"A utopia of dispute might be better"by Tim Etchells , Artist, writer

Please let it not be that utopia with doves and waterfalls and soft white clothes and doors that open as soon as they are approached and please let it not be that utopia with all in harmony and accord and please not that utopia of agrarian fantasy, with all of us in touch with or at peace with the land, working the land together or weaving together in some endlessly temperate and agreeable climate, caught in simple pleasures, eating simple wholesome food and please – just as strongly, please – not that techno utopia where no one works at all since the machines – ever more clever, resourceful and skilled – are doing everything, hidden in basements, miniaturized or concealed behind the walls and please not that morbid utopia that so many churches speak of or hope for or promise, but only come the day, meaning after death and not that utopia of absolute freedom or that of total equality or that of the flattening of creeds, races, genders and all that into one single humanity or brotherhood and not that utopia of original ignorance, Adam and Eve, the nakedness that is not nakedness no thank you and not that utopia of free love or boundless and open desire or that hallucinatory psychedelic utopia of the human dissolved into the universe and not that utopia of the virtual, with its useless pretended transcendence of flesh and biology and again please, not that utopia of endless oneness and endless accord not likely peace, or everlasting peace not likely peace at all and not the satisfaction of all desires and not the exhaustion of all need and please not an end to difference no to the utopia determined by sense no to the utopia determined by utility no to the utopias of knowledge, understanding, and progress please not the uniformity of consent or that of placidity no to the erasure of anger please not the utopic reduction of human space to that of a prison in which all needs have been anticipated, prescribed, provided for please not the reduction of everything to the realm of the solvable please not some temperate climate of banality cotton-woolled and perpetuated ad nauseam not late-capitalist laissez-faire bliss not communistic brotherhood not either theocratic order or rationalist decency not some medicalised or genetically modified utopia in which all personalities and physicalities have been balanced, remixed and extended forever in a calculation of chemicals and genes please not the utopia of the old and wise and please not that utopia of the young and the carefree please not men and women in accord with each other in all the possible combinations, or mankind so called at accord once again with ‘the animals’ so called no, not equality nor comfort nor acceptance not even tolerance we'll have none of it a utopia of dispute might be better a utopia of permanent contestation anger and the unruly

but not even those will satisfy

let’s have instead the utopia which resists all names, refuses all belonging refuses all place, definition or affiliation i.e. not for us that which can be dreamed or imagined, described or spoken of and not for us anything that can be caught in the noose of 26 letters (called an alphabet) and hanged not for us what is offered not for us what is given not for us what is promised not for us what is even possible not that not anything of it but everything, everything which is other than that

friends, fellow citizens, acquaintances, enemies i look forward to our eventual meeting, and to your full adoption of these my most reasonable demands.