Page 17 of Ecotopia


  Ecotopian scientists complain as ours do about lack of funding for particularly intriguing projects. There is some grumbling even now about the abandonment of expensive high-energy nuclear and fusion research soon after Independence. But money seems to be available for a great range of basic biological investigations, and the reorientation of national production technology which followed Independence was achieved only through massive scientific effort.

  There is one striking lack in Ecotopian science, which reminds one how drastic have been the effects of secession in some areas. Neither in Ecotopian universities nor in research institutes can one find professors of several once flourishing disciplines: political science, sociology and psychology. Their practitioners evidently drifted off into other fields—philosophy, biology, and so on. Many books on the former subject matters of these fields continue to appear, but they are treated as part of general citizenly concern and are not considered to have “scientific” standing. History, on the other hand, is an academic discipline that has blossomed in Ecotopia, although a good deal of it is occupied with muck-raking in pre-Independence archives. (A branch little known among us, “industrial history,” is devoted to the alleged crimes of American industrial leaders and corporations—whose records fell into the public domain at the time of secession.) Economics is also still an active field, though of course its direction would seem questionable to most of our economists, and anthropology is very active. Such curious imbalances in academic life may help explain the disorganized and chaotic nature of Ecotopian life generally.

  Student unrest seems to be even more chronic in Ecotopian universities than in ours. While I was visiting Berkeley, a college dean was expelled through the combined votes of students and a few disaffected faculty in the college assembly—a sort of quarterly town meeting. In keeping with Ecotopian notions of decentralization, the universities were broken up after Independence into a number of separate colleges, each managing its own affairs without benefit of—or interference from!—a central administration. (In time, the universities are to spin off into totally non-governmental forms, like the schools.)

  During the alternating years they are on campus—and they often reside in former office buildings which have been made into living quarters—the professors devote full energy to teaching. In each college there is a group of professors actually hired by the students, and paid directly from student fees. These “collegial” professors, who are often felt to be brilliant but erratic by their regular colleagues, are sometimes lured away from other universities for a year; sometimes they are eminent men of letters, or scientists, or politicians, or simply people who have had unusual life experiences that the students wish to hear about and discuss in detail.

  Another surprise is that the student body, at most Ecotopian institutions of higher education, has shrunk considerably. People seem to attend university because they like the intellectual life there, not for practical or ulterior motives. Ecotopian society is oriented toward experience and activity rather than credentials, licenses, and requirements. The mere possession of a degree confers little status, and Ecotopia has none of our scrambling for Ph.D.s. (There are, as far as I can tell, no jobs in Ecotopia for which a degree is an absolute prerequisite.) The respect given to people thus turns upon achievement; and creativity and inventiveness are highly prized, both as intriguing personal qualities and because they are useful to society.

  This has meant much less emphasis on certifiable expertise and defined professional fields, often with severe consequences. Thus the magnificent departmental system at Berkeley was abolished, together with its elaborate curriculum of huge standardized lecture courses. These lectures were videotaped by the best professors, and made available on videodiscs to students; they were also broadcast regularly on television, which took on extensive educational functions after Independence. Education through residence at a college assumed a pronouncedly novel form, by contrast. The elective system, where every student could choose, cafeteria-style, among the offerings of the various departments, became a public institution through video; and any citizen may acquire an education in biology, engineering, musicology, or hundreds of other subjects by enrolling in video courses. Students on campus, however, are expected to develop the ability to participate in the whole range of intellectual and creative activities. Thus each student is supposed to develop competence in the mental processes proper to the humanities, the biological and physical sciences, and political thought.

  Incredible as it may seem to us, this competence is thought to be objectively definable, and thus testable; achieving it is taken to be the joint responsibility of the students and the teachers, who operate in small tutorial groups of 20 students each. The testing is apparently very tough. Exams in the basic year-long courses are given at the end of the year only, and are planned and prepared by intercollege boards of professors. I have seen some of the test materials, and they assume that a “generally educated person” will be able to think clearly about both the tonal system of gamelan orchestras and the endocrine functions of the cat. Judging by some of the weird conversations I have had here, the system works appallingly well!

  Some specialized courses are also given, and even the basic courses involve a great deal of specialized knowledge, but most of what we would call graduate instruction has been converted into apprenticeship programs that take place in research institutes, farms, factories, and other productive institutions of the society. Here students are subjected to the same standards as their “masters.” The publication of a brilliant short paper counts for more than a number of dull long ones. “Inventions,” whether abstract ideas, proposals for better production processes or creative works, are greatly respected and much discussed. And participation in the community, whether a college, a living group, or an academic association, is thought to be important for all. (Dissident loner types refer to this last as the “togetherness test.”) Thus the service-station and degree-mill concept of the university, which still tends to prevail with us, has been destroyed in Ecotopia. The services in research, weapons development, policy formulation, and the like, which universities rendered business and government before Independence, must be performed by entirely new organizations. Such a great departure was, of course, facilitated by the fact that at Independence the support of the federal government in Washington, which had been the mainstay of virtually all university research, was abruptly ended. What has taken its place may not be as grand as the old universities, with their exciting conduits to the White House and Wall Street.

  On the other hand, the curious combination of intellectual rigor and lack of customary disciplinary boundaries may explain why so many Ecotopians are expert at arguing esoteric positions (sometimes merely to see if they can successfully defend them!); intellectual discussion is enjoyed almost for its own sake, as an art. And this hypothetical turn of mind, encouraged by the Ecotopian universities, may have facilitated the adoption of so many startling innovations so quickly and with so little relative disruption.

  (June 10) Encouraging message from President Allwen’s office: she has expressed interest in my columns, and will work me into her schedule soon. This clearly justifies an extension of another ten days here if necessary. Sent message to Max, asked him to tell Francine and Pat. Felt odd and a little guilty about both of them.

  Worse still, Marissa upset because of my dumbly mentioning the forthcoming interview, and then going back to New York. Looked at me as if I was a candidate for a buzz-saw execution. “You lousy rotten son of a bitch!” she said, and gave me a clout. We wrestled fiercely for a moment, and then both began crying, tears pouring all over us, holding each other very tightly. Not saying anything, just crying for a long time, not being able to bear letting go. Then after a while she got up and headed home, still tearful.

  This thing between us, which began so easily and naturally, begins to look as if it has gotten out of hand. Maybe it was out of control all along, and I just didn’t see it. Maybe I didn’t want i
t under control, for that matter? But how can it end, without terrible pain all around? Is that what love is, just a crazy lure and prelude to pain?

  I sit here, drained, exhausted, tight behind the eyes, watching the first summer tongue of fog creep past Alcatraz, heading up the Bay toward the great hot interior valley. The foghorn out at Land’s End has begun moaning even though it’s only midday….

  ECOTOPIAN MUSIC,

  DANCE, OTHER ARTS

  San Francisco, June 10. Just as Ecotopians blur the difference between professional and amateur in science, there is almost no distinction between amateurs and professionals in the arts. People of all levels of skill and creativity put themselves forward unabashedly. There is hardly a young person in the whole country who doesn’t either play an instrument, dance, act, sing, write, sculpt, paint, make videofilms, or indulge in some original artistic activity. However, few of these gain the recognition—and sales—to sustain themselves entirely through their work.

  And competition is harsh in other ways too. Not only do audiences treat bad performances rudely, with whistling, booing, and taunts, but even successful artists cannot turn to foundations for the grants that are so desperately sought by our officially recognized artists. If they cannot make it with their art, young Ecotopian artists have only two alternatives: living on the minimum-guarantee level and continuing to strive for recognition, or taking a job and pursuing their art as a part-time activity.

  Oddly enough, the avidity with which almost all Ecotopians pursue some kind of art work actually adds to the difficulty of achieving success as an artist, because it seems to diminish the respect for “name” artists. Even in music, people collect records by groups they like, but they don’t seem to go terribly far out of their way to hear a visiting group if one of their own is playing. They collect paintings and sculpture, but mix them in with works given to them by friends, or which they’ve done themselves. Although international traveling art exhibitions come to Ecotopian museums, they do not generate the intense excitement we have in New York. Ecotopians spread their appreciation thin; they have a near provincial disregard for the very highest achievements, a kind of ultrademocratic shrinking of the scale of creative excellence. Apparently, if art is something everybody does, a Picasso or a van Gogh no longer seems quite so special.

  Nor do there seem to be big-name architects in Ecotopia. People themselves design and build structures for their living groups or enterprises with astonishing competence and imagination, often using modularized designs and standard materials that by now have taken on practically the quality of folk architecture. The community governments have design staffs for public buildings (and presumably to check plans before construction) but architecture is not at all the preserve of experts.

  Among all the arts, music seems the most important to Ecotopians. Every farm, factory, or extended family has some kind of musical group, and those with professional status usually began in such places. There are several styles of new music being composed. Black bands play a music with roots in the jazz and blues we know from Chicago and New York, and in Caribbean music. Bands from Spanish backgrounds play with an obvious Latin American influence. White bands tend to play music that sounds to me something like Balinese gamelan orchestras—an intricate, cerebral, yet driving jazz, with many homemade drums and gongs prominent in it. (This is said to be derived from earlier rock styles.) There are also groups using classical instrumentation—violins, clarinets, flutes, and so on—who play an unearthly improvised music like nothing I have ever heard, and there are musicians who play instruments of a totally electronic, synthetic-sound type. The one dominant characteristic of all such music styles, however, is a strong dance beat. In fact you seldom see a band playing without some people in the vicinity dancing. Classical music, incidentally, is also heard widely, especially as played by street musicians.

  It’s difficult for my ear to catch the words of songs, and people dislike the idea of writing them down for me. Still, I was able to pick up the themes of several currently popular ones. They turned out to be largely romantic lamentations, not terribly different from our hillbilly music—complaints about being deserted, dirges for the unhappy end of true love, expressions of anger or despair. There is a resilient humor to some of these songs, but evidently the Ecotopian revolution, whatever else it may have accomplished, has not touched the basic miseries of the human condition.

  The burning musical issue in Ecotopia at present concerns electrification. At the time of Independence, rock music was entirely electronic, and groups carried around with them a whole truckload of heavy amplifiers. They soon came under attack from “folkies,” musicians who used only traditional instruments such as the recorder, banjo, guitar, piano, and antique types such as the lute or oriental types such as the sitar. Folkies argued that music could not be a truly people’s art, accessible to all, if it depended on high-cost electronics; and they also maintained that music should not depend on the artificial aid of electricity. Their final argument was that amplified music was a biological offense because it damaged eardrums. The development of small, inexpensive amplifiers undermined their first point, and the last didn’t seem to impress young Ecotopian musicians any more than it had our own. And so the debate rages on.

  A number of Ecotopian artists have apparently gained some international status, with shows in Paris and Tokyo. However, the main focus of Ecotopian artistic activity is aggressively domestic. In fact one young artist went so far as to refuse even to give me his name, lest it be bruited about the world through my columns. “We’re like the Balinese,” he insisted. “We have no ‘art,’ we just do everything as well as we can.” The effects of this attitude can be seen not only in the high level of beauty attained by craft products—pottery, weaving, jewelry, and so on—but also in the quality of Ecotopian furniture, utensils, and house decorations. Some of these last, like a stunning feather mandala given to me by an Ecotopian friend, are not exactly art and not exactly anything else either. But they certainly add to the aesthetic enjoyment the Ecotopians provide for each other.

  (June 13) Must get this down straight before it gets furred over.

  Got up yesterday morning and found the Cove all busy and excited about the war games our team was to be in. Tom especially, but everybody tuned in with it. Lorna, to my surprise, very militant. Even with me there, making an occasional crack, they had no shame about it, no hesitation—it’s all real and accepted, they simply like it. After a bit I stopped saying much: felt like some nut who would ask, in a hot World Series game, “Why all the fuss? It’s just a little old ball made of leather!”

  Breakfast more ceremonious than usual: melons and champagne. But people not too hungry. The excitement was contagious, I had to admit—it even got to me a little. People joking a lot, with a certain bravado. Somebody remarked on the warm weather, and Tom quoted the old plains Indian saying: “It is a good day to die.”

  About ten o’clock it was parade time. Some self-consciousness as the men got up, looked at each other. Hugs all around, glances at the door. Nina, Tom’s friend, had come over and cried a little, which embarrassed him: “Don’t cry, we’re going to stomp them,” he said. But she cried all the louder. I was to go along and observe it all. “It’ll make a man of you,” Bert jibed at me. They all picked up their spears and we jostled out the big door and into the street—the fighting band of about 15 men, and maybe 30 of the rest of us. The warriors began to chant as they set out, waving their spears, and the rest fell in behind them. A steamy hot day for San Francisco, humid and with little wind.

  It was several miles to the place in a huge, wild park where the encounter was to be held. We headed there bravely, the men singing, the rest of us sometimes coming in on a refrain. People along the way watched us pass—if one of the men gestured with his spear or jumped around, a little, they would cheer and smile. Couldn’t help thinking of the high-school football games of my youth—and the rest of us were like the indulgent parents come to watch the pre
-game rally….

  Very hot, and the champagne on so little breakfast got to me. Took off my sweater and gave it to one of the women—not sure if it was Brit or Lorna. The chanting grew stronger, and the spirit of the group changed. As we approached the park it was as if the voltage had suddenly been turned up. People were linking arms and looking at each other strangely; the rhythm of the walking was stronger, more like a march, more like a war-dance.

  Then suddenly we were off the street and into the park, and there was the ritual cauldron, with barbaric cups hanging from the rim, gleaming in the sun. And off a few hundred yards, on the other side of a meadow, was the enemy, gathered around their cauldron. A thrill went down my back, taking me completely by surprise—I hated them! And my pride in our fighters was enormous, as they gathered around our cauldron. How beautiful they were, how courageous! One by one, they stripped off their street clothes and put on their war garments: leather jackets and shorts, decorated in gorgeous designs, some astrological, some totem-animal, some purely arabesque. Cups began passing around (nobody helped himself—you drank only from a cup given you by a brother) and the rest of us crowded in, yelling encouragement.

  Can’t recall exactly what happened next. Somebody—I think it was Bert—put a cup in my hand, closed my hand around it, clasped my arm. Yet I can’t remember his face. Do remember feeling weak, as if my hand could not grip the cup, and expecting it to fall to the ground, ignominiously. Don’t remember if I even made an effort to hold it. But I drank somehow, and there was a great shout, and hands were patting me on the back, and a fighting outfit was being pieced together for me, and another cup of the brew was in my hand. Out of the side vision of my eye I spotted a woman who looked like Marissa, and a pang went through me; turned to look, and couldn’t see her anywhere. (My God, I thought, how much I love that woman.) My heart was beating strongly, with a terrible surge of energy, like what we call “second wind” but more so—all my muscles felt strangely powerful.

 
Ernest Callenbach's Novels