Utopia: The End
Dylan Evans has been living in Guatemala, in the hills above Antigua. ‘So?’, one might say.
Dylan Evans has written several books including ‘The Utopia Experiment’.
The experiment, he said, failed.
Back in 2006, Dr Evans – PhD in philosophy — was obsessed with the notion that civilisation was about to collapse. This impelled him to sell his house, leave his job in a robotics laboratory, advertise for volunteers, load up his ancient Peugeot and drive to a valley near Culbokie on Scotland’s Black Isle, north of Inverness. This was the site of the ‘Utopia Experiment’.
If he was hoping for a homespun paradise, he was wrong. For him it quickly became a hell from which he needed to escape. True, he had not spent enough time learning survival skills, or planning how it was all going to work, or even deciding how to set up a genuine experiment. He funded the yurts on the campsite, the food, the tools, himself and soon started to worry what would happen when he ran out of cash. Volunteers came and went, his girlfriend didn’t want to live in a communal yurt so he rented a cottage for her and divided his time between yurt and cottage, loosening the connection between him and the project he was supposed to be leading.
He lasted about a year, on and off, before admission to a psychiatric hospital.
The process of ‘recovery’ led him to theorise that he started the venture as a result of mental illness, that civilisation was not in danger, and that he had been over-reacting.
Subsequently he worked on artificial intelligence in Cork, before settling in Guatemala to live frugally and try and make a living from writing.
‘The Utopia Experiment ‘ is more a story of a retreating obsession than ‘how to survive an apocalypse’ and because of this emphasis the message that comes over is ‘Don’t Worry’, which is just as alarming as urging everyone to live in tents in cold muddy fields. ‘Don’t Worry’ could be more a product of medication than genuine lack of concern.
At Utopia, the members of the frequently changing group did not all get on well, although they presumably shared similar beliefs about the looming demise of civilisation as we know it. Co-operation was fitful at best, and the group was really a collection of individuals with their own agendas. Even if groups start off as intentional communities, it is rare for intentions fully to coincide for long.
Channel 4’s ‘Eden’ was supposed to be a series about 23 volunteers trying to survive in a remote part of the Ardnamurchan peninsula on the other side of Scotland, in 2016-17. It was in fact the opposite of Eden. Thirteen of the initial group left and only 10 were left at the end of the year-long experiment, which was largely untelevised because of low viewing figures. There were fights, bullying, hunger and disenchantment. William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’ seems to be art imitating life.
Here in Wales, there is talk of ‘scaling up’ One Planet Developments, which enable people to live in the countryside and build a house provided that at least 30% of their basic household needs are met directly from the land and the balance up to 65% indirectly, for example from running courses. Scaling up into One Planet eco-hamlets, rather than separate single-household entities, would require participants to co-operate to achieve the figures on which their planning permission depends.
‘Utopia’ and ‘Eden’ show that the consequences of scaling up One Planet Developments may be to destroy them.
The Utopia Experiment was published by Picador in 2015.
West Wales News Review 