ABSTRACT
The utopian imagination cannot remain content with far-off bliss and perfection. All the same, though most utopias show signs of scientific detachment, it is well to distinguish between scientific and arcadian utopias. For in the arcadian utopia the scientific method, the thought applied to the building of utopia, is used to abolish every kind of scientifically rigid construction within utopia. The utopian imagination is clearly dominated by the idea of a scientific Brave New World on the one hand and the rural beautiful arcadian dream of a Crystal Age on the other. Both myths are significant, but the scientific clockwork utopia possesses a higher degree of reality, embodying modern man’s real hopes and fears. The arcadian Utopia nowadays has hardly ever any other function than reactionary wish-fulfilment, even when proposing ideals that seem far more desirable than the ones advocated in the scientific constructions.
