What is the extent of the importance of isolation in utopian and dystopian discourses (ancient and contemporary)?

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What is the extent of the importance of isolation in utopian and dystopian discourses (ancient and contemporary)?

Politicians and sociological theorists have long trodden the fine line between the open society and the closed society, the utopia and the dystopia, a stable system of moderate authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Karl Popper, for one, in his seminal work The Open Society and its Enemies, mentions the common assumption that totalitarianism is inevitable, but implies that he himself is not a subscriber to this view. Instead, he outlined the definition between the open society (the society in which individuals are confronted with personal decisions) and the closed society (the tribal or collectivist society)1, and averred that while open societies, with their focus on the individual, opened themselves up to difficulties such as class struggle, closed societies could (in theory) avoid this by working for the good of the overall society rather than for individual enhancement.

This may be where some of the appeal of Communism originates; however, it is rarer for communities to splinter off in a serious bid to create an isolated sectarian group in the aim of pursuing a long-term more peaceful lifestyle than it is for them to pursue short-term political rebellion. Even Plato's famous creation of an ideal state in the form of the Republic does not conform to the idea of a serious long-term lifestyle change - he makes it clear throughout the Republic that his ideas are only hypothetical as part of a philosophical discussion among friends; they are not political superpowers intending to section off a part of society in this way in order to build a utopia.

However, the example of the Amish people is one case where people have formed and maintained an almost entirely separate community that restricts and resists contact with the outside world, and works for communal rather than individual benefit. Originally descendants of the Swiss Anabaptists, the Amish communities are now scattered in various densities around North America, with one major branch residing in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The lives of the residents were aggressively disrupted in October 2006, when Charles Carl Roberts IV - a truck driver who collected milk from the Amish communities and delivered it to outside dairies, and was one of the few 'Englishers' (non-Amish) allowed into the community - herded the boys and women out of the school in Bart Township and shot the girls inside.2 For once, the insular nature of the society had been interrupted and the people's aim to isolate themselves completely from the baser values of the dominant outside society had momentarily failed.

As one of the few 'utopian' communities to flourish and survive in isolation from the rest of the world, the media intrusion following this event seemed to prolong the interruption of the society's normally isolated day-to-day life. 'Isolation', for the purposes of this essay, can be generally taken to mean 'a separate way of life that differs from that of the majority, taking place away from the majority'. However, as can be seen from the Amish tragedy of 2006, this isolation can be all too easily interrupted, and this fragile element of the utopia deserves further exploration - how important is isolation in the building of a successful utopia (be it modern or ancient)?

First focusing on the superficial characteristics of isolation, it is pertinent to ponder the relevance of whether such a community is totally geographically separate from other areas (on an island, for example, as in Thomas More's Utopia) or whether it is only partially separate (as part of a larger landmass, as is the case with the Amish). The nature of a utopia is that it is perfect as compared to other societies, "for the best of worlds is invariably described with reference to an inferior, imperfect world".3 By this definition, the 'other' society is therefore needed as a measure against which to create the utopia, and it could be averred from this that being part of a larger landmass may be more appropriate in terms of the creation, growth and adaptation strategies of a utopia. This may well be one of the reasons for the 'rumspringa' period, where Amish teenagers are temporarily released from the church between the ages of 14 and 20 in order to experience non-Amish life, so that they may have something with which to compare the merits of Amish life and avoid the totalitarianism and psychic insularity that Popper seems keen to avoid.
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Such totalitarianism (or, lack of interaction between communities) is attributable to the downfall of the Amish communities in Europe. "Geographic distance between [European Amish communities] made association between families extremely difficult," says John Hostetler (widely considered to be a leading scholar in research of the Amish). "Worship services, held in their own farm homes, took place monthly or every two weeks, but always at different places. Those who lived within a short distance could attend the services, but they found it possible to come only once or twice annually. Under such conditions the scattered Amish families associated more ...

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