«Utopias are everywhere, we just don't see them»

-Can we then be optimistic?

-It is not a question of power, it is one of necessity. One of the often misunderstood things about optimism, or about hope, is that it is an emotion, and a soft one. People often associate optimism with naivety. The distinction I try to make in the book is the difference between hope and optimism as an emotion versus as a cognitive ability. It is very difficult in this day and time with the apocalyptic loop in which we are to be optimistic as an emotional state, because we are living in a world full of crises and that leads us to the loss of hope. However, humans can fix it. People created this terrible economic system we live in, so they can create a different one.

-Historical utopian experiments ultimately failed, although they managed to reach milestones. But what can we learn from those utopias of the past?

-First of all, there are still Benedictine monasteries and convents. They are still there, that way of living that is, from our conventional point of view, strange. We don't think of them as utopian, although they arose from a very utopian impulse. Similarly, there are Buddhist ashrams. These utopian visions are more lasting than we think. And things like free public education or schools paid for by taxes were the tenth point of 'The Communist Manifesto'. They were a radical utopian vision that is so normal today that we don't think of it as a utopian vision.

-Maybe it's a bias. I grew up in that public school system, it seems normal to me. But I understand the essence of what you are saying. It's a utopia.

-Correct. It is totally utopian. There are many things that we take for granted today but that began as utopian visions. The idea that women were equal to men was crazy. I think that's why it's so important to study these utopias, even the ones that failed—and many did, because many of them were very radical. Many times they fail, other times they are brutally crushed, but ideas live and resonate, they permeate our culture. What we learn from utopias is that: at every moment in history, in any cultural context, there is always a utopian 1%, a small group that lives on the margins of society and says “hey, the way in which we do things is not the best. “We can do it differently.” There is something about the human condition that requires these radical thinkers. They are very important for our survival; Because as a species, human beings are flexible, we adapt, we are creative, but many of us have the 'status quo' bias. We want things to stay the same and we rely heavily on these people who envision completely different ways of living to inspire us to change.

-One of the things that surprised me in reading is that we have utopian things very close to us every day, but we do not see them as such. I was thinking about the Little Free Library that you talk about, which we see as something 'cute' but they are essentially revolutionary.

-Yes, they are everywhere. The thing is, many people make a negative association with the word utopia. Part of it is because of this idea that utopian experiments failed. But yes, every day. A Little Free Library is the most radical thing you can imagine: people sharing for free on the street, with no barriers to entry. Think about it. Anyone could open the door, take all the books, turn around and sell them. Nobody does it. Capitalism tells us that they will do it because everyone is bad. There are always bad apples, but no one does that. People are more “well, there's a library, I'll take one book, I'll leave another.” And works.

I also think there are a lot of people living in ways that are not officially coliving, or intentional communities, but that share resources. There are platonic friendships or family forms that are different from the LGBT community. You have the chosen families. So it's happening everywhere, we just don't see it. We are not asking ourselves the right questions. If you were to stop and look around — especially during the pandemic when there were all these mutual aid experiments — people are really experimenting with utopian ways of living.

-Speaking of the present, another of the book's themes is the privilege of who can sign up for a utopia. She was thinking about all those 'coliving' experiences, which are either something fabulous and expensive or something you end up in because of the precariousness among young people.

-There are two sides of the spectrum, as in 'coliving', extremely privileged people who are doing it as a lifestyle option and people who are very precarious who do it out of necessity. And in the middle of everyone else, because we are trapped in an environment that we inherited from the 20th century. This is often the case with utopian movements. If you look at the history of utopian thinkers, like Fourier or Kropotkin, many of these people who were trying to change the world were often the ones who had the most to gain from staying the same. The other important point is the generational issue. Younger people are more likely to live in a community, as are older people. I don't see it as a problem, but as a continuity of how utopian movements began.