The real reason it’s hard to write a utopia is because we’ve evolved to find our civ’s inadequacy exciting. Even IRL villainy on Earth serves a motivating purpose for us.
A hobbyhorse of mine is that “utopia is hard” is a non-issue. Most sitcoms, coming-of-age stories and other “non-epic” stories basically take place in Utopia (i.e. nobody is at risk of dying from hunger or whatever, the stakes are minor social games, which is basically what I expect the stakes in real-life-utopia to be most of the time).
It seems like “Utopia fiction is hard” problem only comes up for particular flavors of nerds who are into some particular kind of “epic” power fantasy framework with huge stakes. And that just isn’t actually what most stories are about.
It seems like “Utopia fiction is hard” problem only comes up for particular flavors of nerds who are into some particular kind of “epic” power fantasy framework with huge stakes. And that just isn’t actually what most stories are about.
I definitely disagree, and I don’t think this is addressing the heart of what I meant to say.
Take war (& war stories) for instance. The socially acceptable thing to say about war is that it’s bad. Certainly it’s true that war runs with it a lot of collateral damage, and that being in a trench shelled by artillery is awful. I know of no written description of utopia that includes it as a feature. Yet a certain brand of American gets really animated by the prospect of fighting a defensive war, and gets really disappointed when they hear someone say that Taiwan is unlikely to be the flashpoint for such a conflict.
I propose that some of this warlust is because most people find their lives fairly meaningless and uneventful. The possibility of contributing personally to a morally just cause, in a martial fight, is animating for them. If you remove all injustice from the world, then they lack this opportunity and feel like there’d be less worth reading about.
Take war (& war stories) for instance. The socially acceptable thing to say about war is that it’s bad. I know of no written description of utopia that includes it as a feature.
Try E. R. Eddison’s “The Worm Ouroboros”, and his “Mezentian Gate” trilogy. Or the Valhalla of Norse mythology (although as far as I know, no stories happen there, any more than they do in the Christian heaven).
“Thou O Queen canst scarcely know our grief; for to thee the blessed Gods gave thy heart’s desire: youth for ever, and peace. Would they might give us our good gift, that should be youth for ever, and war; and unwaning strength and skill in arms. Would they might but give us our great enemies alive and whole again. For better it were we should run hazard again of utter destruction, than thus live out our lives like cattle fattening for the slaughter, or like silly garden plants.”
I think “nobody dies from hunger” is a very low bar for utopia. Classic comedy trope “character has obvious flaws but comically unaware of them” is very-hard in utopia, because in non-transhumanist utopia they have advanced psychology and reflection training and they read The Sequences in school and in transhumanist utopia you can just fine-tune your brain.
As of coming-of-age stories, “Catcher in the rye” defininetely would have troubles to be written in utopian setting. Most of classic coming-of-age stories are non-utopian bittersweet, to my taste.
I’m not telling that’s impossible, but it’s sure a challenge for writer.
I think the problem with this is that those shows simply ditch the reality of how that world works. In practice there are plenty of things needed to make such a world function that there are decisions to be taken and conflicting interests, things those shows simply sidestep by either showing only very low stakes situations or making everyone extremely agreeable.
I agree that’s true of present-day-sitcoms (which aren’t going out of their way to be set in Utopia), but I’m saying the plot of the sitcoms is such that if you moved them to a (classical) Utopia, they wouldn’t have to change their plots much.
One more reason is that humans have “pleasure to kill” drive, which can’t be implemented in real life, but easily implemented in fiction and games. From the point of view of this drive, DOOM is utopia.
I think there’s a related problem that humans are evolved to fight and compete with each other, and a LOT of us/them seem to object to engineering of human nature/behavior. It’s not clear that there IS a path to be found between people defecting and ruining the utopia and people losing their identity/individualism as they’re modified to cooperate better.
Well, if competition could be channelled as e.g. sports events involving meaningful but not strictly essential prizes, it needn’t be incompatible with utopia.
That’s rather my point. Utopia is either boring or unpleasant (for the losers, which must exist, for competition and relative status measures to be meaningful). Which makes it very hard to write or think about, except in the very abstract.
Yes, I’ve participated in that kind of contest, but I wouldn’t call it a conflict, and it’s certainly not a likely replacement for the actual status, economic, and mating competitions that makes life interesting for most, and unpleasant for many.
This is related to a possible pet theory of mine, which postulates that to a large extent, utopia in quite a lot of conceptions (but not all) is fundamentally boring to us, and it’s not exciting to have all your problems solved, so it’s disliked disproportionately to dystopias. This especially is exacerbated by our need to remain the main character, and to have an interesting life.
It’s also why I think people don’t have the same aversion to written dystopias/apocalypses, because they contain conflict, and in particular inequalities large enough such that the main characters (which is a big driver of human behavior) to essentially run roughshod over the NPCs/non-main characters, so it’s a natural fit.
I agree. Until faced directly with adversity or trouble, it is easy to find the possibility of danger or threat thrilling. The obvious reasoning be that as self-aware creatures we have simply grown tired of following life to survive and instead seek out experiences that make us feel alive, such as the adrenaline-inducing experiences that are far too common in our society.
The real reason it’s hard to write a utopia is because we’ve evolved to find our civ’s inadequacy exciting. Even IRL villainy on Earth serves a motivating purpose for us.
A hobbyhorse of mine is that “utopia is hard” is a non-issue. Most sitcoms, coming-of-age stories and other “non-epic” stories basically take place in Utopia (i.e. nobody is at risk of dying from hunger or whatever, the stakes are minor social games, which is basically what I expect the stakes in real-life-utopia to be most of the time).
It seems like “Utopia fiction is hard” problem only comes up for particular flavors of nerds who are into some particular kind of “epic” power fantasy framework with huge stakes. And that just isn’t actually what most stories are about.
I definitely disagree, and I don’t think this is addressing the heart of what I meant to say.
Take war (& war stories) for instance. The socially acceptable thing to say about war is that it’s bad. Certainly it’s true that war runs with it a lot of collateral damage, and that being in a trench shelled by artillery is awful. I know of no written description of utopia that includes it as a feature. Yet a certain brand of American gets really animated by the prospect of fighting a defensive war, and gets really disappointed when they hear someone say that Taiwan is unlikely to be the flashpoint for such a conflict.
I propose that some of this warlust is because most people find their lives fairly meaningless and uneventful. The possibility of contributing personally to a morally just cause, in a martial fight, is animating for them. If you remove all injustice from the world, then they lack this opportunity and feel like there’d be less worth reading about.
Try E. R. Eddison’s “The Worm Ouroboros”, and his “Mezentian Gate” trilogy. Or the Valhalla of Norse mythology (although as far as I know, no stories happen there, any more than they do in the Christian heaven).
I think “nobody dies from hunger” is a very low bar for utopia. Classic comedy trope “character has obvious flaws but comically unaware of them” is very-hard in utopia, because in non-transhumanist utopia they have advanced psychology and reflection training
and they read The Sequencesin school and in transhumanist utopia you can just fine-tune your brain.As of coming-of-age stories, “Catcher in the rye” defininetely would have troubles to be written in utopian setting. Most of classic coming-of-age stories are non-utopian bittersweet, to my taste.
I’m not telling that’s impossible, but it’s sure a challenge for writer.
I think the problem with this is that those shows simply ditch the reality of how that world works. In practice there are plenty of things needed to make such a world function that there are decisions to be taken and conflicting interests, things those shows simply sidestep by either showing only very low stakes situations or making everyone extremely agreeable.
I agree that’s true of present-day-sitcoms (which aren’t going out of their way to be set in Utopia), but I’m saying the plot of the sitcoms is such that if you moved them to a (classical) Utopia, they wouldn’t have to change their plots much.
One more reason is that humans have “pleasure to kill” drive, which can’t be implemented in real life, but easily implemented in fiction and games. From the point of view of this drive, DOOM is utopia.
I think there’s a related problem that humans are evolved to fight and compete with each other, and a LOT of us/them seem to object to engineering of human nature/behavior. It’s not clear that there IS a path to be found between people defecting and ruining the utopia and people losing their identity/individualism as they’re modified to cooperate better.
I don’t think a utopia where there are no humans fighting and competing with each other makes sense. That sounds really boring.
Well, if competition could be channelled as e.g. sports events involving meaningful but not strictly essential prizes, it needn’t be incompatible with utopia.
That’s rather my point. Utopia is either boring or unpleasant (for the losers, which must exist, for competition and relative status measures to be meaningful). Which makes it very hard to write or think about, except in the very abstract.
Have you never lost a conflict and felt that it was fair and just and that you were honored to have gotten to duel with such a majestic being?
And then learned from it, and become the winner in the next match?
(note, am utopian fiction author)
Yes, I’ve participated in that kind of contest, but I wouldn’t call it a conflict, and it’s certainly not a likely replacement for the actual status, economic, and mating competitions that makes life interesting for most, and unpleasant for many.
I was talking about actual status contests, economic or mating competition. It’s possible to feel acceptance in loss even in the world we have today.
— Longfellow
This is related to a possible pet theory of mine, which postulates that to a large extent, utopia in quite a lot of conceptions (but not all) is fundamentally boring to us, and it’s not exciting to have all your problems solved, so it’s disliked disproportionately to dystopias. This especially is exacerbated by our need to remain the main character, and to have an interesting life.
It’s also why I think people don’t have the same aversion to written dystopias/apocalypses, because they contain conflict, and in particular inequalities large enough such that the main characters (which is a big driver of human behavior) to essentially run roughshod over the NPCs/non-main characters, so it’s a natural fit.
I agree. Until faced directly with adversity or trouble, it is easy to find the possibility of danger or threat thrilling. The obvious reasoning be that as self-aware creatures we have simply grown tired of following life to survive and instead seek out experiences that make us feel alive, such as the adrenaline-inducing experiences that are far too common in our society.