ABSTRACT
Yes, surely! and if others can see it as I have seen it, it may be called a vision rather than a dream.1
William Morris
Similarly to Ricoeur’s recognition that utopia can have both a constitutive and a pathological dimension, Lewis Mumford recognized – much earlier – utopia’s dual propensity: ‘utopias of escape’ provide compensation rather than opportunity, which makes them pathological. ‘Utopias of reconstruction’, on the other hand, are projective and thus constitutive. Mumford contrasted these two utopian propensities as the difference between fantasies and plans: ‘In one we build impossible castles in the air; in the other we consult a surveyor and an architect and a mason and proceed to build a house which meets our essential needs; as well as houses of stone and mortar are capable of meeting them.’2
