ABSTRACT
Utopia is a fraught term: it is often interpreted as a naïve and outmoded concept in modern political theory, especially when it is broadly associated with communism or totalitarianism (Bobbio, 1989: passim; Kloppenberg, 1996: 124-6), and, as a single vision, utopia fits uneasily alongside postmodern pluralism. The term was invented in the early modern period with Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), yet is rooted in ancient Greek philosophical writings.1 Even the definition of the term is contentious, although usually critics seek to separate ancient Greco-Roman works, particularly those connected with the past, or ‘Golden Age’ nostalgia, from representations of structured revolutionary social orders. One defining characteristic of utopia is its topicality, for, as was the case with More’s work, most utopian authors set out to critique their own society and throw it into relief by describing a world in which specific institutions, inequalities or vices do not exist. And it is this specificity which marks the utopian out, whereas Golden Age narratives tend to depict a more generalized state of simplicity, usually in the remote past. While More’s Utopia and those written in this tradition have often been viewed as texts which offer a critical perspective on the society which produced them,2 it is easy to see narratives of the Golden Age and faraway paradise as tales which simply reproduce a nostalgic desire for easy primitivism.3 Moses Finley made the distinction between utopia, which is not attainable, but does exist as a goal, and is specific in its proposals, as opposed to the ‘various primitivistic images’ of what he calls the ‘Garden of Eden’ types (1967: 6). So, for Finley, utopias have a political and social agenda, whereas Golden Age narratives seem to exist outside of, or before, contemporary society. Both, however, depend upon the erasure of conflict, as Finley acknowledges:
There is a sense in which a Garden of Eden shares a quality of criticism with Utopia, specifically in the idea, explicit or implicit, that a
world without evil is not even conceivable, let alone possible, so long as the two chief roots of evil are present, namely, strife over wealth and property and strife arising from sexual drives.
