Granted, I’ve been listening to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab’s latest podcast series on asteroids. This is what I learned: Asteroids are called thus because they looks ‘like Asters’ – stars – when you first see them in a telescope. But they are tiny and move and so may be identified by their movement and way of reflecting sun light. They are pieces of debris – left overs or knock-offs from when our solar system was formed billions of years ago.
One should be careful about taking metaphors too far. Nevertheless. What if we were to regard these visions and dreams that at a first glace resemble Utopia, as utopioids? Utopia-like visions that whizz by and cause excitement and spectacle. A lot of investment goes into describing them, probing them and calculating the chances of impact and wondering those might be? As the utopioids whizz on by they are being tracked and discussed. What is the composition of the utopiod? Might we extract elements for use? Meanwhile, sometimes little pieces get knocked of these utopioids and their course sets them up for coalition with Earth atmosphere. There is friction, drag, sometimes they explode or burn up. But every so often there’s impact and what remains is a small utopiorite. It might look grey and dull, but to the keen eye it harbors a tale of a grand dream. Meanwhile all eyes are still on the spectacular utopioid, not on the little piece getting knocked off achieving impact.
Maybe the case of SuperShe, the feminist island I’ve written about, is best understood as a utopiorite? The utopiod that excited so much attention was a magnificent dream about an all-female community, liberation, and empowerment manifest in a island. And while that dream blazed by and got described and analyzed and sized-up, a little piece got knocked off and achieved impact: Crash! A utopiorite may now be found and behold: it’s an app where you can download tutorials about home exercise and blowjobs or buy a hoodie.
Image: Drawing of the Hrascina meteorite from wikicommons
Mars: A Room of My Own 