Ökotopia

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Ökotopia. Notes and reports by William Weston from 1999 is a science fiction by Ernest Callenbach from 1975. The society described in the book was one of the first ecological utopias and had a great influence on the counterculture and the development of the green movement in the late 1970s.

The impressive environmentally friendly energy management , sustainable construction and repair-friendly technology, which are described in Ökotopia, are based on already existing pilot projects, research and discoveries that were previously published and discussed in articles in specialist journals such as Scientific American . The story is a fine web of threads of plot and motive about new technological achievements, social developments, lifestyles , naturalized customs, and a partly deliberate, partly forced demarcation from the American way of life . This is associated with a trend towards moving away from having to being , a more conscious perception of the environment and living conditions and as a result more reflective about their own lifestyle, the community and the relationships, that is a joined-up thinking.

The Ökotopia concept does not demonize modern high technologies , but teaches a very critical approach and attaches importance to technology assessment and sustainable development, especially taking into account social, ecological and societal needs and effects. So Callenbach already described in the novel z. B. the development and general use of video conferencing .

Ecotopia is the genre Ökofiktion (Engl. Fiction ecotopian ) be attributed to a sub-genre of science fiction , literature and future utopia.

action

The action takes place in 1999, 25 years in the future from the perspective of 1974 and consists of a mixture of reports and diary entries by reporter William Weston. After the area was split off around 1980, he is the first American with an official permit to visit and research the press. Ökotopia originated roughly on the former territory of Oregon , Northern California and Washington . This split resulted in the isolation and freezing of all trade and other contacts. From this acute emergency and the ideological background of the split with social, ecological and sustainable priorities, a completely new model of society has developed over the past 25 years .

In the course of the book, the reader and Weston learn more about the country and its people, their transportation, lifestyle, war sports, politics (the president is a woman, Vera Allwen), gender relations, sexual freedom, sustainable energy production, agriculture, education and so on. From the initial detachment with a mixture of curiosity and mistrust, an ever greater understanding and sympathy for the residents and their new ecologically motivated culture gradually grow. This change of heart remains transparent and comprehensible through the diary entries, even when Weston fell in love and has almost become an ecotopian himself. The inhabitants of Ökotopia are characterized as open-minded, creative and active citizens with social and ecological responsibility, who are also not afraid to tackle problems together and overcome them with team spirit. The politics of the inhabitants of Ökotopia is described in detail: the grassroots democratic decision-making structures and the radical decentralization of political power support the local communities in which politics has become part of everyday life. Advanced communication technologies enable an active engagement with political events. Callenbach does not describe the collective and at the same time political behavior of the individual as the result of an abstract norm or a compulsion, but as a culture in which needs are satisfied in a new way. The importance of the book is based less on its literary form than on its lively idea of ​​an alternative ecological lifestyle, whereby the conflicts and how they are dealt with are not concealed. On paper it expresses a great dream of an alternative future, which many communities and movements have already lived to some extent or used as a stimulus for development and implementation.

Effects

In response to popular requests, Ernest Callenbach submitted the fictional history of the origins of Ökotopia in the prequel Ein Weg nach Ökotopia . In 1981, in his book Nine Nations of North America , Joel Garreau named one of his nations Ecotopia after the book of Callenbach's. Likewise, the Cascadia movement makes reference to the split and the background in its reorganization. Every year since 1989 there has been an international Ecotopia Camp in Europe organized by EYFA , each of which is accompanied by a cycle tour across Europe. In Switzerland there has been a youth conservation meeting called Ökotopia since 1991 with around 300 children and young people. Various companies and projects bear the name Ökotopia, mostly dealing with ecological, sustainable or holistic things.

criticism

  • The utopia researcher Richard Saage emphasizes the great importance of individual basic and human rights and the comprehensive transparency of the political decision-making process in Callenbach's utopia. He criticizes the fact that Callenbach is building on the anti-individualist utopian tradition, because in Ökotopia the ego is no "more than the derivative of a holistic natural myth from which it arose and to which it will return"
  • Callenbach's utopia is “multicultural, gentle technological, decentralized, women-friendly, poor in hierarchies (but not without hierarchies)”, according to the social scientist Rolf Schwendter .
  • Thomas Roth : “Where the old USA got lost in industrialization, the ecotopians are trying to eliminate the mistakes that an economy based solely on profit made for centuries with a gentle technology that was adapted and copied from nature. The essential element of everyday ecotopian life is the search for the position of man in nature. "
  • Critics like the left journalist Peter Bierl accuse Callenbach, however, that Ökotopia contains “a crude mixture of emancipatory and right-wing ideas”.

literature

  • Ernest Callenbach: Ökotopia. Notes and reports by William Weston from 1999. Translated by Ursula Clemeur and Reinhard Merker, Rotbuch, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-88022-200-2 .
  • Ernest Callenbach: A way to Ökotopia. Translated by Christiane Tobschall and David Crawford, Ökotopia, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-923648-03-0 .
  • U. Böker: Concept of nature, ecological awareness and utopian thinking. To understand Ernest Callenbach's 'Ecotopia'. In: A. Heller u. a. (Ed.): Utopian Thought in American Literature. Tübingen 1988, pp. 69-84.
  • R. Frye: The Economics of Ecotopia. In: Alternative Futures. 3, 1980, pp. 71-81.
  • KT Goldbach: Utopian Music: Music History of the Future in Novels by Bellamy, Callenbach and Huxley. In: F. Viera, M. Freitas (Eds.): Utopia Matters. Theory, Politics, Literature and the Arts. Porto 2005, pp. 237-243.
  • J. Hermand: Ecotopia. In: KL Berghahn, HU Seeber (ed.): Literary Utopias from More to the Present. Königstein / Taunus 1983, pp. 251-264.
  • J. Hollm: The Anglo-American Ecotopia: Literary drafts of a green world. Frankfurt am Main: Lang 1998.
  • U. Meyer: "Selling an 'ecological religion'. Strategies of Persuasion in Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia ". In: M. Lotz, M. van der Minde, D. Weidmann (Eds.): From Plato to Global Governance. Designs for human coexistence . Marburg 2010, pp. 253-280.
  • H. Tschachler: Ernest Callenbachs: 'Ecotopia'. In: H. Heuermann, B.-P. Lange, (Ed.): The Utopia in Anglo-American Literature. Interpretations. Düsseldorf 1984, pp. 328-348.

Web links

proof

  1. See Richard Saage , Utopische Profiles. Volume 4: Contradictions and Syntheses of the 20th Century . Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-5431-0 , p. 207.
  2. See Wolfgang Jeschke (Ed.): Das Science Fiction Jahr 1991. Heyne, Munich, ISBN 3-453-04471-1 , p. 657.
  3. And the forests rustle forever ( Memento from April 24, 2005 in the Internet Archive )