the real utopias project...

"real utopia" seems like a contradiction in terms. utopias are fantasies, morally inspired designs for social life unconstrained by realistic considerations of human psychology and social feasibility. realists eschew such fantasies. what is needed are hard-nosed proposals for pragmatically improving our institutions. instead of indulging in utopian dreams we must accommodate to practical realities. the real utopias project embraces this tension between dreams and practice. it is founded on the belief that what is pragmatically possible is not fixed independently of our imaginations, but is itself shaped by our visions. we now live in a world in which these radical visions are mocked rather than taken seriously. along with the post-modernist rejection of "grand narratives", there is an ideological rejection of grand designs, even by those still on the left of the political spectrum. this need not mean an abandonment of deeply egalitarian emancipatory values, but it does reflect a cynicism about the human capacity to realize those values on a substantial scale. this cynicism, in turn, weakens progressive political forces in general. the real utopias project is an attempt at countering this cynicism by sustaining and deepening serious discussion of radical alternatives to existing institutions. the objective is to focus on specific proposals for the fundamental redesign of basic social institutions rather than on either general, abstract formulations of grand designs, or on small reforms of existing practices//