This time around, it was great to have with me Robin Amos to discuss the idea of Utopia. I’d met Robin through the indiethinkers.org forum and was intrigued to learn more about his conceptualisation of the future as an idea in itself.

To begin, I asked Robin what I hope going forward will become “the Primitive Accumulation question”, which is: which two thoughts do you hold that contradict themselves the most? This kicked off an interesting discussion of the tension between liberty and security.

We then moved on to the topic of utopia proper, including a contemplation of Oscar Wilde’s classic dictum that, “A map of the world without utopia is not worth looking at”; to past hopes and horrors brought about by the utopian ideologies of the 20th century; the immanent emancipatory potential of the US Constitution; Brexit as a Conservative utopian vision, and the failure of the Left to articulate a similarly compelling vision of the future.