ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the concept is useful in that the inhabitants of every utopia live in a different and better social imaginary – or, in the case of dystopias, a different but worse social imaginary. Various scholars have sought ways of determining the boundaries of the concept – for example, what distinguishes utopia from ideology or from science fiction – as well as ways of classifying utopias. The most valuable utopias are those in which the author, with subtle skill, forces readers, at least temporarily, out of their normal social imaginary into an alternative one, which then works reflexively to make readers rethink their current social imaginary. Like Ruth Levitas Imaginary Reconstitution of Society, Erik Ohlin Wright’s Emancipatory Social Science is concerned with social and political justice, but adopts a hardheaded stance that is designed to persuade sceptics. For any coherent and credible theory of alternatives to existing institutions, meet three criteria: desirability, viability and achievability.
