Utopian fiction is really boring. I had to read a lot of it, and it's not that much fun. But they're fascinating… — Christine Jennings Book Copy Share Image
The fatal flaw of most utopian visions is that they're fundamentally static, and that's not a comfortable place for humans to live.… — Christine Jennings Appeals Copy Share Image
There are two instances I studied in which a community moved, amazingly, into an preexisting village built by other, earlier communalists. The… — Christine Jennings Built Copy Share Image
The religious and irreligious are agreeing with each other almost all the time. Their rhetoric is the same, and their plans are… — Christine Jennings Different Copy Share Image
These weren't college kids on acid. They were preachers, and bankers, and farmers, and the salt of American society subscribing to ideas… — Christine Jennings Acid Copy Share Image
The thought was, 'We're going to go to California, where the soil is black and ten feet deep, and there are no… — Christine Jennings Black Copy Share Image
But if you'd only ever lived in small wooden house in the middle of wilderness, it sounded much better. Especially because it… — Christine Jennings Community Copy Share Image
Atheist isn't really the right word because they tended to believe in some sort of Enlightenment, capital 'N' Nature kind of god.… — Christine Jennings Atheist Copy Share Image
I was really interested in 20th century communalism and alternative communities, the boom of communes in the 60s and 70s. That led… — Christine Jennings 19th century Copy Share Image
Because the utopian's worldview was framed around moving toward this perfected future, it helped stimulate the private exertions that add up to… — Christine Jennings Add Copy Share Image
The thing that had fueled these utopian communities was a literal belief, and not just a general sense of optimism, that the… — Christine Jennings Belief Copy Share Image
They [Oneida people] didn't want to fix problems one at a time. If someone invited them to a feminist convention, their answer… — Christine Jennings Answers Copy Share Image
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… — Christine Jennings Be good Copy Share Image
don't think I should be in the business of making big pronouncements about where we are now, but I would say that… — Christine Jennings Bigs Copy Share Image
The secular utopians basically said the exact same thing, they just took the Bible out of the equation. The religious and the… — Christine Jennings Bible Copy Share Image
One of the things that's amazing about reading the private writing of these folks is that they enthusiastically describe things which we… — Christine Jennings Architecture Copy Share Image
The Jacksonian era is generally talked about in terms of individualism, and the development of free market capitalism, and Victorian prudery. It… — Christine Jennings Bunch Copy Share Image
The biggest names in the Transcendentalist literary circle visited the community regularly, and supported it, but they couldn't live there happily. Hawthorne… — Christine Jennings Arguing Copy Share Image
They're people who probably imagine that they would have had a better time in the past. I wouldn't imagine you'd encounter a… — Christine Jennings America Copy Share Image
The vision shared by both [French utopian] Charles Fourier and Robert Owen was for an entire town to fit into one structure.… — Christine Jennings Architecture Copy Share Image
I worry that I may have overstated the impact of Civil War on the utopians. By the time the Civil War comes,… — Christine Jennings American society Copy Share Image
That to me was one of the most exciting, and weird puzzles of this book: how are the most religious people and… — Christine Jennings Book Copy Share Image
They [Rappites] were moving from Southern Indiana to Pennsylvania, where they had originally settled when they came from Germany. They were looking… — Christine Jennings Appropriate Copy Share Image
Some people think God is going to guide those humans. The Oneida community and the Shakers both believed that they had received… — Christine Jennings Bible Copy Share Image
Some people just think utopians are idiots who are imagining rivers of candy and not really engaging with the world's ills, and… — Christine Jennings Affair Copy Share Image