JOURNAL FOR CULTURAL RESEARCH

VOLUME 13

NUMBER 1

(JANUARY 2009)

Reflections: Can Utopianism

Exist Without Intent?
Lucy Sargisson
Lucy.Sargisson@nottingham.ac.uk
Journal
10.1080/14797580802674894
RCUV_A_367659.sgm
1479-7585
Original
Taylor
102009
13
Associate
00000January
and
&
for
Article
Francis
Professor
(print)/1740-1666
Cultural
Francis
2009Research
LucySargisson
(online)

This collection of articles poses challenges to those who study utopias and utopianism. They pertain to a rising wave of scholarship which threatens old, familiar
(and comfortable) conceptual boundaries, forcing the concept of utopia ever
wider, ever more open, to the point at which, some would say, it becomes meaningless. This wave is seductive and exciting, glistening in the midday sun, full of
fresh ideas, enthusiasm, radical thought and, some might say, bad scholarship.
(Interdisciplinary research always runs the risk of the latter charge and I shall
return to it in a moment.) And, while some believe that it threatens to sweep
away the roots and rigour of utopian studies, others believe it revitalizes and
stimulates fresh study of an ancient form of thought. I should state at this point
that while my own work belongs very much within this wave, I am deeply ambivalent about its outcomes. I have been asked to write a response to this collection
of articles and I propose briefly to reflect on the substance and outcomes of the
challenge, variously expressed in these four very different articles. This
challenge circles around the relationship between utopianism and intent. Can
utopianism exist without intent?
Long-term scholars of utopian studies tend to be sensitive to the demands of
interdisciplinarity but also to insist that a core of shared assumptions exists and
that this forms the analytical basis for utopian studies (see, for example, the
work of Lyman Tower Sargent and Ruth Levitas1). Part of this core, I suggest, is
a perhaps unarticulated but nonetheless positive association between intention
and utopia. And so phrases such as manifestation of desire, expression of
desire and articulation of dreams and nightmares, saturate the canon of
works that has emerged at the heart of the field of utopian studies. This collection challenges this positive and intimate association of utopianism and intent.
Before proceeding further it is necessary to note the drawbacks of interdisciplinary 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), and
Lyman 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).
ISSN 14797585 print/17401666 online/09/01008906
2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14797580802674894

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cross or interdisciplinary study both at the level of the individual scholar (for
example, a geographer might write about literary sources) and the collective
(utopian studies conferences always involve a multiplicity of disciplines2). The
charge of bad scholarship is a perennial danger in cross and interdisciplinary
study; and any collection of papers that draws from several disciplines will run
the risk of methodological and normative incoherence. Each discipline follows its
own values, norms, expectations and rules of study. Academics are schooled,
taught and apprenticed in different ways of study. And people who write across
disciplines, even if they are exceptional scholars within their own fields, always
risk the charge of methodological naivety regarding (for example) standards of
evidence, reasoning, and the treatment of sources. And so, one issue raised by
this collection of papers concerns the value of cross and interdisciplinary
research. Here we have one person who works in a department of government,
a geographer, a sociologist and a cultural theorist, all working on subject matter
which is unconventional to their field of specialism. Does it work? I think it does.
I think this volume illustrates, performatively and substantively, the potential of
interdisciplinary work. And I propose to take its challenge seriously.
This challenge, in its strongest form, suggests that utopianism can exist without intent. This removes one of the pillars of the analytic concept of utopia. Can
we conceive of utopianism without mobilizing the idea of intent? Surely this
renders utopia meaningless. In order to consider this it is necessary to refer to
definitional debates within the field. I do not propose to rehearse these again
beyond noting that debates exist around the content of utopias (for example, do
they depict perfection or just something better?), the function of utopia (should
and do utopias blueprint the future, articulate desire, gesture towards something
better or something else completely?) and the form of utopias (fiction, theory
and/or social experiment?) Lisa Garforth addresses this adeptly in this volume
and it is discussed at length in any core text on the subject.3 The challenge posed
by this volume stems from and transcends these debates. To accept a notion of
utopia without intent is to sever one of the (few) core threads that binds the
study of this phenomenon. This is, I suggest, a step too far. A utopianism without
intention lacks direction, authorship and desire. It is, quite simply, no longer
utopianism. While I am sympathetic to much of this collection, I cannot walk
away from it with a notion of utopianism that lacks intent.
Rather, I leave it with a problematized notion of intent and intention and the
relationship of these concepts to utopias and the phenomenon of utopianism. In
order to unravel these I propose firstly to articulate the relationship between
utopia and intent, as I understand it, and then to note three interrelated
thoughts 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 or

intention, stems from a fusion of the Old French entent (meaning intentional,
application) and entente (intention, thought, desire and purpose). Both stem
from the classical Latin intentus (attention, intention) pp. of intendere (to strain
or stretch). An intent is thus a stretching towards, or a leaning out (to something
desired). And the noun intention is traced, in most etymological dictionaries,
to significations of desire and purpose. Chaucers 1380 translation of Boethiuss
De Consolatione Philosophiae is cited in Chambers Dictionary of Etymology
(2005, p. 535) as an early example, where it suggests desire or feeling. Later
usage adds purpose and aim, and borrows from the Old French entention, and
the Latin intentionem (purpose, effort and straining). The modern adjective
intent 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 has
three threads of meaning or interpretation. The first suggests thought or feeling
that is stretched out, tense or strained. The second refers to speech or thought
that is earnest and the third (which Cassells Latin Dictionary traces to Livy4)
suggests thoroughness, strictness and rigour (and, interestingly, for this discussion, 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, is
complex and interesting, entwining meanings that combine to suggest a straining
or stretching towards desire and purpose. This is not a casual term, and intent
signifies something tense, effortsome and earnest. It stems from feeling and
desire and gives purpose and direction. And it provides a sense of determined
drive and continued impetus. Whilst mindful of the value of the contributions
made by this collection of articles, and sympathetic towards attempts to prise
utopia away from the idea of something that is unidirectional, universalizing and
perfection-seeking (dangerous indeed), I do not want to discard intention from
my understandings of utopia. For me, the notions of intent and intention are an
apt metaphor for utopianism. For me, the etymological descriptions above lie
close 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? My
research into intentional communities as utopian experiments has me led to a
position shared by a strange combination of bedfellows such as conservative
thinkers6, 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 The
Open Society and Its Enemies (New York, Routledge, 1945) (I never thought Id find myself in bed
with these two!)
7. Examples include Robert K. Merton, The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social
Action (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 of

our actions. Intentional actions yield unintended consequences and this places
utopia always firmly over the horizon, unattainable and unrealizable.
After reading Peter Kraftls article (and accepting his critical point concerning
the neglect of childhood in much of the existing work on utopia), I traced through
my fieldnotes from visits to some 60 intentional communities over the last dozen
years or so. Childhood and children form an important part of many intentional
communities and some are formed with the express intent of creating a space
and community in which people can experience a better childhood. Many are
formed in conjunction with a school, for example, which mirrors the shared
values of the founding group. But here, as in all lived experiments with a good or
better life, the consequences of purposive action are not those predicted (or
desired) by the founders. I made an early decision in my research not to interview
children, at the time I thought of this as ethical but, upon reflection, it may
simply have been cowardice. However, I have interviewed and lived alongside
young adults whose childhood was spent in intentional communities and two
commonalities emerge from all of these transcripts.
Firstly, all of these people had left the community for some time (often during
their teenage years) and returned to it again as adults taking a deliberate step
in their lives. Each spoke of realizing, after they had left, just how valuable the
community was to them. Each spoke of a commitment to the community and a
desire to help it to survive. Secondly, each recalled observing their community
diverge from the adults intended path. One interviewee recalled how her
community has changed over its 30-year duration:
We havent got a shared philosophy now although we do share beliefs about
equality and respect. In the seventies there was a lot going on, we were a political 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 and
yet was still felt (by this member) to be worth striving for and better than life
outside. Intentions had shifted, in this community, with a changing population.
Another interviewee spoke about the school around which her community had
been founded. This school was the raison detre for this community:
Ill start by saying that this community was founded because of the school and
everybody that was involved with the community when it began was involved
with the school. Over the years that has changed and hardly anyone here now is
involved with the school and I think this is an oversight because the community
lacks a vision now. In the last few years it has coasted along, and there is no sense
of 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 for
you and your learning came from right inside you, you know? We were encouraged

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

On the other hand, she reflects: Sometimes I see aspects of my childhood as

being part of an experiment, you know? Part of my parents experiment and
thats a weird feeling. And: I think, down the years now, that actually you can
take this too far, sometimes you do have to actually sit kids down and teach them
things.
This is not the place in which to undertake an exploration of childhood in intentional communities in any depth. Rather, I offer these extracts as illustrations of
the 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 we
need to understand it more deeply. These two communities had changed over
a period of 30 years and neither resembled the intent of their founders. Both are
viewed by current members as attempting (and, partially achieving, some of the
time) their own ideas of a good life. They were both, I suggest, utopian to some
extent. And these extracts reveal a key aspect of lived utopias. Overlapping
changes of membership yield shifting ideas of what the community should strive
for. The intentions of overlapping but different members (across time and within
a group at any one time) shift, clash and require negotiation.8 Across time a core
of (sometimes diluted) shared values tends to survive and to provide continued
impetus to the group. When this disappears, intentional communities almost
always fold. This suggests a pragmatic requirement for intent in utopian experiments. It also raises two further issues: the role of the author and the importance
of ownership.
(2) What is the role and importance of the author? How significant is her/his
intent? And how much impact does intention have in the world? Here is a brief
example. B. F. Skinners (1948) Walden Two inspired more than one group of
people to found a communal experiment. Twin Oaks, Virginia is just one example
of such a community (see http://www.twinoaks.org/)
Does it matter whether or not Skinner intended to inspire communal experiments? Does it matter that the community of Twin Oaks today is quite different
from the one founded in 1967? I have suggested in the section above that utopian
experiments shift from the original intent of their founders. This does not, I
suggest, render them without intent but rather it raises questions about the
efficacy of intent, the impact and limits on intent on the real, lived empirical
world, the relationship between pragmatism and utopianism, between the need
to 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 question and it is related to the issue of authorship. Are the owners of the vision those
who 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: New
Zealands 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 they
perceived them) or the children themselves? Are the owners of political change
the vanguard who lead the revolution with blueprint in hand, or the populace,
class or group in whose name revolution is called? This collection of articles
offers glimpses into important debates about power and utopianism.
Miless article, for example, succinctly discusses the role of vertical models of
power and their relationship with intent. From this we can extrapolate a model
of utopia in which the intent of the author is imposed of the world (via revolution, social movement, governance). This could be said to pertain to a blueprint
model of utopia in which utopia constitutes a map or vision of perfection.
I believe this form of utopianism to be deeply dangerous and to inform
phenomenon such religious fundamentalism. It may be impossible to achieve, but
people persist in trying and the role of intention in this form of utopianism
consists in the imposition of the will of the powerful. This brings into relief the
dangers of utopianism: utopia can indeed be authoritarian, pertain to vertical
politics, and intent can be a will to power. This is the dark side of utopianism and
it is ignored at peril. But to remove intent from utopia is, I suggest, to render it
something else. Let us assume for a moment that it is possible to prove that a
good society once existed without intent, as Damon Miller suggests. Such a place
would not be a utopia. It would be a happy accident.
To abandon the notion of intent would be to cast utopia adrift, leaving it
aimless. To abandon the notion of intent would be to leave utopia without desire.
But such a thing is meaningless: or rather not utopia. Utopias, etymologically
good/no places (eu/ou topos), desire something better than the now. They stem
from discontent with their present and from this they extrapolate ideas about a
better life. They stretch towards this, reaching, straining the imagination for
glimpses of a better alternative. And utopians who try to realize their dreams in
the now require drive, focus and sometimes discipline in order to continue. They
will not succeed, they will not realize utopia, because life never turns out as
according to plan, and utopia is, after all no-place, lying always over the horizon. The challenge for utopian studies then, is not to abandon intent but to
explore, interrogate and better understand its limitations, implications and
consequences.

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.