JOURNAL FOR CULTURAL RESEARCH VOLUME 13 NUMBER 1 (JANUARY 2009)

ISSN 14797585 print/17401666 online/09/01008906 2009 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/14797580802674894

Reflections: Can Utopianism Exist Without Intent?

Lucy SargissonTaylor and FrancisRCUV_A_367659.sgm10.1080/14797580802674894Journal for Cultural Research1479-7585 (print)/1740-1666 (online)Original Article2009Taylor & Francis131000000January 2009Associate Professor LucySargissonLucy.Sargisson@nottingham.ac.uk

This collection of articles poses challenges to those who study utopias and utopi-anism. They pertain to a rising wave of scholarship which threatens old, familiar(and comfortable) conceptual boundaries, forcing the concept of utopia everwider, ever more open, to the point at which, some would say, it becomes mean-ingless. This wave is seductive and exciting, glistening in the midday sun, full offresh ideas, enthusiasm, radical thought and, some might say, bad scholarship.(Interdisciplinary research always runs the risk of the latter charge and I shallreturn to it in a moment.) And, while some believe that it threatens to sweepaway the roots and rigour of utopian studies, others believe it revitalizes andstimulates fresh study of an ancient form of thought. I should state at this pointthat while my own work belongs very much within this wave, I am deeply ambiv-alent about its outcomes. I have been asked to write a response to this collectionof articles and I propose briefly to reflect on the substance and outcomes of thechallenge, variously expressed in these four very different articles. Thischallenge circles around the relationship between utopianism and intent. Canutopianism exist without intent?

Long-term scholars of utopian studies tend to be sensitive to the demands ofinterdisciplinarity but also to insist that a core of shared assumptions exists andthat this forms the analytical basis for utopian studies (see, for example, thework of Lyman Tower Sargent and Ruth Levitas1). Part of this core, I suggest, isa perhaps unarticulated but nonetheless positive association between intentionand utopia. And so phrases such as manifestation of desire, expression ofdesire and articulation of dreams and nightmares, saturate the canon ofworks that has emerged at the heart of the field of utopian studies. This collec-tion challenges this positive and intimate association of utopianism and intent.

Before proceeding further it is necessary to note the drawbacks of interdisci-plinary research. The study of utopias and utopianism almost always involves

1. For classic accounts, see Ruth Levitas, The Concept of Utopia (London: P. Allan, 1990), andLyman Tower Sargents The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited, (Utopian Studies, vol. 5, no. 1,pp. 137, 1994) and more recently, In Defense of Utopia (Diogenes, vol. 53, no. 1, pp. 1117, 2006).

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cross or interdisciplinary study both at the level of the individual scholar (forexample, a geographer might write about literary sources) and the collective(utopian studies conferences always involve a multiplicity of disciplines2). Thecharge of bad scholarship is a perennial danger in cross and interdisciplinarystudy; and any collection of papers that draws from several disciplines will runthe risk of methodological and normative incoherence. Each discipline follows itsown values, norms, expectations and rules of study. Academics are schooled,taught and apprenticed in different ways of study. And people who write acrossdisciplines, even if they are exceptional scholars within their own fields, alwaysrisk the charge of methodological naivety regarding (for example) standards ofevidence, reasoning, and the treatment of sources. And so, one issue raised bythis collection of papers concerns the value of cross and interdisciplinaryresearch. Here we have one person who works in a department of government,a geographer, a sociologist and a cultural theorist, all working on subject matterwhich is unconventional to their field of specialism. Does it work? I think it does.I think this volume illustrates, performatively and substantively, the potential ofinterdisciplinary work. And I propose to take its challenge seriously.

This challenge, in its strongest form, suggests that utopianism can exist with-out intent. This removes one of the pillars of the analytic concept of utopia. Canwe conceive of utopianism without mobilizing the idea of intent? Surely thisrenders utopia meaningless. In order to consider this it is necessary to refer todefinitional debates within the field. I do not propose to rehearse these againbeyond noting that debates exist around the content of utopias (for example, dothey depict perfection or just something better?), the function of utopia (shouldand do utopias blueprint the future, articulate desire, gesture towards somethingbetter or something else completely?) and the form of utopias (fiction, theoryand/or social experiment?) Lisa Garforth addresses this adeptly in this volumeand it is discussed at length in any core text on the subject.3 The challenge posedby this volume stems from and transcends these debates. To accept a notion ofutopia without intent is to sever one of the (few) core threads that binds thestudy of this phenomenon. This is, I suggest, a step too far. A utopianism withoutintention lacks direction, authorship and desire. It is, quite simply, no longerutopianism. While I am sympathetic to much of this collection, I cannot walkaway from it with a notion of utopianism that lacks intent.

Rather, I leave it with a problematized notion of intent and intention and therelationship of these concepts to utopias and the phenomenon of utopianism. Inorder to unravel these I propose firstly to articulate the relationship betweenutopia and intent, as I understand it, and then to note three interrelatedthoughts provoked by this collection.

2. Participants in a current series of seminars, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council,on the topic of Practical Utopias and Utopian Practices have included architects, geographers,political theorists, historians, philosophers, scholars of English and other literature, critical theory,education, business studies, organization and management, sociology, law and medicine.3. See note 1 plus Tom Moylan (Demand the Impossible, New York, Methuen, 1986).

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Etymologically, the modern English noun intent, signifying purpose orintention, stems from a fusion of the Old French entent (meaning intentional,application) and entente (intention, thought, desire and purpose). Both stemfrom the classical Latin intentus (attention, intention) pp. of intendere (to strainor stretch). An intent is thus a stretching towards, or a leaning out (to somethingdesired). And the noun intention is traced, in most etymological dictionaries,to significations of desire and purpose. Chaucers 1380 translation of BoethiussDe Consolatione Philosophiae is cited in Chambers Dictionary of Etymology(2005, p. 535) as an early example, where it suggests desire or feeling. Laterusage adds purpose and aim, and borrows from the Old French entention, andthe Latin intentionem (purpose, effort and straining). The modern adjectiveintent draws also on the Latin intentus, and here the focus is on attentiveness,earnest engagement and eagerness. This evokes a straining or attentiveness.

If we delve a little deeper in to the Latin term, we can find that intentus hasthree threads of meaning or interpretation. The first suggests thought or feelingthat is stretched out, tense or strained. The second refers to speech or thoughtthat is earnest and the third (which Cassells Latin Dictionary traces to Livy4)suggests thoroughness, strictness and rigour (and, interestingly, for this discus-sion, leads into Cornelius Tacitus5 usage of intentus to refer to discipline)(1968, p. 318.)

The history of the modern English terms intent and intention, then, iscomplex and interesting, entwining meanings that combine to suggest a strainingor stretching towards desire and purpose. This is not a casual term, and intentsignifies something tense, effortsome and earnest. It stems from feeling anddesire and gives purpose and direction. And it provides a sense of determineddrive and continued impetus. Whilst mindful of the value of the contributionsmade by this collection of articles, and sympathetic towards attempts to priseutopia away from the idea of something that is unidirectional, universalizing andperfection-seeking (dangerous indeed), I do not want to discard intention frommy understandings of utopia. For me, the notions of intent and intention are anapt metaphor for utopianism. For me, the etymological descriptions above lieclose to the heart of utopianism.

I propose to end this reflection with three short but interrelated responses,each of which would require a serious research project properly to resolve.

(1) Does intent matter when attempts to realize utopia always fail? Myresearch into intentional communities as utopian experiments has me led to aposition shared by a strange combination of bedfellows such as conservativethinkers6, postmodernists, social theorists and psychologists7. This concerns the

4. Livy (59BC17AD)5. Cornelius Tacitus (c55120AD)6. Such as Edmund Burke in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and Karl Popper TheOpen Society and Its Enemies (New York, Routledge, 1945) (I never thought Id find myself in bedwith these two!)7. Examples include Robert K. Merton, The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive SocialAction (American Sociological Review, vol. 1, no. 6, pp. 894904, 1936).

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difficulty, or, to be more precise, the impossibility of predicting the outcomes ofour actions. Intentional actions yield unintended consequences and this placesutopia always firmly over the horizon, unattainable and unrealizable.

After reading Peter Kraftls article (and accepting his critical point concerningthe neglect of childhood in much of the existing work on utopia), I traced throughmy fieldnotes from visits to some 60 intentional communities over the last dozenyears or so. Childhood and children form an important part of many intentionalcommunities and some are formed with the express intent of creating a spaceand community in which people can experience a better childhood. Many areformed in conjunction with a school, for example, which mirrors the sharedvalues of the founding group. But here, as in all lived experiments with a good orbetter life, the consequences of purposive action are not those predicted (ordesired) by the founders. I made an early decision in my research not to interviewchildren, at the time I thought of this as ethical but, upon reflection, it maysimply have been cowardice. However, I have interviewed and lived alongsideyoung adults whose childhood was spent in intentional communities and twocommonalities emerge from all of these transcripts.

Firstly, all of these people had left the community for some time (often duringtheir teenage years) and returned to it again as adults taking a deliberate stepin their lives. Each spoke of realizing, after they had left, just how valuable thecommunity was to them. Each spoke of a commitment to the community and adesire to help it to survive. Secondly, each recalled observing their communitydiverge from the adults intended path. One interviewee recalled how hercommunity has changed over its 30-year duration:

We havent got a shared philosophy now although we do share beliefs aboutequality and respect. In the seventies there was a lot going on, we were a polit-ical set-up, we were all about environmental issues, gay rights, radical politics.Its not the same now.

The community had shifted significantly from the intention of its founders andyet was still felt (by this member) to be worth striving for and better than lifeoutside. Intentions had shifted, in this community, with a changing population.

Another interviewee spoke about the school around which her community hadbeen founded. This school was the raison d tre for this community:

Ill start by saying that this community was founded because of the school andeverybody that was involved with the community when it began was involvedwith the school. Over the years that has changed and hardly anyone here now isinvolved with the school and I think this is an oversight because the communitylacks a vision now. In the last few years it has coasted along, and there is no senseof direction now.

Remembering her days in the school as a child, she recalled:

It was great, all the parents were involved and the adults had so much time foryou and your learning came from right inside you, you know? We were encouraged

e

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to really explore things we were interested in and to learn through play. Theschool produced some brilliant artists, writers and scientists.

On the other hand, she reflects: Sometimes I see aspects of my childhood asbeing part of an experiment, you know? Part of my parents experiment andthats a weird feeling. And: I think, down the years now, that actually you cantake this too far, sometimes you do have to actually sit kids down and teach themthings.

This is not the place in which to undertake an exploration of childhood in inten-tional communities in any depth. Rather, I offer these extracts as illustrations ofthe ambivalent relationship between intent and utopia in lived utopian projects.My own answer to the question I pose above is, yes, intent does matter, but weneed to understand it more deeply. These two communities had changed overa period of 30 years and neither resembled the intent of their founders. Both areviewed by current members as attempting (and, partially achieving, some of thetime) their own ideas of a good life. They were both, I suggest, utopian to someextent. And these extracts reveal a key aspect of lived utopias. Overlappingchanges of membership yield shifting ideas of what the community should strivefor. The intentions of overlapping but different members (across time and withina group at any one time) shift, clash and require negotiation.8 Across time a coreof (sometimes diluted) shared values tends to survive and to provide continuedimpetus to the group. When this disappears, intentional communities almostalways fold. This suggests a pragmatic requirement for intent in utopian experi-ments. It also raises two further issues: the role of the author and the importanceof ownership.

(2) What is the role and importance of the author? How significant is her/hisintent? And how much impact does intention have in the world? Here is a briefexample. B. F. Skinners (1948) Walden Two inspired more than one group ofpeople to found a communal experiment. Twin Oaks, Virginia is just one exampleof such a community (see http://www.twinoaks.org/)

Does it matter whether or not Skinner intended to inspire communal experi-ments? Does it matter that the community of Twin Oaks today is quite differentfrom the one founded in 1967? I have suggested in the section above that utopianexperiments shift from the original intent of their founders. This does not, Isuggest, render them without intent but rather it raises questions about theefficacy of intent, the impact and limits on intent on the real, lived empiricalworld, the relationship between pragmatism and utopianism, between the needto adapt and the desire to continue striving for a better life.

(3) The collection raises vital questions of ownership. Kraftl and Miles both(albeit differently) raise this issue. Whose utopia? This is a deeply political ques-tion and it is related to the issue of authorship. Are the owners of the vision thosewho first created it or those who now try to realize it? Are the owners of the

8. For a discussion of conflict in intentional communities see L. Sargisson Surviving Conflict: NewZealands Intentional Communities (New Zealand Sociology, vol. 18, no. 2, 2003).

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community the adults who designed it in the interests of their children (as theyperceived them) or the children themselves? Are the owners of political changethe vanguard who lead the revolution with blueprint in hand, or the populace,class or group in whose name revolution is called? This collection of articlesoffers glimpses into important debates about power and utopianism.

Miless article, for example, succinctly discusses the role of vertical models ofpower and their relationship with intent. From this we can extrapolate a modelof utopia in which the intent of the author is imposed of the world (via revolu-tion, social movement, governance). This could be said to pertain to a blueprintmodel of utopia in which utopia constitutes a map or vision of perfection.

I believe this form of utopianism to be deeply dangerous and to informphenomenon such religious fundamentalism. It may be impossible to achieve, butpeople persist in trying and the role of intention in this form of utopianismconsists in the imposition of the will of the powerful. This brings into relief thedangers of utopianism: utopia can indeed be authoritarian, pertain to verticalpolitics, and intent can be a will to power. This is the dark side of utopianism andit is ignored at peril. But to remove intent from utopia is, I suggest, to render itsomething else. Let us assume for a moment that it is possible to prove that agood society once existed without intent, as Damon Miller suggests. Such a placewould not be a utopia. It would be a happy accident.

To abandon the notion of intent would be to cast utopia adrift, leaving itaimless. To abandon the notion of intent would be to leave utopia without desire.But such a thing is meaningless: or rather not utopia. Utopias, etymologicallygood/no places (eu/ou topos), desire something better than the now. They stemfrom discontent with their present and from this they extrapolate ideas about abetter life. They stretch towards this, reaching, straining the imagination forglimpses of a better alternative. And utopians who try to realize their dreams inthe now require drive, focus and sometimes discipline in order to continue. Theywill not succeed, they will not realize utopia, because life never turns out asaccording to plan, and utopia is, after all no-place, lying always over the hori-zon. The challenge for utopian studies then, is not to abandon intent but toexplore, interrogate and better understand its limitations, implications andconsequences.

References

Cassells (1968) Cassells Latin-English English-Latin Dictionary, Wiley, New York.Chambers (2005) Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, Chambers, New York.Skinner, B. F. (2005) Walden Two, Hackett, Indianapolis. Originally published in 1948.