Utopia
Image from For All Mankind
ONE DOES NOT need to look hard to find a new myth forming about the great beyond. The narrative is that space travel will solve our woes—specifically the woes of racial capitalism. And this myth is appearing everywhere, in reality and fiction.
Take, for example, billionaire Richard Branson’s comments before Virgin Galactic’s suborbital mission in early July.
“Imagine a world where people of all ages, all backgrounds from anywhere, of any gender, or any ethnicity have equal access to space,” Branson told the press. “And they will in turn, I think, inspire us back here on Earth.”
Branson and fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos are in a 21st century space race, trying to justify their extreme spending to commercialize the cosmos with the idea that space travel can dissolve a litany of struggles.
The new space race is not so different from the first—the winner advances their power and reach. Between the 1950s and 1970s, the United States and the Soviet Union raced to space, then to the moon, largely for the same reason. The U.S., it might be said, won the space race by being the first to the moon (and we are still the only nation to have ever put people on the moon).
But what if things were different? This is the question explored by For All Mankind (Apple TV+), which released its second season in April. It is an exploration of a world in which the Soviets win the race to the moon, thereby extending the space race in perpetuity. The first season takes place in the ’70s, the second jumps to 1983, and the decade-jump trend will continue for all seven seasons, according to the creators.
ON JAN 9, 2007, STEVE JOBS stepped onto a stage in San Francisco, his trademark black mock-turtleneck blending with the shadowed backdrop, his clipped hair and lean countenance offering a monk-like silhouette against the screen.
Jobs stepped forward and raised his arms. And there it was, almost inconspicuous in the palm of his hand. “Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone ... here it is ... the iPhone.” Naming a new god.
At the time, no one consciously believed that smartphones, the internet of things, or ubiquitous computing would save us. Yet, as the encyclical Laudato Si points out about technocracies: No one has to actually believe they’re gods. They become gods when we start investing our hope and identity in them.
And here we are. We live as if the connections provided by digital technologies are vital—and indeed we have made them so.
A decade after the first iPhone, environmental engineer Braden Allenby was asked whether, one day, humans would be wired directly into the internet. “Look at any city street,” he replied. “At least half the people are looking at their phones. We’re already integrated into networks beyond our physical environment.” Heads bowed, praying to strange new gods.
It began as allure: more accessible music, easier communication, maps and directions. Then it slid toward addiction: picking up the phone in the morning, like a first cigarette of the day. And now, dependence: Our lives are synced, our habits surveilled, our data monetized, and the world goes ’round. Our little intimacies power a vast machinery.
All in the name of improving our lives.
Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges star in “The Giver.” Photo courtesy of The Weinstein Company
This Friday, a movie version of the classic novel “The Giver” opens in theaters with an impressive cast, including Oscar winners Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges. “The Giver,” originally written by Lois Lowry, explores a seemingly perfect world where all conflicts have been resolved and annoyances — such as bad weather and adolescent “stirrings” — have been eradicated, allowing this culture to achieve a beautiful state of “sameness.”
As you can imagine, this utopian society is not so utopian. “The Giver” focuses on young Jonas, who has been selected for a daunting task: to serve as society’s sole proprietor of memory and emotion. Jonas learns about pain and sadness, but also experiences beautiful colors, a thrilling sleigh ride and ultimately learns to feel love. In other words, Jonas learns what it means to be human — and that his world may not be so perfect after all.
“The Giver” is the latest in a wave of dystopian stories that have washed over America in recent years. From this summer’s “Purge” sequel and “Under the Dome” to the latest “Hunger Games” movie (due out in November), people can’t get enough of these apocalyptic fantasies, in which seemingly perfect worlds turn horrific.
Why such an appetite for dystopian stories now?
David Batstone decries political and theological imagination in "Utopia: No Garden of Eden" (July-August 2002).
Have you ever noticed how much of our political language relies on binary logic? "Binary what?" you say—think the North and South Pole.
Here's an axiom that's half a binary pair: Before making an appeal for political action, describe a moment when the problem did not exist, at least in the form or to the degree it does now. Creating this mental space will then enable people to make progress by looking backward, effectively re-creating a past social order.
Alternative to axiom one: Promise freedom and justice in a world that is yet to come. Although here and now life is alienated, the future will break into history and transform what we have here into an entirely new place.
Both these axioms of political language have their theological counterpart, of course. Since there is no place outside the Garden of Eden that is free from the traps of history, release from bondage can only truly occur in the realm of the ideal.
In the Judeo-Christian West, "time" was destined to become our holy grail. Redemption can be found in time past (the Garden) or time future (heaven), both of which are bound by eternity. Time so conceived has no organic link to place. The forthcoming (future) and the antecedent (past) are not contingent on the horizon of the present.