Dylan Evans
MacMillan
Otago Daily Times, March 21st 2015
For philosopher and psychoanalyst Dylan Evans, the Utopia experiment started out as just that, an real-world attempt to determine what life might be like if civilisation as we know it collapsed. To this end, he wrote and posted on line a scenario whereby global warming and subsequent worldwide financial crash has forced people to flee the cities and establish small, self-sufficient collectives in the countryside. He then invited volunteers join him in establishing and maintaining a model community based on three ideas: learning (members must bring and teach distinctive skills to their fellows), working (everybody is expected to contribute physically to the project), and time-limited (the experiment would last 18 months, with participants free to stay for up to 3 months). But far from being the return to a more natural and fulfilling existence Evans had imagined, within a year he found himself penniless, homeless and hospitalised in a state of physical and psychological breakdown.
In retrospect the shortcomings of the plan should have been obvious. Although the Scottish Highlands may well become temperate sanctuaries in a warming world, they are far from a hospitable location for an agrarian, yurt-based existence as things stand today. Nor did he think through the sorts of people who were likely to volunteer for such a project, who fell into roughly two camps; long term residents who honestly believed an apocalypse of some sort was imminent, and short-termers who had no investment in the world required to ensure the longer-term success on Utopia. And then there was the fact that he found himself so strongly influenced by the apocalyptic writings of, among others, Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, that he became convinced his ‘fictional’ scenario of total global breakdown would occur within the next decade.
The Utopia Experiment is a brave and insightful memoir in which Evans explores how and why the experiment ended as it did, and accepts most of the blame for its failure. It is also an exploration of the psychology behind our fascination with doomsday scenarios and cultish behaviour. And although his final conclusion seems distinctly fatalistic (the world is going to end at some stage so stop worrying about it,), he also accepts that for many of Utopia’s volunteers it was an enriching and rewarding experience. As for me, I am going to go out and stockpile vegetable seeds for the garden I am making in my backyard.
https://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/books/brave-memoir-about-real-experiment
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