Coercive Utopianism: Endogenous Models of Cultural Dynamics

Coercive utopianism is one of the more disruptive and destructive processes of the last two centuries. It has not spread in a fixed form, but rather is uniquely generated in each socio-historical context. The focus of the present paper is to identify cultural processes by which coercive utopianism is constituted, and the design and implementation requirements of the computational mechanisms required to model these important cultural processes. Coercive Utopianism as Framework The twentieth century was shaped and disrupted by the rise and fall of two families of coercive utopian movements, and the twenty-first century confronts at least one and possibly two more. While the emergence of coercive utopian movements was far from unprecedented (cf., Braunthal 1979; Cohn 1970 [1957]; 1993; Mannheim 1936:55-108; Manuel and Manuel 1979), the global effects of communism and fascism dwarfed the consequences of earlier movements, including their production of multiple largescale genocides (Rummel 1994; Weitz 2003). Thus, understanding the historical and cultural sources of coercive utopianism is one of the most pressing of social science projects. As social and historical phenomena, both coercion and utopianism have vast and variegated histories. Coercion manifests itself in war, conquest, domination and the imposition of various types of order throughout history (Hall 1994; Keegan 1993; Keeley 1996; McNeill 1982). Utopian beliefs and movements have sometimes been violent, but have also frequently been mystical, transcendental, evolutionary and/or exemplary. However, it is the combined form of modern coercive utopianism that is the focus of the present paper. Copyright © 2007, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved. The movements that are the focus of the present discussion are summarized in Table 1. The Jacobin clubs had the shortest existence, from their emergence at the beginning of the French revolution to the fall of Robespierre. Notwithstanding their brevity, however, they served as an inspiration for later movements including, especially, the Bolsheviks. The initial date of the listed movements is typically the announcement of the principles of the movement [e.g., the Communist Manifesto (Marx & Engels 1848), Ecodefense (Foreman and Haywood 1987 [1985])]. While political Islamism has many precedents and forerunners, the publication of Sayed Qutb’s Milestones (1964) provides a natural point at which to mark its modern emergence. Family Period Organizing Concept Coercive Objectives Jacobinism 17891794 Reason Idealized rule of rationality Communism 1848present Class Class dictatorship and equality Fascism 19191975 Race, nation Racial &/or cultural domination Islamism 1964present Religion Islamic rule and Sharia law Ecologism 1985present Environment Protection of environment, including animals Table 1. Examples of Coercive Utopian Movements The second date indicates when the movement ceased to hold power in any nation-state. Thus, the final date for fascism is shown as 1975 (the year of Franco’s death), even though fascist movements remain in various parts of the world. Communism has no second date because it continues to control (at a minimum) Cuba and North Korea. Ecologism has never held power in a nation state, so it may appear odd to include it in this listing. However, it is a movement that justifies violence to achieve its goals