Different Approaches to Utopia: Problems and Innovations

Abstract

This utopia essay aims to discuss and examine the ideal order, system, life and society ideas that the human world is always in search of. It will address the impact of multiple interactions between society and the future state management systems. The problems and innovations within the ideal utopias will be discussed. The systems developed and envisaged for the improvement of social and individual relations and for the stability of welfare will be examined. Above all, it will explain their consequences and understanding of utopia. Discuss how the connection between the past and the future contributes to the ideal, the pros and cons.

What is Utopia?

The idea of utopia, which means impeccable and inaccessible, perfect society; either an empty dream or attempts to create that society is a dangerous illusion. Thomas More’s original board - eutopos / outopos merged as utopia, so a good place that cannot find a place - is transformed into a good place that cannot be a place and can become a place-seeking dystopia. Academic use also largely refers to More, which perceives the tradition of thought that emerges with the onset of modernity. When social structures were understood as human structures and people as social structures, it was possible to imagine alternative societies in which a happy life was possible - fair, orderly, sound and safe societies. Utopias, then, are plans of a good (or perfect) society imagined elsewhere and designed as a recipe for the near future. They are intrinsically linked to the concerns and assumptions of modernity. Therefore, in this number of opening articles, Bauman sees this particular social imagination as essentially urban, spatial and perfectionist, pointing to regionalism and certainty: such utopian projects depend on the conditions of sound modernity that no longer applies. Perec writes: ‘All utopias are depressing because they leave no room for chance or difference to the different. Behind every utopia is a great taxonomic design: a place for everything. ”

In the past, these utopian totalitarian projects have been tried and put into life today. The Nazis and Stalinist thinkers did it. But not all of them are positive. Nazism, born as a local movement, was far from a universal idea. Because it was wrong to express the problems and deficiencies of his nation by feeding from other civilizations. Therefore, it was inevitable that it would stay and end locally. But Stalin's world was different. Taking advantage of the lack of availability of the present regime for its multinational structure, Stalin exploited his totalitarian project for different reasons. Even though the Soviet people, who thought with the understanding that how much worse it could be than the current situation, thought that the system was working at the beginning, it only realized that the situation of generation change and raising the qualified individuals from the state structure was bad. Because this utopian project was unsustainable and caused disruptions to the basis of the social structure.

Others have tried to limit utopia to content. In Utopia and Ideal Society, Colin Davis also sees utopia as a particular phenomenon that emerged in early modern England and initiated by More. But the critical question for Davis is how different forms of ideal society govern the continuing gap between desires and gratifications. Cockaygne assumes unlimited satisfaction to meet the insoluble desire. Arcadia argues that our real needs are limited and that the shortage is closed by a definite decline in consumption supply rather than an increase in production. Nevertheless, Utopia “appropriate” sets out the social and institutional processes to manage all kinds of social conflicts that may arise as a result of production and distribution and scarcity. Utopia, instead of eliminating it, offers a social solution to a fundamental problem.

What is Called ‘Blue’?

In the context of the utopia, the search for blue begins with utopia by looking for (Socially) existential search in modern culture. Later, in the political thought and political discourse called aramak seeking the green üt, utopia is replaced. These approaches reveal different formulations of the concept of utopia. Change requires that Utopia is understood as a method rather than a purpose, and that it is made with the recognition of invalidity, responsibility and necessary failure. Karl Mannheim defined ideology and utopia as functional opposites; the ideology that serves the ideology to maintain the status quo; and the utopia that serves to transform it; however, many cultural representations, such as “wish-built places en, traditionally accepted in the category of ideology, were shown. Charles Fourier wrote: What is utopia? It is a dream of prosperity without an effective method, without a means of execution. Thus, all the philosophical sciences are the Utopians, because they have always guided people in the opposite direction to the welfare they promised them.

But I cannot stop here without mentioning abstract thought. Because the blue, which we define as an existential quest, is a completely abstract phenomenon. Blue, known as a social quest, should be one of the first steps and ideal methods for idealization. Above all, blue is an anthropological impulse. In order to reach utopia, which is the main source of contemporary ideologies, an abstract idea is always necessary for a blue utopia. The search for acquiring a dormitory, which we call Heimat, is within this abstract concept. One of the cornerstones of utopianism, the quest to acquire a homeland, has been defined as an impulse to be human. This is defined as the desire to reject the existing situation and seek a new home.

What is Called ‘Green’?

Before turning green, I would like to mention Henri Lefebvre's definition of space. Lefebvre, one of the phenomenological thinkers, has done a lot of work on political space. As we know, Galileo said that the infinite space-space creation has evolved from the concreteness of space into an open-ended abstract concept. However, this definition brought with it many questions. According to Lefebvre, the place is divided into two; abstract space and social space. The abstract space here could be associated with the bourgeois class, capitalism, institutionalism and Hausmann's Paris. Because political space is a social product and every mode of production produces its own space. According to Lefebvre, urban planning and urbanism are the strategic tools of capitalism. ‘Space is not an ideological or politically purified scientific object, it has always been political and strategic, Lef said Lefebvre, who said that space is an abstract and political function rather than producing information. Stating that social interactions produce space, Lefebvre calls the state and investors the space they invest for profit as an abstract space, and refers to the space used in daily life as a concrete space. Here the utopian ideas circulating in the midst of totalitarian political projects are defined as ‘green’.

In utopias, time is always instant. The idea of the past or the future lies in the background, because utopia deals with the present and seeks perfection. Always in search of the better. Therefore, utopia should always be updated and sustainable. It has to continue to upgrade, be open to innovations and keep alive. The words that basically summarize the utopia are as follows:

• The domination of the individual;
• Political place that wants to be apolitical;
• Freedom;
• Continuous search;
• Excellent;
• Desire;
• Hope;
• Totalitarianism;
• Nowhere / notime / noplace;
• Time / Death paradox.

Problems of Utopia

Utopias, which we define as center of desire and hope, lived by the existence of the individual. This may cause problems in the long run. Because human experience of death was the end of utopias, death was undesirable. The sovereignty of the individual means that the idea of utopianism comes out of a subjective mouth. Therefore, the primary idea produced to achieve the ideal had to constantly renew itself. But this brought with it other problems. It was impossible for the management systems where the individual was dominated to form a social order. Because utopias do not accept the ideas of a second individual and always produce solutions for their own stability. Therefore, every utopian idea that was thought and designed turned into another phenomenon when examined at the ideal society scale. This case is dystopia.

A Failure of Utopia: Dystopia

The word dystopian, which is used to describe future negative societies, has its origins in ancient Greek. Authoritarian and repressive systems are considered as descriptive. The topics covered are resistance and a sense of survival. There are also fictions where private life is not desired, the individual is ignored and focuses on society.

Dystopic societies are fictional societies where oppression, terror, poverty, misery or very advanced technology have negative effects on society. These societies have predominantly repressive, authoritarian / totalitarian state systems. In these fictions, the society is mostly under the control of the overpopulation and the restriction of all personal or general freedoms. There are laws that control rights such as speaking, thinking, writing or sexual freedoms, and everyone in society lives in custody. As a result of this life, people who have lost their personal freedom struggle to survive under irresistible living conditions. Class, religion, personality, sexuality, privacy and so on. All kinds of printing and control are available. Dystopic fiction worlds are built on these situations, usually after a war, disaster or revolution in the past. Mankind drifts towards collapse, goes to destruction. Life and nature are portrayed as a future that is exploited or destroyed.

There are various fiction elements in dystopic fictions. If we look briefly; At the root of the dystopias is an authoritarian / totalitarian system of giants. This can be in the form of a single nation or a global government. Everything in society is controlled by the powers of the state, there is no personal specificity (which is already a myth), there is no trust in anything, and there is no human rights. Every source, including human life, is under the control of the state / government. In spiritual dystopias, there is an idea of different shapes or sizes that destroy everything that mankind has built. A dangerous ideology and religion governs or threatens the world. The words that basically summarize the dystopia are as follows:

• Social sovereignty;
• Political;
• Opressive, authoritarian;
• Systematic;
• Resistance, emphasis on unwanted;
• Forced stability;
• Pessimism, the urge to survive;
• Totalitarisanism;
• Nowhere/notime/noplace;
• Time/Death paradox.

As can be seen, there are many similarities between utopia and dystopias. Was there any other way to achieve the ideal?

Ideal Solution for Utopia: Retrotopia

The work of some thinkers is for science only. Some thinkers produce ideas to serve their ideology or organization. There are some thinkers that the thoughts they produce are like the conscience of humanity. Zygmunt Bauman (1927-2017) is a thinker who can be described in this perspective. In general, Bauman deals with the problems caused by modernization and globalization from a sociological perspective, and serves as a mirror for Western thought. Beyond criticism, his more self-critical work allows civilization to rise against the foundation of progress. Zygmunt Bauman does not take aside by protecting himself in his work. On the contrary, you see that the Western civilization, in which he has positioned himself, is experiencing the sadness and unrest of his actions on behalf of humanity. Zygmunt Bauman is a very realist philosopher. It also has an emotional philosophy that we can see in very few thinkers. He sacrifices his philosophy neither to romanticism nor to realism. I think that the balance between these two phenomena reveals its conscientious side.

All of Zygmunt Bauman's works have an unusual socio-philosophical concentration. Despite the motto of sociologists ascertaining and not offering a solution, Bauman points out mistakes and proposes solutions. It is not possible to see this quality in most sociologist thinkers. On the other hand, his realism does not interfere with his idealism. We can say that his works derive their value from the wise style that gives human advice on a universal scale: Retrotopia. A conceptualization of a hybrid hybrid. The past is a combination of the utopian words retro and non-place meaning backward and backward. The place in utopia is an imaginary place that refers to the future. It is idealized so that one can live in prosperity and peace. Retrotopia contrasts the opposition of the past and the future with the paradoxical reality of man.

The people who decided to stop fighting and live together transferred some of their rights to an organization called the state. In this way, it is aimed to provide social order for people who cannot live alone. The state will protect and defend the right of the individual who waives his or her rights against the individual and society. This has led to the emergence of a new concept of law and life. A more egalitarian, safer and fairer order is envisaged. Bauman argues that this prediction of humanity has never been realized. According to him, even if human beings have gone through the stage of civilization, they have not lost anything from their principality and savagery. The principle of civilization that humanity could not destroy has been covered with aesthetic touches labeled with civilization or the illusion of science.

But the point I want to draw your attention here is the past motto as the future. Because Bauman actually wanted to go to the most basic of human senses. He drew attention to the necessity of human values which are described as self in order to reach the ideal. Perhaps it is right to think that the ideal will emerge after throwing the past and the future into the experimental cauldron?

References

• Zygmunt Bauman, Retrotopia, ISBN 978-9755709222
• Ruth Levitas, The elusive idea of utopia
• Ruth Levitas, For Utopia: The limits of the Utopian function in late capitalist society, ISSN 1369-8230
• Ruth Levitas, Looking for the blue: The necessity of utopia
• Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, ISBN 978-9756092165
• Henri Lefebvre, Mekanın Üretimi, ISBN 978-955706764