Utopias have been described in popular novels for 500 years. They are popular despite the weakness of the depiction, especially when compared to a dystopia.
The composer Richard Wagner wrote to composer Franz Liszt in 1855 that he considered the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, "Ode to Joy", to be its weakest section. Wagner said it was its weakest section just as he considered Dante's "Paradiso" the weakest section of the Divine Comedy.
Many composers and critics since the premier of Beethoven's final symphony in 1824 have held the same opinion, but have dampened their criticism to allow the final movement to become as popular as it has. To the point that it has become the anthem of the European Union.
Utopian Literature
Describing perfect places has been around since Plutarch. The Garden of Eden and Dante's Paradiso are proto-Utopian descriptions as well. The genre is defined and named after Thomas More's 1516 work Utopia. Since then, works such as the preface of Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy, Looking Backward, News From Nowhere and Shangri-La have followed in describing the perfect place.
The perfect place was always slanted to the author's political philosophy. Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a libertarian utopia, while William Morris' News From Nowhere is a socialist utopia.
Utopian ideas also find their place in politics, when people running for office offer optimistic scenarios of what would happen if their ideas were put into place.
Such things are dismissed as a bunch of nonsense. However popular utopian literature is, utopias are dismissed as impossible, so why try?
Dystopia
Dystopian literature, by contrast, is much more powerful and is taken much more seriously. Cyberpunk literature (William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, Blade Runner and so on) is an entire sub-genre of science-fiction devoted to depicting dystopian environments.
And Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four depict dystopias. Not only are these books read widely in high school classes but many modern day concepts have come from their frightening depictions. Newspeak, Thoughtcrime, Big Brother, a permanent war all come from Orwell. A future where drugs are taken to keep us happy (Soma) and capitalism replacing religion come from Huxley (Henry Ford is God in his book). "Groupthink" has been misattributed to Orwell.
Despite Utopian literature's continuing popularity and hold on the imagination, when held up to criticism (practical, literary and otherwise), they are much more vulnerable. Dystopian literature is also popular and holds the imagination, but the warnings within the text linger from generation to generation.
Just as in politics, Utopian ideas might sell well, but are not so easily executed. But politicians who voice nightmarish futures and doomsday scenarios succeed in silencing debate. They are easily elected on these scenarios, and hinting at such a nightmare is enough to sway public opinion.
Dystopia is powerful, indeed.
