======================================================================
= Ecotopia =
======================================================================
Introduction
======================================================================
'Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston' is a utopian
novel by Ernest Callenbach, published in 1975. The society described
in the book is one of the first ecological utopias and was influential
on the counterculture and the green movement in the 1970s and
thereafter. The author himself claimed that the society he depicted
in the book is not a true utopia (in the sense of a perfect society),
but, while guided by societal intentions and values, was 'im'perfect
and in-process.
Callenbach said of the story, in relation to Americans: "It is so hard
to imagine anything fundamentally different from what we have now.
But without these alternate visions, we get stuck on dead center. And
we’d better get ready. We need to know where we’d like to go."
Context
======================================================================
Callenbach wove his story using the fiber of technologies, lifestyles,
folkways, and attitudes that were common in Northern California and
the Pacific Northwest. The "leading edges" (his main ideas for
Ecotopian values and practices) were patterns in actual social
experimentation taking place in the American West. To draw an example,
Callenbach's fictional Crick School was based on Pinel School, an
alternative school located outside Martinez, California, and attended
for a time by his son.
Callenbach placed the genesis of Ecotopia with an article he
researched and wrote titled "The Scandal of Our Sewage". Besides the
important social dimensions of the story, he talked publicly about
being influenced, during work on the novel, by many streams of
thought: scientific discoveries in ecology and conservation biology;
the urban-ecology movement, concerned with a new approach to urban
planning; and the soft-energy movement, championed by Amory Lovins and
others. Much of the environmentally benign energy, home building and
transportation technology described by the author was based on his
reading of research findings published in such journals as 'Scientific
American' and 'Science'.
Callenbach's concept does not reject high technology (or 'any'
technology) as long as it does not interfere with the Ecotopian social
order and serves the overall objectives. Members of his fictional
society prefer to demonstrate a 'conscious selectivity' toward
technology, so that not only human health and sanity might be
preserved, but also social and ecological wellbeing. For example,
Callenbach's story anticipated the development and liberal usage of
videoconferencing.
During the 1970s when 'Ecotopia' was written and published, many
prominent counterculture and New Left thinkers decried the consumption
and overabundance that they perceived as characteristic of post-World
War II America. The citizens of Ecotopia share a common aim: a balance
between themselves and nature. They were "literally sick of bad air,
chemicalized food, and lunatic advertising. They turned to politics
because it was finally the only route to self-preservation." In the
mid-20th century as "firms grew in size and complexity citizens needed
to know the market would still serve the interests of those for whom
it claimed to exist". Callenbach's 'Ecotopia' targets the fact that
many people did not feel that the market or the government were
serving them in the way they wanted them to. This book could be
interpreted as "a protest against consumerism and materialism, among
other aspects of American life."
The term "ecotopian fiction", as a subgenre of science fiction and
utopian fiction, makes implicit reference to this book.
Plot summary
======================================================================
The book is set in 1999 (25 years in the future from 1974) and
consists of diary entries and reports of journalist William Weston,
who is the first American mainstream media reporter to investigate
Ecotopia, a small country that broke away from the United States in
1980 following an economic collapse. Prior to Weston's reporting, most
Americans had been barred from entering the new country, which is
depicted as being on continual guard against revanchism. The new
nation of Ecotopia consists of Northern California, Oregon, and
Washington; it is hinted that Southern California is a lost cause, and
was most likely destroyed. The novel takes its form as a narrative
from Weston's diary in combination with dispatches that he transmits
to his publication, the fictional 'Times-Post'.
At the beginning, Weston is skeptically curious about, not yet
sympathetic to the Ecotopians. He describes details of the Ecotopian
transportation system and the preferred lifestyle. This includes a
wide range of gender roles, sexual freedom, and acceptance of
non-monogamous relationships. Liberal cannabis use is evident.
Televised passive, mass-media, spectator sports have been displaced in
favor of local arts coverage, local participatory sports, and general
fitness. A large fraction of young male Ecotopians participate
voluntarily in a decidedly male ritual of mock warfare using wooden
spears but no guns or arrows. The games are not re-enactments.
Physical injuries, occasionally serious, are considered part of the
game. Ecotopians on the whole value the benefits to young males over
the accidental injuries. Ecotopia also tolerates the voluntary
separatism of many people of African descent who have, in fact, chosen
to live in a mini-nation in the San Francisco East Bay area in order
to protect themselves from racism.
Ecotopian society has favored decentralized and renewable energy
production and green building construction. The citizens are
technologically creative, while remaining involved with and sensitive
to nature. Thorough-going education reform is described, along with a
highly localized system of universal medical care. (The narrator
discovers that Ecotopian healing practices may include sexual
stimulation.) The national defense strategy has focused on developing
a highly advanced arms industry, while also allegedly maintaining
hidden WMD within major US population centers to discourage conquest
and annexation.
Through Weston's diary we learn of observations he does not include in
his columns, such as his personally transformative love affair with an
Ecotopian woman. The book's parallel narrative structures allow the
reader to see how Weston's internal reflections, as recorded in his
diary, are diffracted in his external pronouncements to his readers.
Despite Weston's initial reservations, throughout the novel Ecotopian
citizens are characterized as clever, technologically resourceful,
emotionally expressive, and even occasionally violent - but also
socially responsible, patriotic. They often live in extended
families, and tend to live by choice in ethnically separated
localities. Their economic enterprises are generally employee-owned
and -controlled. The current governmental administration is that of a
woman-led (but not exclusively female) party, and government
structures are highly decentralized.
The novel concludes with Weston's finding himself enchanted by
Ecotopian life and deciding to stay in Ecotopia as its interpreter to
the wider world.
Values exemplified in the novel
======================================================================
The values embodied by those Ecotopians depicted in the novel reflect
the values espoused by its author. Callenbach said that his
Ecotopians attach fundamental importance to environmental and social
stability within which variety can flourish. They value creativity.
They ensure equality for women. They implement the protection and
restoration of natural systems. They promote food production in their
cities.
As well, they treasure personal quality-of-life values, such as health
and friendliness, and both meaningful discussion and play.
Callenbach began writing the novel by depicting the recycling of
valuable materials and substances by the society; he saw a
much-expanded role for recycling of all sorts, and this is key to many
concepts underpinning Ecotopia.
Anticipation of emerging realities
======================================================================
Worth mentioning is Callenbach's speculation on the roles of TV in his
envisioned society. The author espoused the fly on the wall genre of
direct political-process broadcasts, deeming them valuable to the
citizenry. In some ways anticipating C-SPAN, which would first be
broadcast in 1979, 'Ecotopia' mentions that the daily life of the
legislature and some of that of the judicial courts is televised in
Ecotopia. Even highly technical debates are televised, addressing the
needs and desires of Ecotopian viewers.
Another interesting detail in the story is "print on demand" (POD)
publishing. Ecotopian customers could choose selected print media
from a jukebox-like device that would then print and bind the book.
In the 21st century, POD services that print, bind and ship books for
customers who order on-line have become commonplace.
Impact
======================================================================
In 1981, Callenbach published 'Ecotopia Emerging', a multi-strand
"prequel" suggesting how the sustainable nation of Ecotopia could have
come into existence.
In 1990, Audio Renaissance released a partial dramatization of
'Ecotopia' on audiocassettes in the form of recordings of a radio
network broadcast (the 'Allied News Network' replacing the
'Times-Post'). The tape-recorded diaries of William Weston were read
by the book's author, Ernest Callenbach. Weston's reports were read by
veteran news reporter Edwin Newman.
In the online 'Earth Island Journal', 'Ecotopia' was reviewed by Brian
Smith, identifying himself as a child not of the 1960s but the 1980s.
He read the novel 30 years after it was first published, and said of
it: "I felt great affinity for the details of the world Callenbach
predicted. Even better, I was impressed by how many of his ideas came
to pass." influenced the identity of the West Coast in an interesting
way and influenced the rise of bioregionalism and started the desire
for West Coast unity in the form of Cascadia.
'Ecotopia' is now required reading in a number of colleges.
Reception
======================================================================
Don Milligan in the British magazine 'Peace News' gave 'Ecotopia' a
negative review, stating "'Ecotopia' is a shoddy amalgam of Swedish
social democracy, Swiss neutrality, and Yugoslav workers' co-ops
cobbled together with the authoritarianism of 'A Blueprint for
Survival'...'Ecotopia' is a flawed vision of a flawed future."
In marked contrast, Ralph Nader praised the book, noting that "None of
the happy conditions in Ecotopia are beyond the technical or resource
reach of our society."
According to Scott Timberg, quoting University of Nevada
environmental-literature professor Scott Slovic in 'The New York
Times', "'Ecotopia' [the concept] became almost immediately absorbed
into the popular culture. You hear people talking about the idea of
Ecotopia, or about the Northwest as Ecotopia."
In 'bolo’bolo', P.M. criticizes Callenbach by saying:
See also
======================================================================
* Cascadia (independence movement)
* Eco-socialism
* 'Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens, and
the Origins of Environmentalism'--Richard Grove's exploring the roots
of environmentalism
* 'Island'--Aldous Huxley's novel exploring similar utopian concepts
* 'Nine Nations of North America'--Joel Garreau's book about a North
American cultural division into nine nations, one of them being
Ecotopia
Further reading
======================================================================
* Ernest Callenbach, "Ecotopia in Japan?," in: 'Communities' 132 (Fall
2006), pp. 42-49.
* R. Frye, "The Economics of Ecotopia", in: 'Alternative Futures' 3
(1980), pp. 71-81.
* K.T. Goldbach, "Utopian Music: Music History of the Future in Novels
by Bellamy, Callenbach and Huxley", in: 'Utopia Matters. Theory,
Politics, Literature and the Arts', ed. F. Viera, M. Freitas, Porto
2005, pp. 237-243.
* J. Hollm: Die angloamerikanische Ökotopie: Literarische Entwürfe
einer grünen Welt. Frankfurt am Main: Lang 1998.
* Uwe Meyer: "Selling an 'ecological religion'. Strategies of
Persuasion in Ernest Callenbach's 'Ecotopia'". In: M. Lotz, M. van der
Minde, D. Weidmann (Hrsg.): 'Von Platon bis zur Global Governance.
Entwürfe für menschliches Zusammenleben'. Marburg 2010, pp. 253-280.
* H. Tschachler, "Despotic Reason in Arcadia. Ernest Callenbach's
Ecological Utopias", 'Science-Fiction Studies' 11 (1984), pp. 304-317.
External links
======================================================================
* [
https://web.archive.org/web/20060417131622/http://www.ecotopia.be/
Ecotopia Foundation]
* [
http://www.ru.org/113-Davis-California.htm Profile of an
ecologically utopian town in California]
* [
http://www.ecotopia2121.com The Ecotopia 2121 Project]--coordinated
by Alan Marshall conducts ongoing research into future Green Utopias
in urban settings around the world.
License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotopia
