The long way to Nowhere

Last week I started reading for my theorising side again. Anna would come to my place in the morning, we'd make yoga and meditation, then start working, she in the corner behind me, me at the desk. Because she was there in the room with me, I really remained concentrated on my reading and didn't, as would otherwise doubtlessly have happened, go up to the fridge every twenty minutes, nor check my emails, no get lost on aimless internet quests. I read and took notes. Then we would eat, and eventually Anna would cycle up to her girlfriend's - and more often than not, Johannes would then come over.
On Saturday evening, Anna and I went out to the collective cafe Tante Horst for a glass of wine and olives, and we started discussing our utopias, the paradoxes in them, and how to get there and what to do with the present system. Johannes later arrived and joined in.

Political utopias.
Anna and me at the kitchen table one afternoon. I've been reading a text on the legitimacy of political authority, trying to reconcile both the principle of fundamental equality of people and the principle of freedom with political authority.
I wonder: Does the political organisation he defends as indispensable to guarantee institutions to protect people's rights have to be hierarchical? State-like? How do we, wannabe anarchists, think of deal with the protection of people in our utopia?
I realise: In my utopia, everybody is an enlightened anarchist - meaning everybody has enough self-respect to respect everybody else, uses the means of non-violent conflict solving, refuses the idea of a small number of people deciding what is right and what isn't.
What about international affairs, Anna asks?
What international affairs... if we're talking utopia, then the utopia is everywhere, and there are no states, so no "international relations". People from various communities interact, of course - but there is no overabusive consumption pattern requiring big contracts for weapons and pipe lines and other resources.

Right, Anna says.
Right, I say.
And we both say: The problem with this is - well, let's be honest, one of the problemS - is that it's a totalitarian system. Everybody, but everybody, has to be convinced that the system is the best there is for it to work.


And then I fall into frustrated melancholy as I think: my utopia is no good. the present system must be the best there is after all.
Hang on a minute, no! It WOULD be if it weren't for the systematic exclusion of undocumented people (legal racism), their exploitation within Europe, the exploitation of people and natural resources outside of the rich world for the comfort of said rich world (that's you, and me, and you, and you too), and the repression, the hierarchy and power fixation of the system, and andand.
So back to square one. What we have has some good sides, but it's got plenty of pretty heavy rotting shit too.

And as I vent out to Johannes during our midnight walk under the clear skies, I ask, frustrated: so should I become a Realpolitikerin after all?
But no. Party politics can't be the way to get to my better world.


And Anna reminds me: we don't have to imagine that everything has been destroyed and our utopia is starting with nothing. We have to think what we want to keep of what there is.
And Johannes reminds me: We all make mistakes! Accept that you will make mistakes on the way to your utopia, cos if you can't accept that, you'll never leave the spot you're at now. Being afraid of mistakes is paralysing. There are always good excuses for not wanting to change your world.
And Edgar Morin reminds me: "Renoncer au meilleur des mondes n'est pas renoncer à un monde meilleur".

For today, my utopia looks pretty much like that.