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That new world, which is distant from ours notso much by geography as by customs andmanners …

More, Utopia

Land ye not, none of you …Bacon, New Atlantis

Ever since Thomas More wrote his Utopia,thus giving the genre its main characteris-

tics, utopia has been thought of as an island.Although the exact location of the ideal govern-ment is left unsaid, the form and geography ofthis non-place have been precisely described:utopian islands are far away, closed, apart, andself-sufficient. Utopia is an isolated territorydefined primarily by its boundaries, and delim-ited by them. As these frontiers draw the sharplineaments of a perfect space of order andharmony, some of More’s commentators haveshown that the interest for justice and peaceseems to end there, and that it does not apply towhat lies outside the island shores. Is it thenimpossible to go beyond these limits of utopia?

The insular model of the classical utopia isindeed challenged when confronted with projectsof a society of nations, especially today, in thecontemporary context of globalization. Theconcept of utopia is often held to be irrelevant tosuch a new and specific situation, as if theutopian spirit were now out of date. At the sametime, however, alternative conceptions of therelations which should exist between the differ-ent parts of the world are still being elaboratedwith reference to utopia – but this reference isoften either merely implicit or ambiguous. Thedebates about globalization and the strong criti-cism of utopia which they imply seem to followon from the problem of the relations betweenutopia and its outskirts.

When reflecting on how relevant the tradi-tional model of utopia can be to contemporaryattempts to sketch a transnational or post-national political frame, many questions arise.How can local utopias be developed into a globalutopia? Can the utopian territory be extendedindefinitely? Do contemporary conceptions ofutopia mark a radical change of paradigm?What form might a non-insular utopia take? Isit possible to imagine a utopia without a centre?Does the plea for a global utopia imply that allsovereign nation-states as such be consideredobsolescent? Would a worldwide form ofgovernment satisfy the criteria of a utopia, or isit bound to remain utopian, in the mostcommon, vague and negative sense of the term(i.e., chimerical)?

antoine hatzenberger

ISLANDS AND EMPIREbeyond the shores ofutopia

ISSN 0969-725X print/ISSN 1469-2899 online/03/010119-10 © 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd and the Editors of AngelakiDOI: 10.1080/0969725032000093645

A N G E L A K Ijournal of the theoretical humanitiesvolume 8 number 1 april 2003

In order to better understand these issues, itis important to concentrate on the geopoliticalconcept of the frontiers of utopia, and to exam-ine how the territory assigned to utopia by thePilgrim Fathers of the genre now needs to beextended, and how, at the same time, utopiaremains an efficient tool for political philosophy.A critical analysis will show the conceptual linksbetween utopia and the proposals for a new worldorder as formulated in the recent works of thetheorists of the “cosmopolitan democracy” andthe “Empire.” Through reconsidering the origi-nal paradigm of utopia laid down in More’sUtopia and Bacon’s New Atlantis, it is possibleto establish that a retrospective interpretation ofutopian foreign policy can enable us to highlightdifferent ways of understanding the utopianstate, and to reassess the meaning of “utopia”when applied on a large scale.

In this article, the problem of the frontiers ofutopia will be set out through a critical rereadingof the classical paradigm of the autarkic island.Firstly, the inherent limits of an internationalrelationship based on the model of insular stateswill be underlined. Secondly, the different formsof the utopian influence on recent studies onglobalization will be highlighted. Lastly, thepremonitions of the possibility of a “global citi-zenship” in the concept of “humanity” outlinedin More’s and Bacon’s works will be pointed out.

1. the frontiers of the island

1.1

As described in the second part of ThomasMore’s book, Utopia has enclosed itself within aseries of concentric circles. To begin with, “theentrance into the bay is very dangerous” (42),“the coast is rugged by nature, and so well forti-fied that a few defenders could beat off theattack of a strong force” (43). History says that“after subduing the natives, at his first landing,[king Utopus] promptly cut a channel fifteenmiles wide where their land joined the continent,and thus caused the sea to flow around thecountry”:1

The town is surrounded by a thick, high wall,with many towers and battlements. On three

sides it is also surrounded by a dry ditch,broad and deep and filled with thorn hedges;on its fourth side the river itself serves as amoat. (46)

Utopians build their towns as they fortify theircamps: “thoroughly, with a deep, broad ditch allaround them, the earth being thrown inward toform a wall” (94). Inside the frontiers of thetown, and within the walls of the houses, “largegardens … form the centre of the blocks” (47).

This closure means a rejection of everythingthat could arrive from outside the frontiers. Notonly do they not “allow anything dirty or filthyto be brought into the city” (57), but it is signif-icant that even the wind is excluded at the differ-ent Utopian structural levels. More specifies thatin the houses the windows are made such as tokeep out the wind (48). In the towns, “the streetsare conveniently laid out … for protection fromthe wind” (46). Lastly, the whole island is “shel-tered from the wind by the surrounding land”(42).

The closure is also internal, as there are obsta-cles to the outward movements of the local popu-lation. Utopians need a visa in order to traveleither outside the frontiers of the island, or evenbetween its different districts. “Anyone whowants to stroll about and explore the extent of hisown district is not prevented, provided he firstobtains his father’s permission and his wife’sconsent”; and “anyone who takes upon himselfto leave his district without permission, and iscaught without the prince’s letter, is treated withcontempt, brought back as a runaway, andseverely punished” (60). The normal life of theinnocent Utopians could almost be compared tothe punishment of the convicted Polylerites,who, “in each district of the country … arerequired to wear a special badge. It is a capitalcrime to discard the badge, to go beyond one’sown district, or to talk with a slave from anotherdistrict” (24).

1.2

Despite these measures, Utopia has notcompletely renounced all possibilities of commu-nication with the rest of the world. When consid-ering the question of the frontiers of Utopia, one

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can but note that there are two obvious para-doxes in the second book of More’s Utopia.Firstly, it is said, on the one hand, that “no citywants to enlarge its boundaries” (44). On theother hand, there is a special measure thatprovides for colonization. “If the populationthroughout the entire island exceeds the quota,they enrol citizens out of every city and plant acolony under their own laws on the mainlandnear them, wherever the natives have plenty ofunoccupied and uncultivated land”; moreover,“those who refuse to live under their laws theUtopians drive out of the land they claim forthemselves” (56).

Secondly, it is said that “few merchants gothere to trade,” because “as for the export trade,the Utopians prefer to do their own transporta-tion, instead of letting strangers come to fetchthe goods” (79). However, despite their strongclaim to autarchy, Utopians accumulate silverand gold coming from elsewhere (61). They alsoaccept immigrants to work for them – “hard-working penniless drudges from other nationswho voluntarily choose to take service in Utopia”(80). Not completely slaves, these proletariansare not completely citizens either, as “suchpeople are treated fairly, almost as well as citi-zens, except that they are assigned a little extrawork, on the score that they’re used to it” (80).On the one hand, immigrant workers are allowedto get in, but, on the other, full citizenship is notenjoyed by all through all the land.

These paradoxes, and the ambiguous concep-tion of citizenship that is derived from them,show that the relationship of Utopia with itsoutside is not symmetrical. Utopians take whatthey need from outside, and their rules exceedtheir boundaries. Although Utopians want theirfrontiers to be fully hermetic to any foreigninfluence, they take care to keep them porous totheir own power upon the other nations. Theyexercise an authority that is both legal andeconomic. Firstly, Utopians wield their jurisdic-tion over their neighbours in so far as “some freenations bordering on Utopia (the Utopians them-selves previously liberated many of them fromtyranny) have learned to admire the Utopianvirtues, and now of their own accord ask theUtopians to supply magistrates for them” (85).

Secondly, Utopians exert economic leadershipover the adjacent countries. After a war hasended Utopians take “landed estates, from whichthey may enjoy forever a substantial annualincome” (95) as indemnity. “As managers ofthese estates, they send abroad some of their citi-zens with the title of Financial Factors” (95).

Utopian international relationships are notorganized according to principles of justice, butgoverned by mere power relations. Utopians donot accept any rule in this domain, and do notcommit themselves towards their neighboursthrough contracts. “The Utopians call thesepeople who have borrowed governors from themtheir allies; others whom they have benefitedthey call simply friends,” but they make notreaties with anyone (86). According to them

the treaty implies that men divided by somenatural obstacle as slight as a hill or a brookare joined by no bond of nature; it assumesthey are born rivals and enemies, and are rightin trying to destroy one another except whena treaty restrains them. (87)

In the end, there is a big difference betweenUtopian foreign policy and the Polylerite societythat Hythloday had presented in the first book ofUtopia.2 Utopians differ from Polylerites becausewhile they are also naturally and artificiallyprotected from any foreign influence, theynonetheless maintain relationships with theirneighbours. What is important to note is that theconditions of this communication are definedunilaterally by the Utopians, on their owngrounds. Frontiers are considered to be a protec-tive device, and the Utopians keep entire controlon them. “They go to war only for good reasons:to protect their own land, to drive invadingarmies from the territories of their friends, or toliberate an oppressed people, in the name ofhumanity, from tyranny and servitude” (85–86).“If a foreign prince takes up arms and preparesto invade their land, they immediately attackhim full force outside their own borders. Forthey don’t like to wage war on their own soil”(95). Does the fact that Utopians import money,employ immigrant workers, lead wars, or settlecolonies, mean that in some way their territory isopen? Utopian territory is not open as such, but

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can be extended. Utopians do not open theirfrontiers, but push their boundaries further infunction of their needs and their goodwill.

This situation has led George M. Logan to saythat “although [More’s] approach pushes theboundary problems out to a considerable distanceit offers no solution to them” (245–46).

It is not accidental that the most serious prob-lems of Utopia, and the ones to which Moremost insistently draws attention, are problemsof foreign relations. This is always a problem-atic area in the best-commonwealth exercise,simply because of the systemic nature of itsapproach to constitutional design. Since thepoint of the exercise is to secure the good lifefor those within the system, there must alwaysbe differences between the treatment of thoseinside and those outside its boundaries. Theboundaries may be of class as well as of geog-raphy. The most disturbing aspects of the bestcommonwealths of Plato and Aristotle are thediscrepancies between the quality of life of thefull citizens of the polis and that of its otherinhabitants. By extending citizenship to allinhabitants, More eliminates this kind ofboundary problem. But the problems of thegeographical boundary remain. (244)3

Shlomo Avineri, in his article on “War andSlavery in More’s Utopia,” writes that More rele-gates sin “abroad, into the confines of othernations” (288). He asserts that “the dialectics ofperfection thus creates, nay, necessitates, acondition of utter despondency and degenerationoutside the confines of the ideal common-wealth,” and adds that “by an extraordinary featof vicarious salvation, Utopia can persevere inher purity and perfection, because all the dregshave been taken out of her realm and storedsomewhere else.”4 Although the problems offoreign policy are interpreted here in religiousterms, they are still expressed in terms of “fron-tiers.”

1.3

The role of boundaries in the utopian model canbe verified in Bacon’s New Atlantis, as shownby the first contact between the seamen and theinhabitants of Bensalem:

we thinking every minute long till we were onland, came close to the shore, and offered toland. But straightways we saw divers of thepeople, with bastons in their hands, as it wereforbidding us to land; yet without any cries orfierceness, but only as warning us off by signsthat they made. (130)

Bacon’s utopia also takes the shape of an island,set “in the secret conclave of … a vast sea” (140).

Bacon is more precise than More on the statusof those who reach the shores – which is quiterare, as thirty-seven years have passed withoutany stranger entering the land. “Amongst hisother fundamental laws of his kingdom,” thelawgiver of Bensalem “did ordain the interdictsand prohibitions … touching entrance ofstrangers” (144). He imposed the cessation of all“traffic,” “commerce,” “intercourse” with theother parts of the world (143). People fromBensalem “should sit at home” (144). The rareforeigners who have accidentally found access tothis remote part of the world, and to whom itsstate gives “licence to stay on land for the spaceof six weeks” (135), are forced to remain in theStrangers’ House.5 We find in New Atlantis thesame dissymmetry as in Utopia:

We of this island of Bensalem have this, thatby means of our solitary situation, and of thelaws of secrecy which we have for our trav-ellers, and our rare admission of strangers, weknow well most part of the habitable world,and are ourselves unknown. (136)

As in Utopian law, a contradiction can beunderlined in Bensalem’s attitude towardsforeign countries. It is shown “how sufficient andsubstantive this land was to maintain itself with-out any aid at all of the foreigner,” and that,“doubting novelties, and commixture ofmanners” (144), “the king had forbidden to allhis people navigation into any part that was notunder his crown” (146). But the island does notcompletely cut itself from the rest of the world,as some people are allowed to travel. This excep-tion is made for a very small number of people,and very rarely. Every twelve years, six membersof Salomon’s House are sent abroad for strategicpurposes. They must bring back informationabout the “sciences, arts, manufactures, and

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inventions of all the world” (146). Thesemissions of industrial espionage are consistentwith the principle of control over its own bound-aries and confirm that any relation with theoutside of the island is based on an unbalancedexchange. People from Bensalem are willing “tohave light of the growth of all parts of the world”(147), but they are not keen on enlightening theworld with their knowledge, in sharing theresults of their own discoveries. They take, butthey do not give away: this is the paradox of thisselective closure “preserving the good whichcometh by communicating with strangers, andavoiding the hurt” (145).

Although the closure of the island ofBensalem and the measures taken by its inhabi-tants to prevent communications were inspired,for Bacon, by the Venetian Lazaretto Nuovo,which was conceived in the seventeenth centuryas a protection against the plague, the landingrites imposed on the heroes of Bacon’s narrativeresemble modern national boundaries and theircordon sanitaire, as Michèle Le Dœuff notes(103). “Bacon’s work astonishes us because itspeaks to us in such an odd fashion about thingswhich have since become extremely banal”(30–31; my trans.). Indeed, parallels can be madetoday between the boundaries of utopia and thefrontiers of Europe.

2. from local utopias to global utopia

2.1

This parallelism between New Atlantis andcontemporary societies makes it obvious thatsome important problems and ambiguities intrin-sic to the classical utopias are still relevant today,and can help us to reflect on the difficulties indefining a postmodern utopia: not only theorganization of peaceful relations between differ-ent nations, but the construction of a supra-national political body.

In the new context of what could be called theEuropean utopia, the question of the boundariesis central. In “Frontières du monde, frontières dela politique” (Frontiers of the World, Frontiersof Politics), Etienne Balibar describes the prob-lem in contemporary terms:

the frontiers have moved place. While tradi-tionally and in accordance with their legalnotion as well as with the “cartographic”representation embodied in the national imag-inary, frontiers should be on the edge of theterritory, and mark the point where its exis-tence stops, it appears that frontiers and theircorresponding institutional practices havemoved to the middle of the political space.(175; my trans.)

What Balibar means is that internalized frontiershave a “function of social discrimination,” andthat they create a state of “apartheid” on atransnational level (180). This is a criticism ofthe Schengen agreement that erased the frontierswithin the space of the European Union, whilereinforcing the controls on the new externalborders. The demarcation lines are notsuppressed but simply pushed back. Accordingto Balibar’s analysis, exclusion is the necessaryconsequence of the existence of frontiers. Forhim, the problem of frontiers arises when oneattempts to answer the following question in autopian way: “Is a European citizenship possi-ble?” According to “Une citoyenneté européenneest-elle possible?,” one can trace back to the clas-sical utopia the “permanence of a rule of closureand autarky associated to citizenship” (47; mytrans.) in the European Union. On this basis,defining a European citizenship necessarily leadsto the “formulation of a rule of exclusion” (50).That is why Balibar affirms that “our problem …consists in taking leave of utopia” (Avant-propos[Preface] 12; my trans.).

In contrast to this state of affairs, how thencould utopia mean a new global and democraticorder? Once the dark assessment of the world-wide domination of capitalism and of the weak-ening of the sovereign nation-states has beenmade, are the corresponding reflections about analternative model not still tinted with utopiancolours?

2.2

A notable example of the attempts to recognizethe political dimension in the process of global-ization is provided by those researchers whowork to define “cosmopolitan democracy,” and

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the reforms which its implementation wouldrequire. In Democracy and the Global Order,David Held notes that “agencies and organiza-tions … often cut across the territorial bound-aries of nation-states,” and affirms that “thepossibility of democracy today must, accord-ingly, be linked to an expanding framework ofdemocratic institutions and procedures” (267).The cosmopolitan model of democracy requires“that the territorial boundaries of systems ofaccountability be recast” (267).

When, in “The United Nations andCosmopolitan Democracy: Bad Dream, UtopianFantasy, Political Project,” Richard Falk affirmsthat “at present, clouds on the horizon makesuch expectations [i.e., the transformation of theUnited Nations] appear utopian” (327), he isusing the term “utopia” in the common andnegative sense. For him, “cosmopolitan democ-racy is … not a utopian project superimposed byway of the political imagination, but is rooted inthe evolving norms and patterns of practice inthe life-world of political behaviour” (316). “As aresult, it seems [to him] inappropriate to dismissas utopian the prospect of cosmopolitan democ-racy as the basis for a dynamic world order”(328).6

According to Held, because this project isbased on “a dialectic between the ideal and thereal” (276), it is not a utopia in the sense that itis not a “pipe dream” (277). Cosmopolitandemocracy is, however, a utopia, in a specificsense. Contrary to a loose understanding of theterm “utopia,”7 for Held “to create a frameworkfor utopia demands not an abdication of politicsin the name of liberty and experimentation, buta distinctive logic of political intervention” (249).He states that “the framework for utopia iscosmopolitan democratic law” (266), and consid-ers that:

today, any attempt to set out a positionof what could be called “embedded utopi-anism” must begin from where we are (theexisting pattern of political relations andprocesses) and from an analysis of what mightbe (desirable political forms and principles).If utopia is to be embedded, it must be linkedinto patterns and movements as they are.(286)

2.3

A more radical theory of political globalizationwas given by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negriin Empire. According to their strategy of “alter-natives within Empire,” the “localist position” istoday both “false and damaging” (44). “It is falseto claim that we can (re)establish local identitiesthat are in some sense outside and protectedagainst the global flows of capital and Empire”(45).

Any proposition of a particular community inisolation, defined in racial, religious, orregional terms, “delinked” from Empire,shielded from its powers by fixed boundaries,is destined to end up as a kind of ghetto.Empire cannot be resisted by a project aimedat a limited, local autonomy. We cannot moveback to any previous social form, nor moveforward in isolation. Rather, we must pushthrough Empire to come out the other side.(206)

This rejection of the localist solution to global-ization targets both the nostalgic return to thepast form of the nation-state, and plans forfuture utopian communities. For Hardt andNegri, on the contrary, “any postmodern libera-tion must be achieved within this world, on theplane of immanence, with no possibility of anyeven utopian outside” (65). They insist on notbeing mistaken for utopians:

There is not finally here [in this immanentdesire that organizes the multitude] any deter-minism or utopia: this is rather a radical coun-terpower, ontologically grounded not on any“vide pour le futur” but on the actual activityof the multitude, its creation, production, andpower – a materialist teleology. (66)

Beyond the Morean form of utopia would lie nota global federal state, but the realm of post-national politics and reunited humanity.

Despite what appears to be a firm refusal ofthe utopian model, a millenarian appeal can,however, be perceived in certain passages ofEmpire. They thus remain within the utopianrealm in its larger sense, for example when theystate that: “Outside every Enlightenment cloudor Kantian reverie, the desire of the multitude isnot the cosmopolitical state but a common

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species. As in a secular Pentecost, the bodies aremixed and the nomads speak a common tongue”(362). Despite their initial anti-utopian stance,then, Hardt and Negri ask questions that arerelevant to the debate on utopia. To the follow-ing question: “if we are consigned to the non-place of Empire, can we construct a powerfulnon-place and realize it concretely, as the terrainof a postmodern republicanism?” (208), they giveanswers that are also of interest to utopians:“The multitude is not formed simply by throw-ing together and mixing nations and people indif-ferently; it is the singular power of a new city”(395); “Global citizenship is the multitude’spower to reappropriate control over space andthus to design the new cartography” (400).

The problem that Hardt and Negri, as well asHeld and Balibar, attempt to describe is that ofa possible opposition between the local and theglobal level. The solution cannot be clear-cut,because in the end there is no radical gapbetween the two. For Balibar, the necessaryprocess of “democratization of the frontiers” is a“global–local” problem (“Frontières” 181). InHeld’s view, “local transformation is as much anelement of globalization as the lateral extensionof social relations across space” (278).8 Finally,for Hardt and Negri “the construction ofEmpire, and the globalization of economic andcultural relationships, means that the virtualcentre of Empire can be attacked from anypoint” (59). In the end, there is no contradictionbetween the parts and the whole. Utopia is animage of the world, and what Leibniz says aboutthe monad can be said about utopia: “Now thisconnection or adaptation of all created thingswith each, and of each with all the rest, meansthat each simple substance has relations whichexpress all the others, and that consequently it isa perpetual living mirror of the universe.”9

3. utopia inside out

3.1

This intertwinement of the local and the globalis probably what gives utopia its contemporarysignificance. Indeed, the outer world is in a waypresent in utopia; it just needs to be made moreapparent. Let us remember that Utopia was

discovered at the same time as America, and onemight have expected that this would makeUtopia open to other worlds. Raphael Hythloday,seaman, heir of Ulysses and Plato, and compan-ion of Amerigo Vespucci, is familiar with themost remote places of the earth like Ceylon orCalicut. Bacon’s New Atlantis is located betweenPeru, China and Japan. From the very birth ofthe genre, there have been different componentsin utopian projects. Utopias are not a series ofdogmas, but a rich reservoir of new ideas – andthus utopia can still be used as a think-tank forthe period we live in.

In this perspective, there are some passages inMore’s Utopia that can be read as criticismsguarding against the dangers of utopian closure.Firstly, More presents several models of interna-tional relations. In the first book of Utopia,Hythloday criticizes European relations of thetime in general, and particularly the Italian warsof Francis I.10 If he were able to, Raphael wouldtell the king that he “should leave Italy alone andstay at home, because the kingdom of France byitself is almost too much for one man to govern,and the King should not dream of adding othersto it” (30).11 This is a strong criticism of anyimperialist politics of conquest, and a significantwarning against any attempt to expand theboundaries in a violent way.

Secondly, Hythloday’s criticism of the systemof enclosures being implemented in England atthe time can be interpreted as an internalmetaphoric objection against utopian closure(understood as an economical barrier betweentwo social groups). As he demonstrates, theeffect of the fact that “one greedy, insatiableglutton, a frightful plague to his native country,may enclose many thousands of acres within asingle hedge” (19) is that the dispossessed haveno choice but to leave. They are chased out ofthe countryside and become vagrants. Wealthinside means poverty outside.

Similarly, as the strangers seeking refuge inNew Atlantis themselves note, Bacon’s messageis not entirely uniform. “The denial of landingand hasty warning us away troubled us much; onthe other side, to find that the people … were sofull of humanity, did comfort us not a little”(130). While “preserving the good which cometh

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by communicating with strangers, and avoidingthe hurt,” the lawgiver of Bensalem “hathpreserved all points of humanity, in taking orderand making provision for the relief of strangersdistressed” (144). As Le Dœuff says, a “moralityof the feeling of humanity” animates the inhabi-tants of Bensalem (126). Without the foreignersbeing directly in contact with the people fromBensalem (as they have not yet landed), they arealready in a relationship of humanity with them.Giving the right to land and to set foot on theterritory is the first step towards solidarity andpeaceful relations. “The island outside-of-the-world transcends the divisions in so far as it laysdown a universal moral reality more desirablethan the particular attachment to the regionfrom where one comes” (Le Dœuff 128). NewAtlantis contains reflections that are still rele-vant to the situation of the refugees of the twen-tieth and the twenty-first centuries. Bacon’sutopia can be interpreted as an incentive to thinkabout the status of asylum seekers, who are at thesame time stateless and virtually citizens of theworld.12

3.2

On the one hand, then, despite strong contem-porary criticism of the concept of utopia, theutopian spirit appears to live on in the most radi-cal projects of our time. On the other hand, whenkeeping in mind the literary specificities ofMore’s Utopia (the dual structure of the twobooks, the role of Hythloday, the ironical tone),it seems peculiar to utopia as a genre to containantidotes against its own possible excesses. Acritical point of view is inherent to the classicalmodel of utopia. More’s and Bacon’s workscontain analyses that can therefore be the theo-retical basis of a critique of the changes occur-ring in world politics.

After having dialectically considered, firstly,utopia as an island and, secondly, the utopias ofa new global order, a few conclusions can bedrawn from these reflections on the problem ofthe frontiers of utopia. On a definitional level,one can support Louis Marin’s claim, in “TheFrontiers of Utopia,” that “Utopia is the figureof the horizon” (11):

This is the merging place of Utopia: a neutralplace, an island in between two kingdoms, twoStates, the two halves of the world, the inter-val of frontiers and limits by way of a horizonthat closes a site and opens up a space; theisland Utopia merging into the “indefinite.”(10)

On a geopolitical level, however, contrary to thesituation in the sixteenth, seventeenth, or eventhe nineteenth centuries, today there is no NewWorld left to be discovered and therefore noescape possible from the old continent. There isno longer any refuge elsewhere. Thus, whensketching the blueprint for a better life, doutopians not have to take into account the exist-ing links with the other islands, and togetherbuild a common strategy of resistance againstthe mainland of the state?

When reflecting on the question of thefrontiers of utopia, it is necessary to engagewith the problem of its limits – in the twosenses of the term. Drawing the boundariestoo sharply is indeed a way to avoid addressingsome important difficulties intrinsic to thecommunication between a community andthat which lies outside and to the implementa-tion of principles of justice in internationalrelations.

Following the theorists who reflect today onhow democracy can be better institutionalizedon a global level, and on how to create a globalcitizenship, utopians should consider this possi-ble opportunity for expanding the framework ofutopia. To do so requires a questioning of theopposition between the local and the global, anda slight shift in the debate about utopia fromthe classical questions of its place and time tothe questions of its size and its foreseeabledevelopments and adaptations.

Engaging with these questions, and rereadingside by side both the first canonical utopias andcontemporary proposals of new ways of consid-ering political relations on a worldwide level,could perhaps contribute to anew comprehension of utopia(as cosmopolitan utopia), andcontribute to defining what apossible contemporary utopiacould be.

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notes

1 In the quotes from More’s Utopia, the emphasesare mine.

2 They are a sizeable nation, not badlygoverned, free and subject only to their ownlaws … Living far from the sea, they arenearly surrounded by mountains; and as theyare content with the products of their ownland … they have little to do with othernations, and are not much visited. By ancienttradition, they make no effort to enlargetheir boundaries, and easily protect them-selves behind their mountains … Thus theyfight no wars, and live in a comfortablerather than a glorious manner, morecontented than ambitious or famous. Indeed,I think they are hardly known by name toanyone but their next-door neighbours.(More 23)

3 “More is acting not as a world-state theorist,whether of the classical or the Christian variety,but as a secular city-state theorist”; “Moreover,since More is functioning as a city-state theorist,his object is to secure the real interests of the citi-zens of Utopia, not those of humanity in general”(Logan 235).

4 “Utopia appears as a centre of a loose yet well-ordered community of nations, not sharing theUtopian social system, but being utterly depend-ent upon Utopia in their foreign policy and havingUtopians as their rulers” (Avineri 261). “ThisUtopian imperium … is based on a preconceived,premeditated plan of securing for Utopia absolutesecurity and eventual hegemony” (262). “Utopianethics is not based on a universal basis” (263). “IfUtopia is a paradise for its own inhabitants, it iscausing life to be very much like hell to all othernations” (264).

If in any ordinary society holiness andcorruption live side by side, are being judgedby the same criteria and are subject to thesame regulations, Utopian thinking has todivorce the saints from the villains and keepthem apart. In the case of More’s Utopia, theseparation is even physical, as King Utopuscaused an artificial channel to be dug, thusmaking Utopia an island, clearly set apartfrom the world as it is. (288)

5 Everything follows on in an exemplarymanner: the natural and geographicalclosure – which makes a journey necessary,thus making materially perceptible the differ-ence between this state and the other statesand the nearly impossible effort one has toagree to make to reach it. The voluntaryclosure, which the refusal of foreignersdeployed in the arsenal of precautions takenand secrets prudently unveiled represents …Lastly, the internal closure by which societyprevents its own members from seeking else-where a means of altering it, even if thisdemands however that it remain informedabout what can be integrated withoutdamage. (Moreau 45; my trans.)

6 Yet it would be foolhardy to be optimisticabout its real transformative impact unlesspresent intimations are bolstered bycurrently unforeseen developments. In thisregard, the globalizing trends could indeedeventuate in a dystopia, a kind of bad dreamcome true. What is proposed, then, is toposit a sense of uncertainty about the future,but to note that this doubt will be removedby the play of contending aspirations, and thatto the extent that cosmopolitan democracyis accepted as the most beneficial future forhumanity, then it contributes to this possi-bility by an engagement in a struggle to bringit about. (Falk 328)

7 Held is referring to Robert Nozick, Anarchy,State and Utopia (Oxford: Blackwell, 1974).

8 See also Falk: “The global village dimensions ofsocial, economic and cultural reality can only beaddressed within bounded space if they are alsoaddressed in relation to unbounded space”(326).

9 Leibniz, The Monadology sect. 56 in PhilosophicalWritings by Leibniz, ed. and trans. Mary Morris(London: Dent, 1934).

10 [C]ouncillors hard at work devising a set ofcrafty machinations by which the King mightkeep hold of Milan and recover Naples …then overthrow the Venetians and subdue allItaly; next add to his realm Flanders, Brabantand the whole of Burgundy, besides some

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other nations he has long had in mind toinvade. (More 29)

11 Hythloday would advise the king “to look afterhis ancestral kingdom, improve it as much as possi-ble, cultivate it in every conceivable way” (More31). Cf. the Achorians in the first book of Utopia:“The worthy king was obliged to be content withhis own realm” (31).

12 See Hassner, “Refugees: A Special Case forCosmopolitan Citizenship.”

bibliography

Avineri, Shlomo. “War and Slavery in More’sUtopia.” International Review of Social History 7.2(1962): 260–90.

Bacon, Francis. New Atlantis. Works. Ed. JamesSpedding, Robert L. Ellis and Douglas D. Heath.Vol. 3. London: Longman, 1857.

Balibar,Etienne.“Une citoyenneté européenne est-elle possible?” 1995. Droit de cité. Paris: PUF, 2002.

Balibar, Etienne. Avant-propos. 1997. Droit de cité.Paris: PUF, 2002.

Balibar, Etienne. “Frontières du monde, frontièresde la politique.” 1998. Nous, citoyens d’Europe? Lesfrontières, l’etat, le peuple. Paris: La Découverte,2001.

Falk, Richard. “The United Nations andCosmopolitan Democracy: Bad Dream, UtopianFantasy, Political Project.” Re-imagining PoliticalCommunity: Studies in Cosmopolitan Democracy. Ed.Daniele Archibugi, David Held and Martin Köhler.Cambridge: Polity; Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998.

Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Empire.Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2000.

Hassner, Pierre. “Refugees: A Special Case forCosmopolitan Citizenship.” Re-imagining PoliticalCommunity: Studies in Cosmopolitan Democracy. Ed.Daniele Archibugi, David Held and Martin Köhler.Cambridge: Polity; Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998.

Held, David. Democracy and the Global Order: Fromthe Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance.Cambridge: Polity, 1995.

Le Dœuff, Michèle. “Voyage dans la penséebaroque.” La Nouvelle Atlantide. Ed. Michèle LeDœuff and Margaret Llasera. Paris: Payot, 1983.

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. The Monadology. InPhilosophical Writings by Leibniz. Ed. and trans.Mary Morris. London: Dent, 1934.

Logan, George M. The Meaning of More’s Utopia.Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983.

Marin, Louis. “The Frontiers of Utopia.” Utopiasand the Millennium. Ed. Krishnan Kumar andStephen Bann. London: Reaktion, 1993.

More, Thomas. Utopia. Ed. George M. Logan andRobert M. Adams. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,1989.

Moreau, Pierre-François. Le récit utopique: Droitnaturel et roman de l’etat. Paris: PUF, 1982.

islands and empire

Antoine Hatzenberger20 rue Eugène Varlin75010 ParisFranceE-mail: hatz@club-internet.fr