Eutopias and dystopias of science.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Date: 22 September 2005
• Author: Tower Sargent, Lyman
• Published date: 22 September 2005
• Author: Tower Sargent, Lyman

Most utopias are based upon one or more foundations, with education, law and religion being the most common, with of course interesting shifts in dominance over time. * Here, I look at another or, arguably, two others: science and technology.

Any serious scholar of science fiction will say that the attitude to science and technology in science fiction is ambivalent at best and always has been. The question in the broader utopian tradition has been less studied, but much of the scholarship has stressed the positive role of science and technology in utopianism. In Utopian Thought in the Western World (1979) the Manuels correctly identified a strong pro-science stream in early utopianism, and Nell Eurich in her Science in Utopia: A Mighty Design (1967) noted a positive scientific utopianism. In The Dreams of Reason: Science and Utopias (1961), Rene Dubos has done much the same, as has Howard P. Segal in Technological Utopianism in American Culture (1985). But Dubos recognizes that it is not that simple, and Segal also wrote Future Imperfect: The Mixed Blessings of Technology in America (1994). (1)

It is certainly the case that, beginning with Francis Bacon's New Atlantis (1627), many utopias have presented science and technology, properly used, as one of the major mechanisms for bringing about and sustaining the desired better society. But it is also the case that 'science and technology' needs to be unpacked because it covers many different ideas, and that the phrase 'properly used' is a particularly important qualifier.

To make my argument, I begin with Bacon simply because the New Atlantis dominates perceptions of science in utopian literature, and then move on to the quite practical utopias of the 17th century that are more about technology than science. I then briefly discuss the 18th-century debates over reason, which directly affect the presentation of science and technology. The 19th century is the high-point of the belief that science and technology can transform life for the better. While disillusionment grows during the last years of that century and continues throughout the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries, the belief in the possibility of science and technology producing eutopia never disappears. The disillusionment means that the belief in science and technology producing dystopia has become stronger.

Bacon and the New Atlantis

Most of New Atlantis is taken up with a description of the arrival of outsiders on a typical isolated island and the description of the key institution of the country, Solomon's House. (2) Solomon's House is a combination of a repository for samples of all the world's plants, minerals, machines, and more, as well as being a research centre in which constant observation and experimentation are carried out.

The relationship between Solomon's House and the society of Bensalem, the name of the island, is obscure. It is fairly clear that the average citizen does not know much, if anything, about Solomon's House. On the other hand, the scientists of Solomon's House are, if not the actual rulers, very much the power behind the throne. They rule by providing the people with abundance so no one is ever unhappy. Direct rule would be too much bother.

New Atlantis reflects the 17th-century combination of religion (particularly belief in the coming millennium) and science (particularly experimentation and classification). The separate revelation in New Atlantis might have been a Second Coming, but apparently it was not. It does, though, reveal the intimate connection between religion and science at the time. Neither Bacon nor the other scientists (as we would call them) of the time saw science and religion as separate. That Isaac Newton spent most of his life on Biblical exegesis was not unusual, just generally forgotten in our attempt to make all scientists from all time periods think alike.

In the 17th century science was in the process of being freed or differentiated from magic and religion. (3) At this time the split was only beginning and science, religion and magic were still very much part of each other, even in those writers we tend to think of as the scientists of the age.

Bacon believed that science (and the term must be used broadly) was an avenue to the understanding of God. This was the standard position of scientists at the time. Science and religion were part of the same activity. New Atlantis, seen in this light, makes sense. Bensalem is a Christian country, and the scientists who are its most honoured citizens are religious also.

Hartlib and His Circle

Bacon was not the only religious scientist to write a utopia. Another utopia of the time, Macaria (1641), was once thought to have been by Samuel Hartlib, but is now generally attributed to Gabriel Plattes, who was a member of the circle around Hartlib and best known as a writer on agriculture. (4)

According to Charles Webster's exhaustive study of the Hartlib circle, Hartlib and his followers are representative of a significant element of mid-17th century Puritan thought which combined millennial expectations and a belief in the revival of learning. Hartlib and his followers saw the production and distribution of knowledge as tools for improving the lives of the people, a sign of the coming of the millennium (based on Daniel 12:4), and a means of achieving the social conditions expected as a result of the Second Coming. (5) Thus, millenarianism was part of the background to both advances in learning--including science and technology--and the belief in the desirability and possibility of significant social change.

Millennial expectations pervaded the thought of the time. The Hartlib circle drew some of its inspiration from Johann Valentin Andreae, author of the famous utopia Reipublicae Christianopolis Descriptio (1619, known as Christianopolis) and other works, some of which were translated by John Hall at Hartlib's request.

Amore direct influence was Comenius (Jan Amos Komensky), whose presentation of a possible pansophia, the integration of all knowledge, inspired the Hartlib circle in its hope to bring together all knowledge into one coherent system that could be readily communicated. In England Comenius was closely associated with Hartlib.

The Hartlib circle saw the need for practical proposals for realizing their ideas. The proposals ranged from a colony in the Baltic or the New World, to be called Antilia, after a scheme of Andreae's, to various proposals for employing the poor. They included a plan to establish a universal college and the utopia Macaria, which is a brief pamphlet that only suggests a few reforms.

The most recent (and best) analysis of Macaria, by J. C. Davis, argues that the economic utopia (full employment) was central to the unification of all knowledge and practice that Plattes envisions. Utopianism was at the centre of the Hartlib circle's thought even though only one utopia was produced. (6)

Macaria reflects a twofold concern--with the imminence of the millennium and the advancement of learning. While religion appears to be brushed aside with statements that could have been written by a non-religious rationalist, the language should not be allowed to disguise the fact that religious belief and practice are central to the whole social and intellectual system of the society. Religion was as central to the science and technology of the Hartlib circle as it was to Bacon. (7)

Swift and Reason

As noted above, science emerged as a distinct way of thought in the 17th century as it separated from magic and religion. Alchemy is a perfect example of the mid-ground in that it combined experiment and incantation. As the incantations were dropped, something like modern, experimental science slowly developed. It is generally recognized, for example by...