The “Better city, better life” official theme of the Shanghai World Fair was an excellent choice. It encapsulated all that needs to be addressed nowadays: sustainability, globalisation, urbanisation, fairness between the poor and the rich. The right questions were asked. However, the states and corporations present at the expo showed how unconvincing their answers were. Their self-interest and reliance on established industries lead them to the most desperate and risible rhetoric, see my previous posts for some examples.

The solution to all our problems is technology according to the participants of the Expo. Yet, and as far as I know, none of the big pavilions had an absolute zero impact on the environment. Instead, a splash of energetically very demanding presentations explained to the audience that some symbolic features of the buildings were sustainable, a non-sense.

Throughout my visit, oil companies, car manufacturers, heavy industries told me that their technology will bring soon a solution to the challenges that the world is facing. And the only role of the national pavilions was to repeat the absurd solutions that their biggest industries had to sell. How lower a national self-esteem could be?

The best place to experience these contradictions was in the area of the Expo devoted to industries. There, I was being told that I will have a better life thanks to bigger boats, more oil and concept GM cars; Answers that were totally inadequate and only increased my feeling of insecurity. To be fair, there were some good intentions and ideas at the Expo, and technology is surely part of the solution. But they were squeezed in an absurd vision serving national and supranational short-term interests.

In his book, Jay Winter explained how the Paris World Fair of 1937 was a desperate invocation of the illuminations of technology to prevent another war. Reality was not long to impose itself. Let’s hope that history will give us more time to resolve our incapacity to face limited resources on earth.

The Tour Eiffel from the World's Fair of 1900

I’ve read recently the excellent book from Jay Winter “Dreams of Peace and Freedom – Utopian Moments in the 20^th Century“. It is part of my curatorial homework for the exhibition “Living the Dream of Modernity” that I’m preparing to launch very soon. Here is a summary.

Mr. Winter understands utopia as a discourse in two contradictory parts. An utopia is an ideal in complete discontinuity with the reality. But the ideal can only be expressed with what is known. Thus, the utopia necessary tells about the historical context of its authors. “Utopia is a fantasy about the limits of the possible, a staging of what we take for granted, what is left unsaid about our current social conventions and political cultures. Those who expose these silences, often playfully, begin to disturb the contradictions in the way we live.” [Louis Marin, Utopiques]

The book focuses on the loosely defined ‘minor utopias’, the utopias that have not been the cause of major wars and cruelty, e.g. 20^th century totalitarian regimes.

Jay Winter identifies  the following utopias:

-          Visions of Peace in 1900. Throughout the world, many groups declared their commitment to the idea that war could be eradicated. 3 examples:

o   Albert Kahn created the “Archives of the Planet”, films and photographs from many parts of the world, to help people “see that their interests should be directed towards the benefit of humanity as a whole. For this they need more than abstract knowledge, but contact with the world. This contact will show the variety of experience and contradict simple formula about the world”

o   The world’s fair of 1900 in Paris, based on the idea that war would be unnecessary in a world based on international commerce.

o   Jean Jaurès and socialist pacifism took the opposite direction, peace was impossible under a system defending property and privilege. A system of states resting on class inequalities would necessary clash.

All those visions were unlikely to materialize, “because the men and women who framed them could not evade who they were: European citizens of an imperial system controlling the globe, a system about to detonate the most devastating war in history”.

-          Perpetual Peace in 1919. After the first World War, long-lasting peace was still the primordial goal. The conviction was that self-determination would put this time a definitive end to war. Self-determination is the capability for “people to determine their political future in their own territory. Take away the imperial element in international affairs, and armed conflict would simply be unnecessary”. It was in the agenda of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 but was still the prerogative of the imperial countries. You cannot be imperial and democratic at the same time.

-          The illuminations of 1937. The hope of the Paris world’s fair of 1937 was that science and technology would make humanity progress cooperatively. Democratizing light and electricity was the perfect symbolic: a materialization of the 18^th century enlightenment. Meanwhile, science was playing a central role in the military preparation of the second World War.  The fair was in fact a desperate invocation, signs of its fate are greatly detailed in the book.

-          The work of René Cassin on the Declaration of Human Rights, in the middle of the second World War, seems like a paradox. “But utopias have the tendency to appear at the worst times, when they are the least likely to be realized”. The declaration was motivated by the believe that peace could be secured only if it was based on a set of international commitments on human rights. States respecting the rights of their citizen would not be willing to go to war so easily.

-          Liberation of the 1968. Jay Winter describes a shift in this period during which the ideal of individual freedom takes over the one of collective independence (e.g. states, trade unions). He describes the liberation theology school funded by Gustavo Gutiérrez as well as the student revolts in Paris and Berlin. Came from those movements the notion of ‘autogestion’, people can solve their problems without national governments (e.g. life in small communities, humanitarian organizations such as Medecins sans frontieres). A chapter is also dedicated to the Prague Spring and the theatre of Vaclav Havel.

-          Global citizenship in 1992. “Global citizens are emerging out of an array of transnational social forces animated by environmental concerns, human rights, hostility to patriarchy, and a vision of human community based on the unity of diverse cultures seeking an end to poverty, oppression, humiliation, and collective violence.” [Richard Falk] Even though the importance of this movement is undeniable, most of international institutions are still the result of cooperation between nations, far from being bypassed.

The book was very useful to read. It helps having a minimum of historical context on utopias and to understand how come such obvious things such as international corporations, Human rights, the European Union and Greenpeace exist.

Jay Winter manages to stay very detailed and neutral when describing the utopias and why they were biased, while still being an advocate of them. All the utopias described above played an important role in history and how we perceive the world today. They are the result of individuals still being able to envision a world beyond the injustices and atrocities of their times. Without them, no progress would have been possible.