I first invoke Joan Didion’s essay “Slouching Towards Jerusalem.” Her concern was to move away from the dystopia that parts of the United States had become through drug use and other temptations toward a more utopian state. My attempt uses a number of examples where utopias have been imagined and some where the main lesson is cautionary rather than optimistic. Even Sir Thomas More’s Utopia had its faults while the East German vision of a socialist utopia collapsed into tyranny and farce. My scribbles are modest attempts to promote a just society, a kind of utopia—maybe.
DidionJ. (1969). Slouching towards Jerusalem. Andre Deutsch.
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DidionJ. (2006). We tell ourselves stories in order to live: Collected nonfiction. Knopf.
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FerranteE. (2022). In the margins: On the pleasure of reading and writing (GoldsteinA., Trans.). Europa Editions.
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GerrardW.StanleyE. (2005). Sir Thomas more’s Utopia and the transformation of England from absolute monarchy to Egalitarian State. Contemporary Justice Review, 8(1), 75–89.
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GerardW.SterlingE. (2005). Sir Thomas More’s Utopia and the transformation of England from absolute monarchy to egalitarian state. Contemporary Justice Review, March, 8(1), 75–89.
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HuttonW. (2023a, January8). America’s “Taliban 20.”The Observer, p. 29.
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HuttonW. (2023b, January22). This attempt to cut the pay of public servants offends a basic British sense of fairness. The Observer, p. 33.
