Mind Journeys on the Seven Seas of Utopia

by Ilija Trojanow

[This article posted on June 4, 2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.graswurzel.net/gwr/2025/06/ein-lob-der-utopie/.]

Since 1972, Graswurzelrevolution (GWR) has been committed to realizing the utopia of a nonviolent, stateless society. Especially in times of a shift to the right, climate catastrophe, and species extinction, we need ideas and designs for future egalitarian ways of life and ecological, solidarity-based social orders beyond domination, nationalism, and violence. Utopias are important for developing alternatives to capitalism and drawing strength for nonviolent resistance. Utopias are a key theme of the 500th issue of GWR. Songwriter Konstantin Wecker has contributed his article “Die Kraft von Utopia – Visionen einer besseren Welt” (The Power of Utopia – Visions of a Better World) to this issue, a preview of his book “Der Liebe zuliebe” (For the Sake of Love), which is expected to be published by Droemer Knaur in September 2025. The writer Ilija Trojanow provides an equally encouraging start to the utopian GWR 500 focus with his “Praise of Utopia.” (GWR ed.)

The future is currently standing on feet of clay. Everything was fine until yesterday, much is no longer so good today, and nothing will be good tomorrow – this is how quite a few of us in Central Europe currently feel, concerned about the loss of what we have and apparently no longer able to recognize what we are actually missing, and have been for some time. To distract ourselves, we revel in visions of the end times, which become more plausible the more apocalyptic they are. It's not that bad here, we sigh comfortably. The escape into invented horror ends in relief because it allows us to avoid the essential and real struggles, such as those against ecological crises.

All those who have the privilege of not having to fight for survival (and that is still the vast majority in this country) are happy to be lulled by dystopias. The greater the impending catastrophe, the more meager the alternatives, so it seems at the moment, and our thinking becomes correspondingly small and narrow.

A little e-mobility, a little CO2 trading, seven percent organic products and seven percent vegetarians, some of whom are congruent minorities. We do not lack knowledge about what is going on in the world. No one claims that it is reasonable to destroy the environment, uproot people, deepen injustices, or start wars. And yet, awareness of the worsening social and ecological problems and the existential necessity of solving them is mostly accompanied by paralysis or self-imposed blindness, especially among those who benefit from global inequality. The political discourse is dominated by the insidious dogma that there is no alternative. Ironically, the very principles that are accelerating the catastrophic dynamics—profit, growth, concentration of wealth and therefore power—are considered sacrosanct. And despite its obvious shortcomings, the free market economy is presented as the only efficient model for human coexistence.

“That can't be all there is,” utopia has been asking ever since. Doesn't human history paint a different picture? Haven't the blank spots on the intellectual map been filled in in astonishing ways, often only a generation later? The “non-place” is conjured up with the creative power of the imagination.

The prevailing conditions are turned upside down, the last letters become the first, and what is true in familiar everyday life is suspended in thought experiments. Utopia is thus much more than an island of the blessed, where peace and equality reign and education is the highest good. Utopia is the anticipation of change in the realm of imagination. Utopia unleashes the freest thinking to devise alternatives.

The often proclaimed “demise of utopias” is a gravedigger's song that seeks to bury all dreams in order to enforce universal cemetery peace. This is accompanied by the questionable assertion that the horrors of the 20th century were the consequences of utopian thinking, even though better arguments could be made for blaming traditional attitudes and ideologies such as authoritarian hierarchy, fanatical nationalism, racism, nepotism, and exterminatory imperialism for state terror. Incidentally, Lenin and Stalin despised utopia. Lenin, a shrewd pragmatist, stated as early as the end of 1917: “We are not utopians ... we want the socialist revolution with the people as they are, that is, with people who cannot do without subordination, control, supervisors, and accountants.”

So what is utopian?

It is often claimed that one person's utopia is another's dystopia. The logical conclusion: since people cannot agree on a specific utopia, they are forced to remain on the thorny ground of real injustices and suffering. If this is true, then the various utopian visions must differ from each other in important respects.

However, anyone who familiarizes themselves with the rich tradition of utopian texts will find that, despite a diversity of ideas, there are also surprising similarities. Many languages, yet one underlying grammar. What does this ideal image of society look like?

In terms of social organization, the ideal is always imagined as one in which all citizens are equal and have the same rights, in which each individual is free to develop, in which there is a strong independence of thought and action, and in which individuals are free to choose their own occupation according to their talents and needs. More recent utopias assume the overcoming of patriarchy and all forms of racism. People communicate with each other as equals, mutual listening prevails, as do tolerance and acceptance of all lifestyles and sexual orientations. Altruism is a fundamental attitude, as are helpfulness and solidarity, not least because education focuses on intangible values and a sense of community.

Politically, flat hierarchies are the dominant ideal, without rigid, entrenched institutions and without the concentration of power in the hands of a few. There are no privileges for any minority, however defined. Instead, there are egalitarian networks, decentralization, direct democracy, and universal participation in political decision-making. The military has been abolished, as has, of course, the arms industry, and in some cases the police and the criminal justice system—prisons do not even exist as museums. The world knows only peace and nonviolence.

Utopia is thus much more than an island of the blessed where peace and equality reign and education is considered the highest good. Utopia is the anticipation of change in the realm of the imagination. Utopia unleashes the freest thinking to devise alternatives.

In the economic sphere, people enjoy the blessings of a land of milk and honey to varying degrees, meaning they have free access to all basic material goods. No one goes hungry, there is no more obsessive consumption and no unnecessary waste. Instead of money, there are common goods; instead of competition and profit, there is cooperation and exchange. Instead of mindless work, there is meaningful employment, mainly thanks to creative and social activities, supported by automation that serves people. Economic growth is no longer an economic goal. Self-organization and self-sufficiency are essential principles.

And as far as ecology is concerned (especially in the utopias of the last hundred years), there is a radically different appreciation of nature: nature belongs to no one, not even large corporations; recycling is as natural as the manufacture of durable, repairable products that meet people's actual needs. Animals are respected and protected, and vegetarianism is the norm.

Utopian narratives revolve around the tension between the individual and the collective, in the pursuit of a balance between individual freedom and social justice. On the one hand, the individual has a responsibility to their social environment. On the other hand, the development of individual personality is only marginally restricted and never prevented. At the same time, there are protected spaces where individuals can freely develop and evolve if they wish to withdraw from the collective without entering into an antagonistic relationship with societal interests. In times dominated by a rigid opposition between selfishness and self-sacrifice, this quintessence of utopian thinking sounds like squaring the circle.

It would be worthwhile to put such a distillation to a general vote as an alternative to the real destruction and exploitation of the planet and humanity. Which alternative would the majority of citizens choose if they could decide freely, i.e., well-informed and without propaganda or fearmongering?

Utopias are often claimed to be vague. Perhaps this is precisely their greatest strength: the diversity of ways of thinking, the linking of numbers and symbols with dreams. The subversion of the quantifiable by the imagination. Especially since the utopian also springs from historical experience. What has been called utopian since the beginning of modernity was once lived reality, sometimes as the exception, sometimes as the rule, sometimes in a niche or oasis, sometimes on the wide prairies of the self-evident. Utopias arise from our collective memory. For most of its history, humanity lived in egalitarian societies where there was no institutionalized authority. Recent excavations in China, Niger, Pakistan, Peru, and Mali show that in many early civilizations there were no traces of centralized power, no architectural manifestations of domination and subjugation, even though division of labor and specialization already existed at that time.

There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic. Despite a system that rewards self-interest and greed, we see examples of solidarity, mutual aid, and collaborative solutions every day. These small and large acts of kindness contribute more to social balance than the profitable functioning of all those quantifiable processes that serve to secure the power and wealth of an increasingly small class. Without utopias, we are threatened by hopelessness, and this is “the anticipated defeat” (Karl Jaspers). And even if little concrete comes out of our mental voyages on the seven seas of utopia, “a life in dreamland makes you happy,” according to Mahatma Gandhi. Lingering in dreamland immunizes us against the rampant fear of the future. I can only recommend it to you.

The writer Ilija Trojanow was born on August 23, 1965, in Sofia, Bulgaria. His latest novel, Tausend und ein Morgen (A Thousand and One Mornings), was published by S. Fischer in 2023 (see review in GWR 492), and in 2025 “Das Buch der Macht. Wie man sie erringt und (nie) wieder loslässt” (The Book of Power: How to Gain It and (Never) Let It Go) will be published by Verlag Andere Bibliothek. His contribution “Von der Notwendigkeit von herrschaftsfreien Räumen zu erzählen” (On the Necessity of Talking About Non-Hierarchical Spaces) appeared in the anthology “Anarchistische gesellschaftsentwürfe” (Anarchist Social Models, Unrast 2024).