Utopian literature has often been criticised for being overly idealistic and unrealistic. Mark R. Levin writes that:
Utopianism substitutes glorious predictions and unachievable promises for knowledge, science, and reason, while laying claim to them all. Yet there is nothing new in deception disguised as hope and nothing original in abstraction framed as progress.
(Levin 3)
However, the critical fictional utopia does not seek to make “unachievable promises” or to “deceive” readers with false promises. Utopian literature seeks to expose the underlying flaws within the author’s current society and devise meaningful solutions for them. It is a creative form of art which rejects the idea of the absolute and essential by imagining new and alternative forms of social progress.
On the topic of American utopias in fiction, writers differ in using ironic or metaphysical approaches. The ironist utopia is a subversive one: the writer “spends her time worrying about the possibility that she has been initiated into the wrong tribe, taught to play the wrong language game” (Rorty 4). In the context of utopian fiction, the writer acknowledges that their perception of society may be skewed because of their continual exposure to only one “real essence” (3). Therefore, the writer must create a new “vocabulary” by imagining an alternative and fictional society that may not be linked to the real world by continuity. The metaphysical approach is based on the idea that humans “already possess a lot of the ‘right’ final vocabulary” (5). The metaphysical writer thus posits that there is an essential essence to human nature. Therefore, they must craft their imagined utopian society to best accommodate these aspects of human nature. Metaphysical utopian novels like Thomas More’s Utopia and B.F. Skinner’s Walden Two imagine utopias that take place with continuity in the current world. Rather than depict the world in a different way, these writers offer solutions to social issues based on their assumptions on human nature.
Although the approaches to writing differ, both forms of utopian literature share a common goal of inducing the reader to imagine a better society. Neither approach is more important than the other. In this essay, I will argue that both metaphysical and ironist approaches are necessary for the “social dreaming” (Barnhill 214) that utopian literature constitutes. While ironic fiction exposes underlying oppressive power structures and the problems that accompany them, metaphysical utopian fiction also plays a role by imagining solutions to immediate and apparent social issues. Utopian fiction as a whole seeks to progress society by “embody in a literary form the concrete reality of those ideals” (Lancaster 3).
Ironist writers like Charlotte Perkins Gilman create a new world to allow readers to view society in a different light, exposing injustices. In Herland, Gilman imagines a utopia that is entirely female. Their society is communitarian and egalitarian, without having seen a man for two thousand years (Gilman 96). However, problems arise when the men Vandyck, Terry and Jeff visit Herland from the real world. The men bring with them their phallocentric notions on gender roles in society, attempting to enforce them on the women of Herland.
Terry put in practice his pet conviction that a woman loves to be mastered, and by sheer brute force, in all the pride and passion of his intense masculinity, he tried to master this woman.
(Gilman 277)
At the climax of the novel, Terry attempts to sexually assault Alima. Gilman’s use of the word “mastered” in verb and noun form alludes to the typical patriarchal relationship that Terry is familiar with. Terry is conditioned by his society to believe that a woman should be submissive to her male master, therefore he tries to demonstrate it in Herland. While the incident is jarring, it is not altogether unexpected. Throughout the novel, Gilman refers to the men’s patriarchal attitudes through their dialogue:
We have two life cycles: the man’s and the woman’s. To the man there is growth, struggle, conquest, the establishment of his family, and as much further success in gain or ambition as he can achieve.
To the woman, growth, the securing of a husband, the subordinate activities of family life, and afterward such “social” or charitable interests as her position allows.
(214)
Vandyck creates a distinction between the two sexes. In his patriarchal society, the man is the breadwinner and leader of the family. On the other hand, the woman is “subordinate” to him. She is unable to achieve any agency and is regarded as mere partner to the man. The man has an economic and societal dominance over the woman, as she is not allowed to work and make money. Being confined to the private sphere of “family life”, women in Gilman’s society were hence deprived of financial independence. Hence, they were financially dependent on men, creating Vandyck’s perception that women must be dependent on men.
A Rortyian reading of Herland reveals that Gilman’s setting identifies the hypocrisy of male privilege. Gilman’s imagination of a feminist, egalitarian utopia posits that women can exist and thrive without men. It also disproves preconceived notions about society which Vandyck, Jeff and Terry have about women. Gilman reveals that the subordinate gender roles that women in her time fell into were a result of essentialist beliefs, that women could not work and had to be dependent on a man. As Rorty writes in “Private Irony and Liberal Hope”, “ thinks nothing has an intrinsic nature, a real essence” (Rorty 74). Gilman’s ironic approach challenges the notion that women “intrinsically” have to lead a passive family life. In highlighting the hypocrisy in American society’s attitude towards women, Gilman exposes the underlying powers which dictate a patriarchal, hegemonic culture which dominates women. Herland highlights the “traditional dualistic modes of understanding political possibilities” (Lancaster 4) through Vandyck and the other men’s hypocritical thoughts and rejects these essentialist notions. Hence, Gilman’s Herland uses an ironist approach to expose the underlying power structures which undermine the woman in American society, while imagining a new female-centric world which revolutionises this problem. Although Gilman does not offer an immediate workable solution to the women’s right issue, she provides a basis for the women’s right movement by exposing the patriarchal hegemony. Before physical action is taken, the ironist must identify the problem first.
While the ironist approach to utopian literature emphasises the problems within society, the metaphysical approach focuses on solving societal issues using historical examples and the author’s current knowledge on human nature. Behavioural psychologist B.F. Skinner tries to solve societal issues by creating an alternative utopia with radically different practices from mainstream society. In Skinner’s Walden Two, the utopia’s leader, T.E. Frazier adopts several practices to create a better society. Frazier’s measures in Walden Two address concerns in American society like personal health and leisure time away from work. Addressing labour concerns, Frazier advocates a four-hour workday for the reason that members are most productive during the first four hours of the day (Skinner 124). With the reduced hours spent at work, the members of Walden Two have more leisure time. To ensure that the members are in good health, Frazier advocates behavioural control:
We can control their diet, in collaboration with our very good dietitians, and of course, we supervise all sanitation. Our patients automatically get regular exercise, fresh air, sunshine, and rest as part of their lives at Walden Two. It’s a beautiful situation from the point of view of preventive medicine.”
(Skinner 339)
Skinner’s preventative measures pre-supposes that people will not always act in the best possible way for themselves. Therefore, they must be “controlled” and “supervised” for their own good. Skinner takes a metaphysical approach in solving most of the problems through the Walden Two commune. As he assumes certain aspects of human nature, his solutions merely “think of refining or clarifying the use of terms as a matter of weaving these platitudes into a perspicuous system” (Rorty 77). In the two examples given, Skinner’s naturalistic approach assumes that humans work faster in the first four hours a day and that they do not act in their best interest for their health.
Skinner’s critics claim that Walden Two is a dystopia because of the lack of individual freedom. Indeed, members are “subordinated to the state” (Levin 3). Skinner’s advocates behavioural control over people for their own good. However, by reading Walden Two as a critical utopia, we observe that Skinner’s ideas, while tyrannical, are still useful. Skinner’s utopia is imperfect, but he never argues otherwise. When the narrator implies that Walden Two is a perfect utopia to Frazier, he angrily retorts: “Do you think I’d be content with a set of cultural conditions in which mankind was in equilibrium?” (Skinner 502). Frazier’s vision for Walden Two emphasises that it is incomplete and a work in progress. Walden Two is not a traditional, perfect utopia. Instead, it is a critical utopia. As Barnhill writes:
Unlike traditional utopias, critical utopias are imperfect and in process. They head toward rather than achieve the ideal, and they are contingent and vulnerable. Instead of presenting a blueprint for the ideal society, they offer a rich blending of creative fantasy, critical thinking, and oppositional activism. And instead of offering a unitary perspective, such texts may be self- reflexive, multivocal, and fragmented. This notion of critical utopianism helps counter the narrow understanding of utopianism that has made it easy to reject.
(Barnhill 214)
Skinner’s imagined utopia is a form of “social dreaming”, an attempt to work out a solution to American societal issues based on his naturalistic beliefs. Frazier’s belief that Walden Two is not complete acknowledges that there are flaws in the society. It invites criticism over the issue of control and tyranny by Frazier. Skinner alludes to this issue with the imagery of Frazier’s all-seeing Throne. When Frazier shows him his throne, the narrator comments that he has made his own world and questions if he thinks he is God, “hoping to bring matters out into the open” (Skinner 510). To which Frazier replies that “here’s a curious similarity”. This exchange emphasises the “self-reflexive” nature of Walden Two. Instead of providing only one perspective, the novel contains multiple discourses simultaneously. The ending of Walden Two once again calls back to its status as a form of “social dreaming”. When the narrator “glance fearfully” (563) towards Frazier’s Throne, he is relieved to see that there is no one there. Instead, he sees the “familiar features of Walden Two stretched before ”. Skinner asserts that Frazier’s leadership is irrelevant to the novel. Walden Two is merely a fictional utopia which Skinner uses to experiment with ideas which could improve Americans’ lifestyles.
As Deborah Altus and Edward Morris note in “B.F. Skinner’s Utopian Vision: Behind and Beyond Walden Two”:
As for Skinner’s premises, they were no more than naturalism applied to human affairs. Naturalism is the working assumption that behavior is part of nature, and thus lawful and orderly in its own right, a function of historical and current environmental and biological contingencies and contexts. Naturalism is not controversial in science—it works.
(Altus, Morris 3)
Skinner’s novel is an experiment using his knowledge on naturalism to create a utopian society. Unlike Gilman’s anti-essentialist, ironist utopia, Skinner takes a metaphysical approach by assuming that “behaviour is part of nature”. Frazier’s persona gives Skinner a fictional framework for him to demonstrate how his ideas would work. Walden Two hence not a “blueprint for the ideal society” (Barnhill 214), but an experiment on how naturalism could be applied to American society to achieve social progress. While Herland and Walden Two differ in their approaches, both have the shared goal of bettering American society.
In conclusion, we see that utopian literature seeks to improve society through a form of “social dreaming”. Gilman’s Herland takes a Rortyian approach by imagining a society of women invaded by men. By creating a fictional society, she allows the reader to compare it with American society, exposing the hypocrisy in American culture regarding women’s rights. Gilman makes apparent the power structures which dominate women, without which the reader may not be aware of as they do not possess “the right vocabulary”. Skinner’s Walden Two uses a metaphysical approach to imagine solutions for American society. Skinner’s naturalism assumes aspects of human nature and works around them to create a better society. Walden Two is a critical utopia, evidenced by its self-reflexivity.
Both novels encourage readers to participate in the discourse by interacting with the ideas presented in the novels. Regardless of their approach, both Gilman and Skinner created their imagined worlds out of a need to create a better American society.
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Works Cited
Altus, Deborah E, and Edward K Morris. “B. F. Skinner’s Utopian Vision: Behind and Beyond Walden Two.” The Behavior analyst vol. 32,2 (2009): 319-35. doi:10.1007/BF03392195
BARNHILL, DAVID LANDIS, and EZRA ZEITLER. “Critical Utopianism and Bioregional Ecocriticism.” The Bioregional Imagination: Literature, Ecology, and Place, edited by TOM LYNCH et al., University of Georgia Press, 2012, pp. 212–25. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46nnf7.17. Accessed 15 Nov. 2022.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Herland. Dover Publications, 1998.
LANCASTER, ASHLIE. “Instantiating Critical Utopia.” Utopian Studies, vol. 11, no. 1, 2000, pp. 109–19. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25702460. Accessed 15 Nov. 2022.
Levin, Mark R. Rediscovering Americanism: And The Tyranny of Progressivism, Threshold Editions, New York, 2018.
Rorty, Richard. “Private Irony and Liberal Hope.” Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989. 73-95. Print.
Skinner, B.F. Walden Two. New York: Macmillan; 1948.