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The Utopia Project

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"A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at," said Oscar Wilde. Five centuries after Thomas More published Utopia, we launch a project to imagine an ideal state.

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Latest Activity: Apr 22

In imagining Utopia 2016, we should possibly be thinking of a society in which there are sustainable and useful jobs for everyone who wanted to work. At present, we are sunk in a deep recession of the mind as much as the economy, with a cynical way of thinking that offers very little prospect of things getting better. It is hard to feel inspired by the current emergency economic policies, at least in Europe, which look like a return to the 1970s.Those that have jobs feel nothing of the pain; those that don't have work have little hope of improvement. There is a deep unfairness here that seems incompatible with any worthwhile vision of Utopia. Would it be possible to imagine a project to create one job at a time in which the RSA fellowship network played a role in imagining new jobs and assessing their quality as sustainable and worthwhile ways of working. How many jobs could be created by 2016? I would go for 500 - one job for every year since Utopia was published. Could it be done?

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Are we already halfway to utopia?

Wikipedia says:Particularly in the early nineteenth century, several utopian ideas arose, often in response to their belief that social disruption was created and caused by the development of…Continue

Started by Matt Johnston Dec 14, 2010.

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Comment by Andrew Percy on April 22, 2013 at 16:25: Unified Theory of People in Action !

:-)

http://standardsoflife.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/the-unified-theory-...

Comment by Jonathan Jewell on June 3, 2011 at 12:05: Why is Utopia not on the RSA map?

Comment by Derek Blyth on February 14, 2011 at 19:11: Wandering through RSA HQ on John Adam Street today felt that there was something missing from the building. It's a beautiful interior for sure but there's not much feeling of an intellectual hub. My proposal is to convert the entire building for one day into Utopia 2.0, using each of the rooms to explore a different element of a better society - architecture, urban planning, childcare, health, transport, etc.

Comment by Glynis Whiting on February 4, 2011 at 16:17: Thanks Derek for the intro to this project. Look forward to working with the group to take this forward.

Comment by Ted Fowler on January 23, 2011 at 20:08: HIya all - just joined, partly becuase I'm interested in Thomas More, but also there is so much potential in the tension between Utopianism and the millenarianists.

And for those of us who think we are acting with a 'project' for improvements - then we can think of say Owen or Ebenezer Howard - peole who planned and tried to create ideal communities, and the anarchists' critique - not always that unfriendly.

Well, I like idealists (if you never have a dream....) just best not to let them have all the power!

I look forward to this group's progress

8-)

Ted

Comment by Matt Johnston on December 14, 2010 at 22:41: Hi folks,

I've not read the book - but I have just downloaded it in iBooks to read after I've finished with Tim Powers' DECLARE.

The real question is: it was published in 1516 - so what will we do to commemorate it?

Comment by Tessy Britton on July 16, 2010 at 14:37: Hi Derek - what in interesting idea for a group! I have been readying Thomas More's Utopia recently and also a very interesting overview of a whole variety of Utopian type initiatives in an article called Utopia and Dystopia. That link will take you to a quote from it (and here is another quote) - but you need to log onto the site to read the whole piece - but well worth the bother!

Comment by Ian Roderick on July 15, 2010 at 13:34: I haven't heard of any attempt to use More's Utopia directly but I am not that familiar. I have on my pile of 'to read' books Merlin Coverley's Utopia (Pocket Essentials); a quick skim shows it is a good overview and history of utopian thinking. My interest lies in how we might revitalise this thinking a little and see how it can be used for big issues - green economics in particular without its seeming accompanying skeptism.

Comment by Derek Blyth on July 15, 2010 at 12:48: My first question is whether anyone, anywhere, has ever used Thomas More's Utopia as a template for an actual project.