seeking utopia

Today marks Juneteenth, the day when enslaved African Americans in Texas became free. The Emancipation Proclamation was 2.5 years old when it reached Galveston, Texas in 1865. Slaveowners in the state already knew, of course. Jordan Smith reports they forced in at least 150,000 enslaved folks in those 2.5 years. All this came decades after Texas itself went to war with Mexico to protect its own slaveholders. Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, and Texas declared its independence in 1835. But 30 years later, the enslaved people of Texas finally broke the bonds of chattel slavery. We've celebrated Juneteenth every year since.

My ancestors (not even distant ones) lived during segregation and Jim Crow. Some of them took part in other civil rights struggles. These causes are, ultimately, linked. Lilla Watson put it best when she said, "If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” We celebrate Juneteenth as a rare step towards the total liberation of all people who call this country home. Today the project of our collective liberation is not finished. Though the struggle continues, we mark our progress with joy.

I sometimes wonder: what happens when we're done? It feels like we're still a very long way off from the imagined utopias of pop culture like Star Trek. The future that feels so rational and bright is still crafted by present-day minds. But the time we spend on imagination is never wasted. I find that it's essential to deciding where we want to go.

what does utopia mean?

To me, it means everyone has their basic needs met. A person may want for whatever but need nothing. The Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement is a self-governance organization in Sri Lanka. They offer material support and conflict resolution to people in villages across the country. Founder A.T. Ariyaratne led research in more than 600 villages to create a list of people's 10 basic needs. Sarvodaya organizes this list from most to least important, but all 10 needs are essential for well-being.

1. Clean environment
2. Adequate supply of water
3. Clothing
4. Nutritious food
5. Shelter
6. Health care
7. Communication
8. Fuel and lighting (energy)
9. Access to education
10. Cultural and spiritual performance

Sounds simple, right? The aforementioned Star Trek nerds (guilty) might describe this condition as post-scarcity. In the galactic UN called the Federation, everyone has what they need. Money is no longer an issue for anyone. Nobody hoards wealth. It doesn't even figure into most people's daily lives! In a utopia we could easily meet all the needs above. What might people still argue about?

Logistical struggles. How do we share the resources that we all need to survive? What do we produce and where does it need to go? What does power and agency feel like in a world like this? Are services centralized in the style of an empire? Are we arranged in highly-connected bureaucratic city-states? Is there a massive entity like Sarvodaya that distributes resources to far-flung villages?

Principled struggles. What is a struggle when we're all on the same side? Activist groups during the civil rights era all had the same ultimate goal. Their success was the product of hours of debate, discussion, and conflict. Members articulated their passions, fears, and hopes through connection with each other. adrienne maree brown describes the concept she learned as principled struggle. Quoting N'Tanya Lee, she writes,

"[I]n struggle that is principled, we struggle for the sake of building deeper unity, that we are honest and direct while holding compassion, that we each take responsibility for our own feelings and actions, and seek deeper understanding by asking questions and reading a text (such as an article or proposal) before we launch our counter argument."

No matter our experiences, there will always be things we don't know. The universality of utopia asks us to consider the perspectives and wisdom of others. Principled struggle offers us a way to do so.

Struggles against greed and chaos. As I was imagining a list of utopian problems, I kept coming back to these. I'm a product of my surroundings. Society birthed its first trillionaire this week, and he's unfortunately a violence-fueling insufferable racist. It's hard to imagine a utopia when all that some people want is a utopia of one. These future-folks will deal with similar people, too. We already have bigots who insist the social progress we made has gone too far. We see in the present day how easy it is to subvert institutions. We need safeguards, not just written into rules or laws, but into the values we hold as a people.

utopia found

It's possible that utopia is less a destination than a perpetual journey. For as long as we exist as humans we will be as fallible as we are brilliant. I hope that principled struggle is where we spend most of our time. But the 10 basic needs above are so tangible it's maddening. We already produce enough resources for everyone on earth to live in comfort. If scarcity is manufactured, the obstacle we face is not material but societal.

More people than ever are waking up to the true conditions of the world around them. Our liberation remains bound together. Utopia, or something like it, could arrive tomorrow. Can we find the courage enough to demand it?