A Few Words on Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach

I can’t decide whether Ecotopia is more like a glimpse into the future or an opiate for the masses.

The book delves into the history and sociology of a utopian country that — North Korea style — has walled itself off from the west of the world, utilizing the resulting independence from the global economy to create something new. Ecotopia takes the best of capitalism, science, environmentalism, and some kind of pan-tribalistic version of pre-civilized humans. And it rolls it all together into a hyper-functional society that at first horrifies and then seduces the main character, an agent from the US government posing as a reporter.

Considering how far we’ve moved away from this vision over the past few years (to the point where even the Obama-era begins to seem like an unrealistic aspiration), I think it’s a good time for those who are struggling to visualize a post-Trump future to use Ecotopia like a bedtime fairy-tale, something to help us remember to have hope for progress.