On
Pantopia
The
word ‘Utopia’ was Sir Thomas More’s sour joke; it meant both Eu-topia, the Good
Place, and also Ou-topia, No Place. The satirical pessimist More meant Utopia
as a place literally too good to be true. Somehow world culture missed the
joke, and covertly thinks Utopia possible after all; but fears that such
perfection might prove to be boring; so in sheer reaction later culture
invented the antithesis to utopia: Dystopia, the Bad Place.
But perfect wrongness is just as unnatural, unsustainable and boring as any other perfection; so I propose a third place:
Pantopia, the All-place.
Pantopia
is a place where everything that happens everywhere, happens. Anything
inevitable, like death or taxes, or cosmic, like birth or beauty, is pantopian.
Utopia is about ideals, Dystopia is about despair, Pantopia is about experience.
Therefore Utopia is didactic, Dystopia is tragic, and Pantopia is comic. I
propose Pantopia as a satire of the Cosmos.
If Utopia be thesis, and Dystopia antithesis, then Pantopia is synthesis. Pantopia is utopian, dystopian, both and neither. It’s battered but resilient. Pantopia embodies both the brilliant wonder of innocence, and the hard wisdom of experience. Utopia is like a too-perfect small village; Dystopia is like a battleground; and Pantopia is like a big bustling city. Where Utopia is didactic and Dystopia is cautionary, Pantopia is poetic. Utopia is too good to be true; Dystopia is too bad to be true; and Pantopia is too true to be either good or bad.
Utopias
are for the elect, but pantopias are for all. Any pantopia is both a Heaven and
a Hell, intertwined, inseparable. It will be benevolent enough to reassure us;
but savage enough to attract us.
Pantopia celebrates the allness of
the all. Examples abound. I recommend these as examples:
“The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”
by Ursula K. LeGuin
“anyone lived in a pretty how town”
by e e cummings
“This is my Letter to the World” by
Emily Dickinson
“Past Master” by R. A. Lafferty
“Invisible Cities” by Italo Calvino
It seems, from these examples, that
true allness can only be fragmentarily related, or even perceived. Pantopian
literature therefore tends towards cosmic allegory; vivid intense incidents and
visions suggesting more than speech can say.
If I were to write a story set in Pantopia then it would consist of disconnected but revealing news reports from the middle of a revolution.
great post: I am promoting Gen-V (Voomers): a person that is part of the “Virtual” Generation that creates and builds digital worlds and shape the physical world they want to live in. They are part of the “Shift Age” and can shift and navigate Seamlessly the Different Digital & Virtual Platforms & Devices. They are “Hyper Local and Hyper Global” meeting and interacting with people around the world and in their communities. Voomers Learn, Work, Shop & Make Meaningful & Real Connections & Friendships Virtually as easy as in the Physical World; Voomers want to shape the Virtual & Physical World to be People Centered - not VR, AI, Internet of Things Centered. They live in VR All-Place (Pantopia), “free from anger and controversy - embodying both the brilliant wonder of innocence, and the hard wisdom of experience - cosmic allegory; vivid intense incidents and visions suggesting more than speech can say”. They grow the digital economy & reduce the physical economy to minimize humanities carbon footprint and provide abundance for all. Voomers worked to reduce waste making a Sustainable World - “Creating technology that helps the world act together” for the benefit of all humanity and the individual.
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