Those looking for Wells’ Utopia, need look no further. The visualisation of social appeasement and sleek structure, have been around us for many years now, and the early 2000’s are strong examples, of the muted development that can occur from this. Take a stroll in your local ‘new’ down-town suburbia on a gloriously Sunny day, when everyone is happy, children are paddling in the fountain, and the middle class are interacting as if life were just about this moment (Life *is* after all, about a series of moments).
This is where Wells description of forethought ended, just short of this realisation. To see a future where at some point the world was enough, that we had accepted our lot, is really a genius seed that entices us to understand the dangers of such balance. As Huxley notes in Island:
…patriotism is not enough but neither is anything else. science is not enough, religion is not enough, art is not enough, politics and economy are not enough, nor is love, nor is duty, nor is action however disinterested, nor, however sublime, is contemplation. Nothing short of everything will really do.
It should never be enough to simply be content with the level of the world; we should always strive to further ourselves, which then progresses future generations. Whether we care or not, we do inflict a lasting impact on the next generation as individuals, even in the smallest ways.
Utopia is at best a static image, a stagnation of survival and creation, and something that shouldn’t conjure up the feeling of warmth and happiness that it currently exudes. Happiness does not have a negative connotation here, but it should be understood as purely a state of mind; it will not be reached with futuristic lives and levels of acquisition, but enlightenment of our own selves. If we strive to reach Utopia, we will become our own dissociative and potentially reach the end of our time out of passive behaviour.
