In defence of unrealistic utopias: Desire, imagination, and the ‘the real’ of social change

Abstract

Recent studies of alternative organising have returned to utopianism as a way to imagine desirable organisational futures, making a difference in the real world through utopianism. This paper contributes to these discussions by considering the nature of desire that is evoked when imagining utopian futures, and the relationship between fantasy and reality in such desiring. Bringing Frederic Jameson’s writing on utopia into dialogue with ideas of desirable futures and real utopias, we offer an account of desire combining the specific representational and literary forms and conventions of utopian writing with psychoanalytic conceptions of desire and alterity, to argue that utopia should not simply be understood in terms of planning alternative organisations which might become a concrete, future reality. Rather, analysing the way in which fantasy and desire function in the utopian form, we argue that utopian representations are not ‘realistic’ in the sense of an actionable plan, but that this does not render the desire of utopia politically ineffective. By operating directly on desiring in the present, utopian fantasies can ‘educate’ desire, and enable political action, without constituting an image-object whose attainment or realisation would satisfy that desire. Such a motive-force is needed to effect real organisational transformation but need not realistically represent the future organisational state it would move towards.