The creative destruction and reconstruction of Utopias is a work in progress. Dostoyevski's Notes from the Underground is an interesting book yet not at all one where one should find anything Utopian. It is a story about the lowest level Russian government worker, terribly poor, living in the cold of winter St. Petersburg in a basement lodging with the aspiration to have a great coat, a warm one, for the winter. It is a dark and somewhat melancholy novel if I remember it correctly. Nikoli Gogol also wrote a story named The Overcoat. Since it has been quite a well since I read either I may conflate some elements. Maybe it would be Utopian to combine the two stories.
Moore's Utopia is quite different. Thomas Moore is an interesting historical figure and wrote Utopia where the streets were paved with gold. In Anchorage Alaska a mayor once heated some of the city sidewalks. I wish they would do that with a particular bike path over a freeway in Montana (the d_mn snowploughs throw the car path snow onto the bike path destroying the Utopia of it all).
Sure its possible to build a human society where no one is physically experiencing privation. The best way to accomplish that is with democracy and free enterprise suitably configured with a balanced budget and no public debt. It is a temporal state of being though. The most difficult part would be to make it last forever, as it will with God in heaven. On Earth it is a problem because everything can always be improved, there are emergent external challenges and change is needed to upgrade. The American dream society aspires toward utopia with comfortable large homes, shag carpets, giant TVs, SUVs and video games that go on forever, pollution doesn't matter and global warming is a hoax. While a non-changing temporal society would probably be stagnant and trend toward dystopianism, it is fun to imagine the middle Earth Camelot that never ends with JFK and Jackie enjoying convertible rides that continue until the rivers run dry and the sun turns into a Cheshire cat, in greater bliss. Alternatively some might regard some economic progress as inherently dystopian because it destroys wilderness and wildlife that are aesthetically beautiful products of God's creative work for-themselves.
Moore's Utopia is quite different. Thomas Moore is an interesting historical figure and wrote Utopia where the streets were paved with gold. In Anchorage Alaska a mayor once heated some of the city sidewalks. I wish they would do that with a particular bike path over a freeway in Montana (the d_mn snowploughs throw the car path snow onto the bike path destroying the Utopia of it all).
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