This infinite world must needs be flattened to get it on one retina. The picture of a solid thing, although it is flattened and simplified, is not necessarily a lie. Surely, surely, in the end, by degrees and steps, something of this sort, some such understanding as this Utopia must come. First here, first there, single men and then groups of men will fall into line – not indeed with my poor faulty hesitating suggestions – but with a great and comprehensive plan wrought out by many minds and in many tongues. It is just because my plan is faulty, because it mis-states so much, and omits so much, that they do not now fall in. It will not be like my dream, the world that is coming. My dream is just my own poor dream, the thing sufficient for me. We fail in comprehension, we fail so variously and abundantly. We see as much as it is serviceable for us to see and no further. But the fresh undaunted generations come to take our work beyond our utmost effort, beyond the range of our ideas.
Wells, Modern Utopia (Chapman and Hall, 1905), p. 369-370
Re-reading Bellamy’s “Looking Backward”
Acknowledgment that selfishenss will continue to exist and that measurements need to be taken (e.g. material equality) so that it’s reduced to a minimum (Blavatsky and the Theosophical writers).
Re-reading Wells’ “A Modern Utopia”
Human beings are not intended to be perfect of perfectible. There is the potential for conflicts and the need for institutions to resolve them.
There is an interesting reluctance of the scarred subject of the present world to enter and live in the utopian world. Acknowledgement of a tension between the larger systemic concern and the individual, human preoccupation with self and relationship.
There is acknowledgement of provisionality and contingency on behalf of Wells.