Utopian ideas are often disregarded as wishful and magical thinking. “Raising Utopia” is a weekly newsletter that rejects this view by highlighting people who are going against the status quo, challenging the taken-for-granted and promoting solidarity.
The English lawyer, writer, and saint Thomas More coined the word “utopia” in 1517. The word means “no place” in Greek, but some scholars have claimed that it could be a pun on “happy place.” As global deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic reached 2 million in January 2021, our concept of “place” has been shaken and many people are wondering what there is to be happy about. Rather than a placeless feeling, this project explores how we can leverage digital media to create a networked utopia that stitches together ideas that reimagine our relationships to each other and the planet, and offer revolutionary visions of society.
I am constantly hearing from friends, family, and colleagues about the existential dread they feel when watching the news and “doom scrolling” their social media feeds. Researchers call this “disaster fatigue,” and it’s fair to say that most people suffered from it at some point during 2020.
The goal of this project is not to combat disaster fatigue with feel-good, “happy” news or to avoid the very serious challenges and inequities societies around the world face, but to promote the idea that a more just and equitable society is not only possible, it is currently being realized. Leveraging radical and collective energy, people are forming worker cooperatives to reclaim their workplaces; reimagining local journalism to create healthy news ecosystems and combat the spread of misinformation; creating community safety initiatives to rethink policing and public safety; and redesigning energy systems to deal with the threat of climate change.
“Raising Utopia” provides a round-up of these and other utopian initiatives in the hopes that through sharing stories of people struggling to realize a better world, you will be encouraged to join ongoing efforts and create utopia in your community.
If you have suggestions for people and ideas that should be featured, please e-mail me.
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