#318: Sketch: A British Utopia
It's been 46 years now since Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia set the pace for what might be called future perfect fiction: a writer's imaginary utopia set in our contemporary world.
Judging from a brief excerpt published in Yes!, Rob Hopkins has written something similar. For example:
"In our community, the kids seem to have radically different feelings about school than they did 10 years ago. The education department’s decision to eliminate testing, to give ample space for unstructured play and to provide students with opportunities within the community to acquire meaningful skills that enable them to live happy and healthy lives by their own definition means that most kids here now love going to school. My son, for example, recently upped his cooking skills by spending a week at a local restaurant.
Kindness, creativity, local production, and agriculture woven into everyday life..., who wouldn't want to live in such a world?
Getting serious about such things, though, requires more than a quick reference to the elimination of tests at the local school. Or, elsewhere, a 3-day workweek and a Universal Basic Income. But, on the other hand, we should encourage imaginations like Hopkins, since nothing comes of nothing, and we all know there's plenty of room for improvement in this world of ours.
May your dreams bear fruit.
