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Event Recap

Talk of 鈥渦topia鈥� often prompts a knowing wink and nod from seasoned consumers of culture: utopia, in life or fiction, is always either a convenient cover for, or a direct precursor to, dystopia. However, Christian Henkel, a fall visiting scholar at the Boisi Center and director of聽the Institute for Ecumenical and Interreligious Research at the University of T眉bingen in Germany, takes a slightly different view. For Henkel, utopian thinking is already all around us. It is embedded in the digital devices and social media that govern our lives. Henkel calls this 鈥淯topia on the Small Screen,鈥� and in his September 20th, 2018 lunch colloquium at the Boisi Center, he argued that perhaps utopia needs to be reconsidered. A reimagined understanding of utopia is one way, Henkel suggested, to reframe political theology and social justice.

Henkel prefaced that utopias are likely to be irrelevant or even dangerous if not reimagined: irrelevant, like Thomas More鈥檚 fictional utopia on a distant, make-believe island, as they have no way of actually existing; dangerous, as they can foster autocratic ideas. Utopias can be easily dominated by singular figures and harmful ideologies. As an example, Henkel referenced the many failed utopian communities that dot America鈥檚 past. Henkel鈥檚 main argument, however, was that the utopian ideals that many of these American communities strived towards, particularly ideals of everyday living, have already been increasingly accomplished, almost without notice, by technology. Citing Saul Alinsky, Ruth Cohen, and Cornel West, Henkel pushed instead for a new, integrative, and interpersonal use of our digital resources. In Henkel鈥檚 view, if put to good use, digitization can aid in community organizing, help with religious education, and foster real human relationships. Heeding the warnings of failed utopias and the real limits, problems, and dangers of technology, we can reimagine these digital utopias in ways that better our use of them. A workable utopia cannot forget about the world鈥檚 injustices, and cannot be blind to its own shortcomings. In the end, Henkel鈥檚 argument relied on a 鈥渄igital鈥� version of Christian hope: utopia is possible, but only if we go about it in a responsible, ethical, and just way.