Utopianism and anarchism

Abstract

This article challenges the assumption that utopian traditions of social and political thought have ceased to have any relevance, or make any contribution to, contemporary thinking. Key utopian ideas, specifically the importance of a focus on transforming the circumstances and environments of the present, are transmitted to the modern context by writers working in the anarchist tradition, who maintain anarchism's close links with utopianism, and continue to draw on, develop, and deploy utopian themes. Utopian themes are central to the anarchist writing of late 20th-century thinkers Paul Goodman and Colin Ward. These anarchists have developed the utopian themes of contingency, immanence and prefiguration. Their contact with utopian approaches to social change has also supported two unique deployments of these utopian themes. These are, firstly, a particular agency-centred vision of freedom as developed by the action and choices of individuals in the present, and, secondly, a specific portrayal of that active immediacy as pragmatic and piecemeal engagement with the immediate organisation of proximate material environments.

Notes

 1. R. Jacoby, The End of Utopia: Politics and Culture in an Age of Apathy (New York: Basic Books, 1999), pp. 158–159.

 2. Jacoby, The End of Utopia: Politics and Culture in an Age of Apathy (New York: Basic Books, 1999), pp. 158–159., p. 161.

 3. Jacoby, The End of Utopia: Politics and Culture in an Age of Apathy (New York: Basic Books, 1999), pp. 158–159., pp. 13–15.

 4. For further discussion of Ward's efforts to apply anarchism to specific social problems see S. White, ‘Making anarchism respectable? The social philosophy of Colin Ward’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 12 (1), 2007, pp. 11–28.

 5. G. McKay, DiY Culture. Party and Protest in Nineties Britain (London and New York: Verso, 1998).

 6. B. Goodwin and K. Taylor, The Politics of Utopia. A Study in Theory and Practice (London: Hutchinson, London, 1982), p. 26.

 7. M. Buber (trans R.F.C. Hull) Paths in Utopia (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1958), p. 16.

 8. F. Engels, Socialism Utopian and Scientific (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1907), p. 42.

 9. Cited in R. Plant, Hegel: An Introduction (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), p. 145.

10. K. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia. An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul., 1960), p. 220.

11. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia. An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul., 1960), p. 220., pp. 191, 193, 195, 202.

12. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia. An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul., 1960), p. 220., p. 195.

13. V. Geoghegan, Utopianism and Marxism (London and New York: Methuen, 1987), p. 16.

14. P. Kropotkin, ‘Modern science and anarchism’, in E. Capouya ad K. Tompkins (Eds), The Essential Kropotkin (New York: Liveright, 1975), pp. 57–93, p. 64.

15. Buber, op. cit., Ref. 7, p. 13.

16. G. Burrell and K. Dale, ‘Utopiary: Utopias, Gardens and Organization’, in M. Parker (Ed.), Utopia and Organization (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), pp. 106–27, p. 110.

17. Goodwin and Taylor, op. cit., Ref. 6, p. 201.

18. Kropotkin, op. cit., Ref. 14, pp. 74–5.

19. Kropotkin, op. cit., Ref. 14, p. 73.

20. Goodwin and Taylor, op. cit., Ref. 6, p. 170.

21. Mannheim, op. cit., Ref. 10, p. 202.

22. Mannheim, op. cit., Ref. 10, p. 202, Ref. 10, p. 195.

23. Kropotkin, op. cit., Ref. 14, p. 59.

24. Mannheim, op. cit., Ref. 10, p. 219.

25. Mannheim, op. cit., Ref. 10, pp. 219–220.

26. D. Miller, Anarchism (London: J.M. Dent., 1984), p. 93.

27. Miller, Anarchism (London: J.M. Dent., 1984), p. 93., p. 150.

28. Kropotkin, op. cit., Ref. 14, p. 75.

29. P. Goodman, ‘The present moment in education’, in T. Stoehr (Ed.), Drawing the Line. The Political Essays of Paul Goodman (New York: Free Life Editions, 1977), p. 77; first published in New York Review of Books, 10 April 1969.

30. Goodman, ‘The Present Moment in Education’, in T. Stoehr (Ed.), Drawing the Line. The Political Essays of Paul Goodman (New York: Free Life Editions, 1977), p. 77; first published in New York Review of Books, 10 April 1969., p. 77.

31. P. Goodman and P. Goodman, Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life (New York: Vintage, 1960), p. 3.

32. Goodman and Goodman, Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life (New York: Vintage, 1960), p. 3., p. 11.

33. Goodman and Goodman, Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life (New York: Vintage, 1960), p. 3., p. 12.

34. Goodman and Goodman, Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life (New York: Vintage, 1960), p. 3., pp. 13–14.

35. Goodman and Goodman, Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life (New York: Vintage, 1960), p. 3., p. 15.

36. C. Ward, Anarchy in Action (London: Freedom Press, 1982), pp. 19–20.

37. C. Ward, When We Build Again, Let's Have Housing That Works (London: Pluto Press, 1985), p. 8.

38. C. Ward, Housing. An Anarchist Approach (London: Freedom Press, 1976), pp. 87–88.

39. P. Goodman, ‘Reflections on the anarchist’, in Stoehr, op cit., Ref. 29, p. 176.

40. Ward, op. cit., Ref. 38, p. 20.

41. Colin Ward, Anarchism. A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 32.

42. P. Goodman, New Reformation. Notes of Neolithic Conservative (New York: Vintage Books, 1971), p. ix.

43. Ward, op. cit., Ref. 38, p. 20.

44. Ward, op. cit., Ref. 38, p. 20., p. 19.

45. Ward, op. cit., Ref. 38, p. 20., p. 18.

46. Ward, op. cit., Ref. 38, p. 20., p. 18.

47. P. Goodman, F.S. Perls and R.F. Hefferline, Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality (London: Souvenir Press, 1971, pp. 227–235, especially p. 229.

48. P. Goodman, Little Prayers and Finite Experience (London: Wildwood House, London, 1973), p. 39.

49. Goodman, Little Prayers and Finite Experience (London: Wildwood House, London, 1973), p. 39., p. 235.

50. Ward, op. cit., Ref. 38, p. 55.

51. P. Goodman, cited in C. Ward, Influences. Voices of Creative Dissent (Devon: Green Books, 1991), p. 79.

52. I. Berlin, ‘Introduction’, in A. Herzen (trans. Moura Budberg), From the Other Shore and The Russian People and Socialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979); cited in Ward, op. cit., Ref. 38, p. 51.

53. C. Ward (Ed.), A Decade of Anarchy (1961–1970) (London: Freedom Press, 1987), p. 14.

54. Ward, op. cit., Ref. 38, pp. 26–27.

55. Ward, op. cit., Ref. 38, pp. 26–27, Ref. 38, p. 72.

56. P. Goodman, ‘Notes on Neo-Functionalism’, in Stoehr, op. cit., Ref. 29, p. 49; first published in politics (December 1944).

57. P. Goodman, ‘The black flag of anarchism’, in Stoehr, ‘Notes on Neo-Functionalism’, in Stoehr, op. cit., Ref. 29, p. 49; first published in politics (December 1944)., p. 208; first published in New York Times Magazine (14 July 1968).

58. Ward, op. cit., Ref. 38, p. 17.

59. Goodman, op. cit., Ref. 56, p. 49.

60. Goodman, op. cit., Ref. 42, p. 199.

61. Ward, op. cit., Ref. 38, p. 30.

62. G. McKay, DiY Culture. Party and Protest in Nineties Britain (London and New York: Verso, 1998), p. 13.

63. J. Jordan, ‘The art of necessity: The subversive imagination of anti-road protest and reclaim the streets’, in McKay, G. McKay, DiY Culture. Party and Protest in Nineties Britain (London and New York: Verso, 1998), p. 13., pp. 129–151, p. 132.

64. McKay, G. McKay, DiY Culture. Party and Protest in Nineties Britain (London and New York: Verso, 1998), p. 13.

65. R. King, The Party of Eros: Radical Social Thought and the Realm of Freedom (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1972), p. 78.

66. D. Goodway, ‘The anarchism of Colin Ward’, in K. Worpole (Ed.), Richer Futures: Fashioning a New Politics (London: Eartscan, 1999), pp. 3–20 p. 3.

67. Ken Worpole, ‘Introduction’, in Worpole, D. Goodway, ‘The Anarchism of Colin Ward’, in K. Worpole (Ed.), Richer Futures: Fashioning a New Politics (London: Eartscan, 1999), pp. 3–20 p. 3., pp. xi–xii, p. xi.

68. Ward, op. cit., Ref. 38, p. 29.

69. McKay, op. cit., Ref. 62, p. 51.

70. G. Monbiot, ‘The land is ours’, in Worpole, op. cit., Ref. 66, pp. 100–108.