One of the things that's amazing about reading the private writing of these folks is that they enthusiastically describe things which we have now seen, and which are widely regarded as unappealing. They'll write, "It's going to be beautiful, we're… — Christine Jennings Copy Share Image
Utopian fiction is really boring. I had to read a lot of it, and it's not that much fun. But they're fascinating to me… — Christine Jennings Copy Share
The fatal flaw of most utopian visions is that they're fundamentally static, and that's not a comfortable place for humans to live. Fourier was… — Christine Jennings Copy Share
There are two instances I studied in which a community moved, amazingly, into an preexisting village built by other, earlier communalists. The Rappites were… — Christine Jennings Copy Share
The religious and irreligious are agreeing with each other almost all the time. Their rhetoric is the same, and their plans are the same.… — Christine Jennings Copy Share
These weren't college kids on acid. They were preachers, and bankers, and farmers, and the salt of American society subscribing to ideas that now… — Christine Jennings Copy Share
The thought was, 'We're going to go to California, where the soil is black and ten feet deep, and there are no rocks, and… — Christine Jennings Copy Share
But if you'd only ever lived in small wooden house in the middle of wilderness, it sounded much better. Especially because it provided intense… — Christine Jennings Copy Share
Atheist isn't really the right word because they tended to believe in some sort of Enlightenment, capital 'N' Nature kind of god. But these… — Christine Jennings Copy Share
I was really interested in 20th century communalism and alternative communities, the boom of communes in the 60s and 70s. That led me back… — Christine Jennings Copy Share
Because the utopian's worldview was framed around moving toward this perfected future, it helped stimulate the private exertions that add up to social progress.… — Christine Jennings Copy Share
The thing that had fueled these utopian communities was a literal belief, and not just a general sense of optimism, that the earth was… — Christine Jennings Copy Share
They [Oneida people] didn't want to fix problems one at a time. If someone invited them to a feminist convention, their answer would have… — Christine Jennings Copy Share
Utopians don't say, 'The world's corrupt, women make less money, people of color are oppressed at every turn.' You don't list the problems of… — Christine Jennings Copy Share
don't think I should be in the business of making big pronouncements about where we are now, but I would say that dissatisfaction is… — Christine Jennings Copy Share
The secular utopians basically said the exact same thing, they just took the Bible out of the equation. The religious and the secular groups… — Christine Jennings Copy Share
