Utopian thinking is necessary to move all of us forward to a better world.

Is it unrealistic for us to imagine a utopian future? Of course. Should we dismiss utopian thinking? Of course not.

Realists would have us believe that empirical truths and social constraints are unalterable. This is ludicrous. Everything is alterable.

Constraints are shackled onto us to keep political discussion and dissent at bay. Those in power don’t want us to imagine let alone consider another political reality. Far better for them to keep us fighting for scraps while they pass the crown between themselves.

This lack of imagination is what keeps the status quo in power when we increasingly need to restructure our economic, political and social systems to better address a multitude of global problems. Not least the dissolution of democracy and ecological collapse.

Disavow the constraints of reality, find joy in creating impossible worlds. Forget feasible, necessary and realistic. Give politics a higher meaning and purpose.

Rather than viewing the future as something to be deduced, why not view the future as something to be imagined and summoned into being.

Don’t be limited by our current obsession with the here and now. Focus on the world as it could and should be to maximize human flourishing.

Imaginatively explore what we want the future to be ahead of our practical abilities. Forget dull practicalities and market forces. Stop making money, start making meaning.

Don’t sweat the small stuff. Don’t worry about processes and mechanisms. Changes in society seldom begin with actual inventions. They begin with acts of imagination, with a sharpened sense of a need for something new.

Whether it’s a piece of science, a piece of legislation, an idea of how people should marry or a social movement. The details of change eventually work themselves out.

Foster an aspiration of the world as it could be. Envisage what doesn’t yet exist.

Create a better world, a better utopia.

Be unreasonable.

References

“Utopian thinking prompts us to get real about society’s needs” Psyche (2022)

“The importance of utopian thinking” The School Of Life (2022)