ABSTRACT
Optimistic technological Utopias derived from a faith in progress which was inherited from the Enlightenment; "global" Utopias, however, are modern versions of the Jewish and early Christian apocalyptic literature, extensions of late mediaeval chiliastic dreams. Two factors have emerged which have made Utopias suspect and equivocal. First, it has become more and more evident that attempts to build the perfect world of communism have been a disastrous failure. Second, the idea of "progress" revealed its contradictory character once people began to realize that almost every step in technological and social development is paid for with a heavy price, and they started asking themselves under what conditions the price becomes really intolerable. The Utopian thinkers, once they discovered the genuine essence of man and once they convinced themselves that they knew what people wanted without asking them, had to assume that the world was entirely malleable, and that the perfectibility of human species was limitless.
