Between No Place and a Good Place
Thomas More addressed the original etymological play and meaning of utopia in 1516, where utopia means, “no place” and its phonetically similar eutopia that means, “good place” (Schmidt, G., 2019). The identical pronunciations of utopia and eutopia provides us with a conceptual ambiguity and play where both no and good are one and the same, tightly interlaced in its utterance. The no place suggests non-real and non-existence while the good place suggests a real and potential existence, where both maintain a forward projection. This projection can be understood as future making. The delineation of a no place and a good place presents an interesting metaphysical in-between that is absent of definite form. This in-between space presents a spectrum from which the degree of “no” and “good” place moves, alluding to a section of possible and impossible in terms of existence.
The delineation of a no place and a good place presents an interesting metaphysical inbetween that is absent of definite form. This in-between space presents a spectrum from which the degree of “no” and “good” place moves. Its pause on certain points would then define the tension between the degree of material and immaterial engagement in eutopia expresses the tension of no and good when it is to be from whence presents an opportunity for decisions on which analytical treatment is the most accurate to render understanding on what seems to be a third space. This third space seems to be nothing, a present nothing. This nothing is an opportune event that is formless, in-between presence, and without centre through still embedded in larger structures.
Asking the question of what is a utopia with the question of where is utopia, where is future- making and where is the revolution illuminates a great destabilisation: one recognises that his existential circumstances are not ideal for authentic living and yearns for something different. This recognition is usually abstractly felt, where people sense that “within their everyday worlds, they cannot overcome their troubles, and in this feeling, they are often correct” (Mills, 1969). An activation lies in that recognition of an adjustment, revision, or generation of certain modes of living for an ideal existence.
Utopia orients us towards future-making that presumes a production of change and transformation as a goal to be held and to be worked out. This process of reconstruction can be conceived as a revolutionary act as it recognises the gulf between what is and what can be, but where are the kernels of revolution to be found in the no/good place? This question illuminates a profound destabilisation where the recognition of unideal and imbalance existential circumstances is present. This recognition is usually abstractly felt, where people sense that “within their everyday worlds, they cannot overcome their troubles, and in this feeling they are often correct” (Mills, 1969). An activation lies in that recognition for an adjustment, revision, or generation of certain modes of living for an ideal existence. The search for balance, for meaning at the edge of cruel imprecisions opens fissures at the boundaries of knowledge to “cut[] a different path, carving out effective perceptual range and making futures [or possibilities] less remote” (Petryna, 2022, p156), making utopia a process not a place. It is indeterminate, plastic, and formed through struggling with conditions that no longer exist.
In a way, utopia is a coming back into oneself, back to one’s possibility to possibility to project one's potentialities forward. a jump, a leap, a going beyond”, into “possibilities not yet given” (Dewey, 1917). Utopia comes at a great risk as the inquirer is at the risk of being changed through its commitment to an authentic project of existence that it forms. One has to find the courage in curiosity amidst the anxiety of thrownness, of the continuous homelessness to further one’s inquiry through the choice one makes in the moments of disclosure that it attunes itself to. Utopia is leaping in the void of possibilities, knowing that “the horizon will look after itself” (Mackery, 2019).