utopia

Please don't let me down this time

I've come a long way just to fall back in line

The sun hits my skin, triggering vitamin D creation and (probably) melanoma production as well.

Dave Pollard's utopian urges hit my RSS feed and reminds me of a film and of my own, ambiguous experiences with utopian communities.

I look at Dave's adjectives: exemplary, egalitarian, replicable, educational, responsible, respectful, self-sufficient, sustainable, diverse. I hear echoes of a million pious political plans (illustrated with a multi-ethnic cast grinning around an iMac or a yogurt-making aga or some such techno-artisanal ikon).

Part of me admires the purity of Dave's vision.

And part of me wants to find Dave's MIC and spray graffiti on the walls, burn down the buildings and glory in its destruction. That's not very nice but sadly very human. Dave's vision seems a model of liberal, humanist rationality. But where is the place in utopia for the irrational, the destructive, the parts of us that aren't nice but are ever present (although very much controlled in most societies)?

We find ways of channelling these dark energies - some useful (sport, art, capitalism), others less (violence, drink/drugs). Where are the dark spaces in an MIC? What does it do with its shadows?

Dave visions a polyamorous world but my god is a jealous god. And he was made in my image.