Utopia - Eutopia

May 13, 2017, Russia House #1.
The Path to
Perfection:
Utopia or
Eutopia?
a LO*OP Center, Inc. presentation by Liza
Loop
1
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) LO*OP Center, Inc. 2017

✤ The discussion is for you, not only me. It should be a win-win experience
✤ Liza to be “sage on the stage” for about 20 minutes to stimulate your thinking
and share slides
✤ Liza to move to “guide on the side” for group discussion and going back to any
slide of interest
✤ The conversation itself is an act of community
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My plan for this meeting…
“Every personal choice is an act of self-government”
Liza Loop

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In this conversation each person is invited to:
listen
consider
develop a position
express that position
listen again to hear other’s responses
modify one’s own position
share new learnings
“Community exists when a group of people come
together around shared ideas”
We, in this room, are a temporary
community. We have come together to talk
and listen for a few peaceful hours. Anyone
who chooses not to participate in this
community is free to leave it.

Fundamental
Concepts
✤ Community
✤ Utopia = No Place
✤ Eutopia = Good Place
✤ Experiments in Intentional
Community
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Inspired by
Plato’s Republic
More’s Utopia
Huxley’s Island
Bellamy’s Looking Backward
among others

Literary Utopias
Early manuscript of Plato’s Republic P. Oxy. 3679, manuscript from the 3rd century AD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_(Plato)
5Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) LO*OP Center, Inc. 2017

“Let us assume, then, that Utopia is what it appears to be, a blueprint,
however provisional, for a perfect society. Just how perfect would it be to
live in? It offers the material benefits of a welfare state which provides
every member of the community with food, clothing housing, education,
and medical treatment. Working hours are reasonably short, six hours a
day - but this is achieved by limiting the supply of consumer-goods to the
barest essentials. Result: heavy casualties among the minor pleasures of
life, especially the more frivolous ones. For instance, everyone wears the
same colorless clothes.
A more serious drawback is the lack of personal liberty. You cannot even
travel about your own country without a special permit, and you have
virtually no privacy.”
-from the Introduction by Paul Turner, Translator. Page 13
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Thomas More’s Utopia,
Noplace (1516)
Penguin Books, 1965

“A society specifically designed for improving the self-fulfillment and
psychological health of all people. A culture or sub-culture made up of
psychologically healthy or mature or self-actualizing people. A
Eupsychian sub-culture is "decentralized, voluntary yet coordinated,
productive, and with a powerful and effective code of ethics (which
works)." [Abraham Maslow, 1954]
- Maslow, A H., Eupsychia - The good society, Journ. Humanistic Psychology, 1961,1,1-11
(?)
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Abraham Maslow’s Eupsychia,
Psychologically Good Place(circa 1960’s)
“Politics 3…[is]the Eupsychian ideal of society as a fostering of human
fulfillment is part of the secular morality. Or, that the two main problems
of creating the good man and of the good society are interwoven
inextricably. Only a clear vision of these interwoven goals could be the
basis for a secular morality and, therefore, a political and social
philosophy that will tell what direction to go, what to do, how to do it, and
what needs to be done.”
- A. H. Maslow, Politics 3, SRI Project 6747, R. A. Cantor, editor.
http://www.maslow.org/sub/p3.htm

“What will startle many people is the clear indication, backed by a
growing research literature, that under certain “synergic” conditions, these
two sets of goods, the good of the individual, and the good of the society
can come closer and closer to being synonymous weather than
antagonistic. Eupsychian… conditions of work are often good not only for
personal fulfillment, but also for the health and prosperity of the
organization (factory, hospital, college, etc.), as well as for the quantity
and quality of the products or services turned out by the organization.”
- Maslow, Abraham H. 1962. New York: Van Nostrand Company. Page 221
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Synergy between individual and collective
“good”

Eutopian experiments
in the real world
✤ Contemporary: http://www.ic.org
✤ The return of the utopians:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/03
/the-return-of-the-utopians
✤ Historical: http://www.history.com/news/history-
lists/5-19th-century-utopian-communities-in-the-
united-states

“For many people, the idea of an intentional community doesn't ring a bell even though it has been
in practice for thousands of years. In essence, an intentional community is a group of people coming
together in a place they create to live in some particular way. The variety of intentional communities
is nearly infinite: some are religious, some are not; politics run the gamut; they are large and small,
rural and urban, ecologically minded and materialistic. They include monasteries, communes,
anarchic squatter houses, cooperative housing, co-housing, kibbutzim, Christian activist
communities, Shaker communities, and many other kinds of groups. Making generalizations about
intentional communities is about as accurate as making generalizations about people.
One of the few things that can be said about most intentional communities across the board is that
they are built on a stronger sense of community than is common in a conventional setting. People
know each other better, work and/or play together, and in most cases share some values, goals, or
beliefs. There are real advantages to living in a place of this kind for people who are open to being
an integral part of their communities.
For most purposes, groups that don't live together aren't intentional communities in the sense meant
here; the term also cannot apply to 'planned developments' and similar places for two reasons: first,
the groups of people who come to them do not necessarily come together in any meaningful sense.
Second, the environment is created by some external planning group that then sells homes or lots or
living units, rather than being created by the residents.”
- http://www.meadowdance.org/basics.htm
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What is an
intentional community?

Here’s how
to find them
✤ http://www.ic.org/community-
bookstore/product/communities-
directory-book-new-7th-edition/
✤ published 2016
11Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
LO*OP Center, Inc. 2017

Communities of Purpose…
Why come together at all?
✤ Residence
✤ Culture
✤ Ethnicity
✤ Religion
✤ Cause
✤ Practice / occupation
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“Community exists when a group of people come
together around shared ideas”

Issues Impede the Path to
Perfection
✤ Values - who can do what? (freedom)
✤ - who gets the goods? (ownership & consumerism)
✤ Organizational Governance - who rules, leads, follows?
✤ - how are conventions maintained?
✤ Consensus - what is the decision-making process?
✤ Purpose - why are we congregating?
✤ - what do we have to do to stay?
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Identity and Membership
How we enter, stay in and leave communities
✤ Who can join?
✤ Is there more than one type of member? (status
hierarchy)
✤ What are grounds for expulsion?
✤ What responsibilities does each individual have to other
members?
✤ What is the relationship between insiders and outsiders?

Governance:
Command and Control
✤ Enforced dictatorship
✤ Consensual leadership
✤ Democratic self-organization
✤ Unintended tradition

Where shall we take our discussion from here?
Thank you.
LO*OP Center, Inc. www.loopcenter.org

Utopia - Eutopia

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