One of my favourite books is A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander et al. Unlike my fellow nerds, I don't admire it for its form, but for its content. I'm not enthralled by the "pattern language" itself, but by what the language describes: a perfect world. From the first to the last, the book is a detailed, comprehensive blueprint for Utopia, beginning with how to organise the world into independent regions, and ending with how to arrange the ornaments on your mantelpiece.
In each "pattern", the authors point out where some aspect of modern architecture -- particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world -- has gone badly wrong, how it has compromised our humanity in some way, how it has made life uncomfortable, stressful and lonely for so many people. When they point out the miseries of car parks and traffic jams, lifeless suburban housing estates, and dreary workplaces, it's hard not to disagree. They then propose a solution, usually through the synthesis of some idealised practice from the past, or from contemporary Mediterranean societies (which are portrayed as having a better quality of life), with modern architectural methods. Again, it's hard not to be seduced. When the authors enthuse about real marketplaces, bright and spacious courtyards, public baths, street life, human-scaled buildings in human cities, designed for humans, I can only think Yes! This is how it should be!
But then I know some people who think A Pattern Language is just a load of hippy crap. And they have something of a point: there is a definite whiff of joint smoke and Kumbaya about the proceedings. Most of the problems and solutions are backed up with a selective mixture of anecdotal evidence and dubious psychological study. There are also several aspects of the utopia I'm not enthusiastic about myself, such as the compulsory use of chemical toilets, or the replacement of rail with a minibus network, or the frequent insistence on communal living. Yes, I agree the nuclear family seems to be a bad idea, but the kind of collectives proposed in A Pattern Language offer the potential for even greater unhappiness, at least if the memory of my student house is anything to go by. In fact, as much as I admire it, I'm forced to conclude that a political regime that seriously tried to implement the utopia in A Pattern Language is not one I'd want to live under.
The problem with Utopia is that we each have our own. Utopia is something private and intimate, Utopia is something central to our individual consciousness, Utopia is something that grows with us. It begins to be formed in childhood, haphazardly, accidentally, in places that fill us with wonder, in moments when light and shadow impress themselves on a pliant imagination. We build our Utopia on such foundations; before we reach adulthood it is almost fully formed. Often it just suffices to add a few more naked women.
My own Utopia is formed, on the one hand, from the things that excited me in my immediate surroundings as a child: rain-streaked windows, grey portentous skies, snatches of sunlit countryside, ruined Norman castles, blasted moorland, heather and furze, abandoned stone quarries, wild forests, bluebells and meadowsweet, rock outcroppings. On the other hand, it comes from stories, images, playthings: fairy tales with medieval illustrations, Star Wars, knights and spacemen and WW2 soldiers, wondrous lands of 80s technology, green screens and dark moulded plastic, synthesisers, Gary Meyes' illustrations for Rebel Planet, the sci-fi milieu influenced by Blade Runner, Escape from New York and Mad Max 2. In fact, my idea of Utopia is a kind of dystopia. I find something irresistibly attractive about industrial misery, decrepit rooftops, ruins, overgrown footpaths, wasteland. A place that fills me with wonder and happiness is probably someone else's idea of hell.
There is no one true Utopia, any more than there is one true human. Which is why I have come to be wary of people offering Utopia, or trying to force Utopia on others. An example of the former is the Project for a New American Century, and an example of the latter is the US debacle in Iraq. But the same goes even for popular revolutions. Revolutions throughout history were most progressive when they tried to remove what was wrong, and went most astray when in addition they tried to enforce what was right. "I know what I would not have, but I do not know what I would have," said Oliver Cromwell. About what not to have, he and I would probably find much to agree on; but about what to have in its place, I suspect we would find very little common ground at all.