Ecotopia
Encyclopedia
Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston is the seminal utopian novel by Ernest Callenbach
, published in 1975. The society described in the book is one of the first ecological
utopia
s and was influential on the counterculture
, and the green movement
in the 1970s and thereafter.
. The author's story was woven using the fiber of technologies, lifestyles, folkways, and attitudes that were being reflected (from real-life experience) in the pages of, for example, the Whole Earth Catalog
and its successor CoEvolution Quarterly
, as well as being depicted in newspaper stories, novels and films. Callenbach's main ideas for Ecotopian values and practices were based on actual experimentation taking place in the American West
. To draw an example, Callenbach's fictional Crick School was based upon Pinel School, an alternative school
located outside Martinez, California
, and attended for a time by his son.
The author’s Ecotopian concept does not reject high tech
nology as long as it does not interfere with the social order and serves Ecotopian objectives, but members of his fictional society prefer to demonstrate a conscious selectivity of technology, so that not only human health and sanity might be preserved, but also social and ecological well being. Interestingly therefore, Callenbach’s story anticipated the development and liberal usage of videoconferencing
.
During the 1970s when Ecotopia was written and published “many prominent counterculture and new left thinkers decried the consumption and overabundance that they perceived as characteristic of post-World War Two America”. The citizens of Ecotopia shared a common aim: they were looking for a balance between themselves and nature. They were “literally sick of bad air, chemicalized food, and lunatic advertising. They turned to politics because it was finally the only route to self-preservation.” In the mid-20th century as “firms grew in size and complexity citizens needed to know the market would still serve the interests for those it claimed to exist”. Callenbach’s Ecotopia targets the fact that many people did not feel that the market and the government were serving them in the way they wanted them to. This book was “a protest against consumerism and materialism, among other aspects of American life”.
The term "ecotopian fiction", as a sub-genre of science fiction
and utopian fiction, refers to this book.
reporter who is the first American proper to investigate Ecotopia, a newly formed country that broke
from the USA
in 1980. Prior to Weston's investigative reporting, most Americans had not been allowed to enter the new country, which is depicted as being on continual guard against revanchism
. The new nation of Ecotopia consists of Northern California
, Oregon
and Washington; it is hinted that Southern California
is a lost cause. The book is presented as a combination of narrative from Weston's diary and dispatch
es that he transmits to his publication, the mythical Times-Post.
Together with Weston (who at the beginning is curious about, but not particularly sympathetic to the Ecotopians), the reader learns about the Ecotopian transportation system and the preferred lifestyle that includes celebrating gender roles, official encouragement of maintaining racial separation, discouraging monogamy, promoting sexual freedom. A disdain for television and mass-spectacle sports is manifested in a preference for local arts, participatory sports, and general fitness. The Ecotopians also have a peculiar ritual of (voluntary) mock warfare, fought with actual weapons and often resulting in injuries. Liberal cannabis
use, as well as about decentralized and renewable energy production, green building construction, a defense strategy focused both on developing a highly advanced arms industry while also allegedly maintaining hidden WMD within major US population centers to discourage reconquest. Thorough-going education reform is described, along with a highly localized system of universal medical care. (The narrator discovers that Ecotopian healing practices may include sexual stimulation.)
The narrative is told through both Weston's official cables back to the United States and through his diary which he keeps and later sends to his editor at the end of his assignment. In the diary we learn of observations he does not include in his columns, including his personally transformative love affair with an Ecotopian woman. These parallel narrative structures allow the reader to see how his internal reflections, as recorded in his diary, are diffracted in his external pronouncements to his readers. Despite Weston's initial reservations, throughout the novel, Ecotopian citizens are characterized as clever, technologically resourceful, emotionally expressive and even occasionally violent, but also socially responsible, patriotic. They tend to live in ethnically separated localities, and they live in extended families. Their economic enterprises are entirely employee-owned and -controlled. The government is dominated by a woman-led but not exclusively female party, and government structures are highly decentralized. The novel concludes with Weston's finding himself enchanted by Ecotopian life and deciding to stay in Ecotopia as its interpreter to the wider world.
Worth mentioning is Callenbach's speculation on the roles of TV in his envisioned society. In some ways anticipating C-SPAN
, which would first be broadcast in 1979, and reality television
, which would not emerge as a fact for another two decades, the story mentions that the daily life of the legislature and some of that of the judicial courts is televised in Ecotopia, and even highly technical debates addressed the needs and desires of the viewers.
Another interesting feature in the novel is "print on demand
" (POD) publishing. In the novel, customers could choose approved print media from a jukebox
-like device that would then print and bind the book. In the 21st century, POD services that print, bind and ship books for customers who order on-line, have become commonplace.
In contrast to much of the Green movement in contemporary America with its preference for regulation, however, Callenbach's Ecotopia has relatively laissez-faire economic tendencies, combined with intense moral pressure toward sustainable practices, both in private life and in business.
In 1981, Callenbach published Ecotopia Emerging
, a multi-strand "prequel" suggesting how the sustainable nation of Ecotopia could have come into existence.
In 1990, Audio Renaissance released a partial dramatization of Ecotopia on audiocassettes in the form of recordings of a radio network broadcast (the Allied News Network replacing the Times-Post). The tape-recorded diaries of William Weston were read by the book's author, Ernest Callenbach. Weston's reports were read by veteran news reporter Edwin Newman
.
Ecotopia is now required reading in a number of colleges (see NY Times article The Novel That Predicted Portland referenced below)
praised the book, noting that "None of the happy conditions in Ecotopia are beyond the technical or resource reach of our society."
Ernest Callenbach
Ernest Callenbach is an American writer. Life & Work =Born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, he attended the University of Chicago, where he was drawn into the then 'new wave' of serious attention to film as an art form...
, published in 1975. The society described in the book is one of the first ecological
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
s and was influential on the counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
, and the green movement
Green Movement
The Green Movement refers to a series of actions after the 2009 Iranian presidential election, in which protesters demanded the removal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office...
in the 1970s and thereafter.
The book's context and background
The impressive, environmentally benign energy, homebuilding, and transportation technology described by Callenbach in Ecotopia was based on research findings published in such magazines as Scientific AmericanScientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
. The author's story was woven using the fiber of technologies, lifestyles, folkways, and attitudes that were being reflected (from real-life experience) in the pages of, for example, the Whole Earth Catalog
Whole Earth Catalog
The Whole Earth Catalog was an American counterculture catalog published by Stewart Brand between 1968 and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998...
and its successor CoEvolution Quarterly
CoEvolution Quarterly
CoEvolution Quarterly is a descendant of Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog. It eventually became the Whole Earth Review.-History:...
, as well as being depicted in newspaper stories, novels and films. Callenbach's main ideas for Ecotopian values and practices were based on actual experimentation taking place in the American West
Western United States
.The Western United States, commonly referred to as the American West or simply "the West," traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because the U.S. expanded westward after its founding, the meaning of the West has evolved over time...
. To draw an example, Callenbach's fictional Crick School was based upon Pinel School, an alternative school
Alternative education
Alternative education, also known as non-traditional education or educational alternative, includes a number of approaches to teaching and learning other than mainstream or traditional education. Educational alternatives are often rooted in various philosophies that are fundamentally different...
located outside Martinez, California
Martinez, California
Martinez is a city and the county seat of Contra Costa County, California, United States. The population was 35,824 at the 2010 census. The downtown is notable for its large number of preserved old buildings...
, and attended for a time by his son.
The author’s Ecotopian concept does not reject high tech
High tech
High tech is technology that is at the cutting edge: the most advanced technology currently available. It is often used in reference to micro-electronics, rather than other technologies. The adjective form is hyphenated: high-tech or high-technology...
nology as long as it does not interfere with the social order and serves Ecotopian objectives, but members of his fictional society prefer to demonstrate a conscious selectivity of technology, so that not only human health and sanity might be preserved, but also social and ecological well being. Interestingly therefore, Callenbach’s story anticipated the development and liberal usage of videoconferencing
Videoconferencing
Videoconferencing is the conduct of a videoconference by a set of telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously...
.
During the 1970s when Ecotopia was written and published “many prominent counterculture and new left thinkers decried the consumption and overabundance that they perceived as characteristic of post-World War Two America”. The citizens of Ecotopia shared a common aim: they were looking for a balance between themselves and nature. They were “literally sick of bad air, chemicalized food, and lunatic advertising. They turned to politics because it was finally the only route to self-preservation.” In the mid-20th century as “firms grew in size and complexity citizens needed to know the market would still serve the interests for those it claimed to exist”. Callenbach’s Ecotopia targets the fact that many people did not feel that the market and the government were serving them in the way they wanted them to. This book was “a protest against consumerism and materialism, among other aspects of American life”.
The term "ecotopian fiction", as a sub-genre of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
and utopian fiction, refers to this book.
Plot summary
The book is set in 1999 (25 years in the future, as seen from 1974) and consists of the diary entries and reports of William Weston, a mainstream mediaMainstream media
Mainstream media are those media disseminated via the largest distribution channels, which therefore represent what the majority of media consumers are likely to encounter...
reporter who is the first American proper to investigate Ecotopia, a newly formed country that broke
Secession
Secession is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity. Threats of secession also can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.-Secession theory:...
from the USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1980. Prior to Weston's investigative reporting, most Americans had not been allowed to enter the new country, which is depicted as being on continual guard against revanchism
Revanchism
Revanchism is a term used since the 1870s to describe a political manifestation of the will to reverse territorial losses incurred by a country, often following a war or social movement. Revanchism draws its strength from patriotic and retributionist thought and is often motivated by economic or...
. The new nation of Ecotopia consists of Northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
and Washington; it is hinted that Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
is a lost cause. The book is presented as a combination of narrative from Weston's diary and dispatch
Dispatch
Dispatch or dispatches may refer to:In literature* Dispatches , a 1977 book by Michael Herr about the Vietnam War* dispatches , a magazine edited by Gary Knight and Mort RosenblumIn radio and television...
es that he transmits to his publication, the mythical Times-Post.
Together with Weston (who at the beginning is curious about, but not particularly sympathetic to the Ecotopians), the reader learns about the Ecotopian transportation system and the preferred lifestyle that includes celebrating gender roles, official encouragement of maintaining racial separation, discouraging monogamy, promoting sexual freedom. A disdain for television and mass-spectacle sports is manifested in a preference for local arts, participatory sports, and general fitness. The Ecotopians also have a peculiar ritual of (voluntary) mock warfare, fought with actual weapons and often resulting in injuries. Liberal cannabis
Cannabis
Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative species, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. These three taxa are indigenous to Central Asia, and South Asia. Cannabis has long been used for fibre , for seed and seed oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a...
use, as well as about decentralized and renewable energy production, green building construction, a defense strategy focused both on developing a highly advanced arms industry while also allegedly maintaining hidden WMD within major US population centers to discourage reconquest. Thorough-going education reform is described, along with a highly localized system of universal medical care. (The narrator discovers that Ecotopian healing practices may include sexual stimulation.)
The narrative is told through both Weston's official cables back to the United States and through his diary which he keeps and later sends to his editor at the end of his assignment. In the diary we learn of observations he does not include in his columns, including his personally transformative love affair with an Ecotopian woman. These parallel narrative structures allow the reader to see how his internal reflections, as recorded in his diary, are diffracted in his external pronouncements to his readers. Despite Weston's initial reservations, throughout the novel, Ecotopian citizens are characterized as clever, technologically resourceful, emotionally expressive and even occasionally violent, but also socially responsible, patriotic. They tend to live in ethnically separated localities, and they live in extended families. Their economic enterprises are entirely employee-owned and -controlled. The government is dominated by a woman-led but not exclusively female party, and government structures are highly decentralized. The novel concludes with Weston's finding himself enchanted by Ecotopian life and deciding to stay in Ecotopia as its interpreter to the wider world.
Impact
The importance of this book is not so much to be found in its literary form as in the lively imagination of an alternative and ecologically sound lifestyle on a greater scale, presented more or less realistically. It expressed on paper the dream of an alternative future held by many in the movements of the 1970s and later. Even the names of the two characters most reflective of their respective viewpoints - "Will West(on)", the representative for materialist American culture and "Vera Allwen" (= "All women + all men"?), the President and spokeswoman for Ecotopia - suggest the degree to which the author intended the book to be a reflection of American ecological and cultural deficiencies.Worth mentioning is Callenbach's speculation on the roles of TV in his envisioned society. In some ways anticipating C-SPAN
C-SPAN
C-SPAN , an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network that offers coverage of federal government proceedings and other public affairs programming via its three television channels , one radio station and a group of websites that provide streaming...
, which would first be broadcast in 1979, and reality television
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
, which would not emerge as a fact for another two decades, the story mentions that the daily life of the legislature and some of that of the judicial courts is televised in Ecotopia, and even highly technical debates addressed the needs and desires of the viewers.
Another interesting feature in the novel is "print on demand
Print on demand
Print on demand , sometimes called, in error, publish on demand, is a printing technology and business process in which new copies of a book are not printed until an order has been received...
" (POD) publishing. In the novel, customers could choose approved print media from a jukebox
Jukebox
A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media...
-like device that would then print and bind the book. In the 21st century, POD services that print, bind and ship books for customers who order on-line, have become commonplace.
In contrast to much of the Green movement in contemporary America with its preference for regulation, however, Callenbach's Ecotopia has relatively laissez-faire economic tendencies, combined with intense moral pressure toward sustainable practices, both in private life and in business.
In 1981, Callenbach published Ecotopia Emerging
Ecotopia Emerging
Ecotopia Emerging by Ernest Callenbach is a fictionalized history of the events leading up to the secession of Northern California, Oregon and Washington to form the steady-state, environmentalist nation of Ecotopia along the Pacific Coast of the United States...
, a multi-strand "prequel" suggesting how the sustainable nation of Ecotopia could have come into existence.
In 1990, Audio Renaissance released a partial dramatization of Ecotopia on audiocassettes in the form of recordings of a radio network broadcast (the Allied News Network replacing the Times-Post). The tape-recorded diaries of William Weston were read by the book's author, Ernest Callenbach. Weston's reports were read by veteran news reporter Edwin Newman
Edwin Newman
Edwin Harold Newman was an American newscaster, journalist and author.-Early life and education:Newman was born on January 25, 1919 in New York City to Myron and Rose Newman. His older brother was M. W. Newman, a longtime reporter for the Chicago Daily News. Newman married Rigel Grell on August...
.
Ecotopia is now required reading in a number of colleges (see NY Times article The Novel That Predicted Portland referenced below)
Reception
Ralph NaderRalph Nader
Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....
praised the book, noting that "None of the happy conditions in Ecotopia are beyond the technical or resource reach of our society."
Quotes
See also
- Ecotopia gatheringEcotopia gatheringEcotopia is an annual summer gathering for activists in Europe, since 1989. Typically, the event draws young environmental activists from both east and west Europe...
- an annual summer camp for activists in Europe - Nine Nations of North AmericaNine Nations of North AmericaThe Nine Nations of North America is a book written in 1981 by Joel Garreau. In it, Garreau suggests that North America can be divided into nine regions, or "nations", which have distinctive economic and cultural features...
Further reading
- Ernest Callenbach, "Ecotopia in Japan?," in: Communities 132 (Fall 2006), pp. 42–49.
- R. Frye, "The Economics of Ecotopia", in: Alternative Futures 3 (1980), pp. 71–81.
- K.T. Goldbach, "Utopian Music: Music History of the Future in Novels by Bellamy, Callenbach and Huxley", in: Utopia Matters. Theory, Politics, Literature and the Arts, ed. F. Viera, M. Freitas, Porto 2005, pp. 237–243.
- Matthew Hilton, "Consumers and the State Since the Second World War." The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 611, no. 66 (2007): 66-81.
- J. Hollm: Die angloamerikanische Ökotopie: Literarische Entwürfe einer grünen Welt. Frankfurt am Main: Lang 1998.
- Uwe Meyer: "Selling an 'ecological religion'. Strategies of Persuasion in Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia". In: M. Lotz, M. van der Minde, D. Weidmann (Hrsg.): Von Platon bis zur Global Governance. Entwürfe für menschliches Zusammenleben. Marburg 2010, pp. 253–280.
- Heather Murray, "Free for All Lesbians: Lesbian Cultural Production and Consumption in the United States during the 1970s." Journal of the History of Sexuality 16, no. 2 (2007): 251-68.
- H. Tschachler, "Despotic Reason in Arcadia. Ernest Callenbach's Ecological Utopias", Science-Fiction Studies 11 (1984), pp. 304–317.
- Scott Timberg,, New York Times article 14 December 2008 The Novel That Predicted Portland