Conservative apologists for the status quo often stigmatize their opponents as “utopian.” But socialists and feminists shouldn’t be afraid of the term, since utopian thought can play an important role in helping us develop practical alternatives.
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Today’s conservatives do not merely resist change. Project 2025, for instance, is in many ways a textbook example of utopian thought, with an ethical vision that grounds its specific policy proposals and touches on every aspect of society, from family to trade, from gender to taxes. This imagined world is one they want to produce, not preserve, even if it’s wrapped up in traditionalist ideology.
The Left needs its own counterproposals: rich accounts of a transformed society that both help us decide what steps we should take now and keep us motivated for the long haul. I’m not suggesting all leftists should unite around one utopia but rather that debate and experimentation around ambitious aims for social transformation is an urgent political project rather than a matter of merely academic concern. Pace Marx and Engels, utopia’s radical potential has not yet been exhausted.
My favorite example I’ve read recently was a collection of short stories called A People’s Future of the United States. Not all utopian, some were pretty bleak, but they all had something hopeful even if it was just a small act of joy or resistance. Shoutout to Borderlands in SF for the recommendation!