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On Anti-Utopianism, More or Less

What fuels the animus against utopia? The images of plenty and ease that constituted classical utopian visions hardly seem to justify contempt or fear. Early literary texts of the Greeks do not promote violence and mayhem. It is difficult to envision these writings inspiring murderous totalitarians.² They generally praise peace and damn violence. Hesiod, the eighth-century-B.C. poet usually credited with the first description of utopia, wrote in Works and Days of the "golden" men who lived like gods, "carefree in their hearts, shielded from pain and misery."³ Old age did not exist, and with "limbs of unsagging vigor," this golden...