The Utopian Fallacy

Recently I read an article by one Richard Bartlett entitled "Courage Before Hope: A Proposal To Weave Emotional and Economic Microsolidarity."  In a long and elaborately thought-out discourse, Bartlett lays out a grand scheme that depends on creating intentional communities of "people with life-supporting values" coming together to "grow our power to influence the distribution of resources." There are many interesting insights in this article, but I am afraid the author is laboring under a delusion, which I like to call "the utopian fallacy."  So here is how I commented on his plan:
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You have done some careful and creative thinking about navigating the treacherous pass between denial and despair in the coming bad years. I guess my only reservation is the “intentional community” fallacy — the dream of creating a whole community of like-minded, equally aware, creative people to set yourselves apart from a dying world and create your own mini-paradise.

There are several problems with this approach:

1. How will you protect yourselves from the dying, desperate masses who will want what you have, and be willing to kill for it? And how do you accomplish this protection without poisoning your souls and becoming vicious, mean-spirited survivalists who gun down everyone in sight?
2. “Intentional community” is somewhat of an oxymoron, because our intentions are as individual as our fingerprints. And this inevitably leads to conflict, which must be resolved by some agreed-upon laws or authority — and enforcement.
3. A planet-sized problem demands planet-sized solutions; nothing smaller will suffice. But these cannot be top-down (i.e. creating some sort of global political authority that everyone will respect) because we are tribal by nature, and so any such world government would have to be maintained by force against the ever-present forces of ignorance, greed, hatred, denial, and despair.

All of the above being the case, my own solution can be summed up in a simple slogan: GROW GARDENS; GROW COMMUNITIES; GROW AWARENESS. Note that I use the verb “grow” rather than “build.” To unpack these a bit:

1. By “grow gardens” I mean practicing Permaculture (regenerative design based on ecological understanding). This is a bottom-up, rather than a top-down solution. And it engages with the planet as it is, not an imaginary planet we are trying to create from scratch. As founder Bill Mollison often said, “The problem is the solution.” That is, by looking deeply at any given problem, you can turn it to your advantage.
2. By “growing community” I mean propagating Permaculture, by sharing the fruits of your success with your neighbors — whoever they are — and teaching them in turn how to incorporate ecological design principles into their own gardens and community gardens.
3. “Growing awareness” is a net consequence of the above. When people have a clear choice between an adaptive, life-affirming way of living and a maladaptive, violent, greedy way, they will quite naturally choose the former.

Two books I highly recommend, both by the late Toby Hemenway, lay out these ideas clearly and cogently: (1) Gaia’s Garden (a guide to backyard permaculture); and (2) The Permaculture City. 

By doing so, we have the best chance of becoming agents of the spontaneous remission of the cancer of the Earth, by nurturing the health, competence, and resilience of ourselves, our communities, and our planet simultaneously.