Whose Utopia?

People sometimes ask why there is so much dystopian fiction and so very little utopian fiction. Often the answer given is that utopian fiction is harder to write because the conflict is less, or less obvious.

Hmm.

I’ve written a dystopian fantasy series, The Faerene Apocalypse, and I agree that it was never hard to find sources of conflict in that world.

Novels (all stories) need tension to progress and to keep the audience engaged.

But tension can be subtle. The conflict in a utopian novel mightn’t hit you in the face, but it exists. The questions of what next and why and who, how they’ll do what they choose to do, all of these questions boil down to a fundamental tension of existence—free will.

In a utopia the characters may have built a system where free will is a positive force both individually and socially, but it still exists. Harmony isn’t frozen perfection. Entropy must be countered by creation.

So, no, I don’t believe that lack of conflict is the reason utopian fiction is rare. I think the issue is authority.

In dystopian fiction authority collapses. Either the story is set in a lawless land or the authority is corrupt.

Look at the Wizard of Oz (book or movie). The authority for that world is literally named in the title, and yet, he’s merely smoke and mirrors, collapsing on revelation.

In a utopian story the authority mustn’t collapse. The instant it can be questioned, the utopian bubble bursts. Doubt is the death of utopia—of course, handled deftly, the questioning of authority in a utopian novel can become the source of conflict for the story, and be triumphantly asserted in the ending, but…

(and here’s the point this post has been building to)

To write a utopian novel the author has to be confident in the authority that legitimises the utopian community. Belief in that authority underpins the utopia both in the fictional world and for the reader.

And let me tell you that, as an author, it is very, very, very hard to summon the sort of confidence to be all-in with a single authority.

The modern world lives by Lord Acton’s maxim that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The authority that underpins a utopia has to be absolute. Anything less allows for cracks to form, beginning the fracturing of the utopia. Yet, absolute power itself corrupts. So, the authority of the utopia is the reason it will fail—unless the author presents an authority so compelling, so confident, that we can believe it transcends the limits of our lived experience of fallible humanity.

Imagining a utopia is, therefore, a political act. It requires the suspension of disbelief in pursuit of believing in a greater good, a cause. The author must convince the audience to sacrifice their doubt and embrace an authority that can deliver them from themselves.

It sounds a heck of a lot like a cult, doesn’t it?