Ernest gallenbach
ECOTOPIA
The Notebooks and Reports of
William Weston
, BANYAN TREE BOOKS
Berkeley, California
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Copyright 1975 © by Ernest Callenbach
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Eco from the Greek oikos (househoid or home)
-TOPIA from the Greek tapas (place)
In nature, no organic substance is synthesized unless
there is provision for its degradation; recycling is en-
forced.
BARRY COMMONER
WESTON S NEXT ASSIGNMENT:
ECOTOPIA
The TimeS Post is at last able to announce that William Weston,
our top international affairs reporter, will spend six weeks in
Ecotopia, beginning next week. This unprecedented journalistic
development has been made possible through arrangements at
the highest diplomatic level. It will mark the rst of cially
arranged visit by an American to Ecotopia since the secession
cut off normal travel and communications.
The Times-Post is sending Weston 011 this unique and dif cult
investigative assignment in the conviction that a candid, on-the-
spot assessment of Ecotopia is essential ZO years after its
secession. Old antagonisms have too long deterred close examina-
tion of what has been happening in Ecotopia a part of the
world once near, dear and familiar to us, but closed off and
increasingly mysterious during its decades of independence
The problem now is not so much to oppose Ecotopia as to
understand it which can only bene t the cause of international
good relations. The Times Post stands ready, as always, to serve
that cause.
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(May 3) Here we go again, dear diary. A fresh notebook with all those
blank pages waiting to be lled. Good to be on the way at last. Allegham
ies already receding behind us likepale green ripples on an algae-covered
pond. Thinking back to the actual beginnings of this trip almost a
year ago? Those careful hints dropped at the White House like crumbs
for the President s vacuum-cleaner mind to suck up. Until nally they
coalesced into some kind of ball and came out as his own daring idea:
okay, send some uno cial gure out there, purely informal a reporter
not too closely identi ed with the administration, who could nose around,
blow up a few pretty trial balloonsccan t hurt! A tingly moment when
he nally broached it, after a big Brazil brie ng session. That famous
con dential smile! And then saying that he had a little adventure in
V, mind, wanted to discuss it with me privately. . . .
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ECOTOPIA
Was his tentativeness only his habitual caution, or a signal that if
anything went wrong the visit (and the visitor) were politically expenda-
ble?
Still, an important opening in ourforeignpolicy lots ofweighty argu»
ments for it. Heal the fratricidal breach that rent the nation so
the continent can stand united against rising tide ofstarvation and revo-
lution. Hawks who want to retake lost lands of the west by force
seem to be growing stronger~need neutralizing. Ecotopian ideas are
seeping over the border more dangerouslymcan t be ignored any longer,
might be detoxz ed by exposure. Etc.
Maybe we can nd a hearing for proposal to reopen diplomatic rela-
tions; perhaps trade proposals too. With reuni cation a gleam in the
eye. Even just a publicizable chat with Vera Allwen could be usefulhthe
President, with his customary exibility, could use it to fend 0}?" both
hawks andsubversives. Besides, as I told Francine who sco ed, natural-
ly, even after three brandiesWI want to see Ecotopia because it s there.
Can things really be as weird there as they sound? I wonder.
Have been mulling over the no nos. Must stay clear of the secession
itself: too much bitterness could still be aroused. But fascinating stories
there, probablywhow the secessionists lched uranium fuel from power
plants for the nuclear mines they claimed to have set in New York
and Washington. How their political organization, led by those damned
women, managed to paralyze and then supplant the regular political
structure, and got control of the armories and the Guard. How they
blu ed their way to a stand~o ~helped, of course, by the severity of
the national economic crisis that struck so conveniently for them. Lots
of history there to be told someday but now is not the time. . . .
Getting harder to say goodbye to the kids when I take o r on a long
trip. Not that it s really such a big deal, since I sometimes miss a couple
ofweekends even when I m around. But my being away so much seems
to be beginning to bother them. Pat may be putting them up to it;
I II have to talk to her about that. Where else would Fay get the idea
of asking to come along? Jesuswinto darkest Ecotopia with typewriter
and eight year old daughter. . . .
No more Francine for six weeks. It s always refreshing to get away
for a while, and she ll be there when I get back, all charged up by
some adventure or other. Actually sort of exciting to think of being
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ECOTOPIA
' totally out of'touch with her, with the editorial o ce, in fact with the
whole country. No phone service, wire service indirect: uncanny isolation
' the Ecotopians have insisted on for 20 years! And in Peking, Bantustan,
BraZil there always had to be an American interpreter, who couldn t
help dangling ties -om home. This time there ll be nobody to share
Ilittle American reactions with.
And it is potentially rather dangerous. These Ecotopz'ans are certainly
hotheads, and I could easily get into serious trouble. Government s con-
trol over population seems to be primitive compared to ours. Americans
are heartily hated. In a jam the Ecotopian police might be no help
at alI in fact they apparently aren t even armed.
V Well, ought to draft the rst column. Mid air perhaps not the worst
place to begin.
'WILLIAM WESTON ON HIS JOURNEY TO
:ECOTOPIA
On board TWA ight 38, New York to Reno, May 3. As I begin
this assignment, my jet heads west t9 Reno last American city before
.the forbidding Sierra Nevada mountains that guard the closed borders
'o f Ecotopia.
' The passage of time has softened the shock of Ecotopia s separation
5 from the United States. And Ecotopia s example, it is now clear, was
not as novel as it seemed at the time. Biafra had attempted secession
from Nigeria but failed. Bangladesh had successfully broken free of
Pakistan. Belgium had in effect dissolved into three countries. Even the
Soviet Union has had its separatist minority disturbances. Ecotopia s
' secession was partly modeied on that ofQuebec from Canada. Such devo
lution has become a worldwide tendency. The sole important counter-
development we can point to is the union of the Scandinavian countries
which perhaps only proves the rule, since the Scandinavians were virtually
one people culturally in any event.
Nonetheless, many Americans still remember the terrible shortages
of fruit, lettuceh wine, cotton, paper, lumber, and other western
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ECOTOPIA
products which followed the breakaway of what had been Washington,
Oregon, and Northern California. These problems exacerbated the
general US. economic depression of the period, speeded up our chronic
in ation, and caused widespread dissatisfaction with government
policies. Moreover, Ecotopia still poses a nagging challenge to the
underlying national philosophy of America: ever-continuing progress,
the fruits of industrialization for all, a rising Gross National Product. 9»
During the past two decades, we as a people have mostly tried
to ignore what has been happening in Ecotopia in the hope it will
prove to be mere foolishness and go away. It is clear by now, however,
that Ecotopia is not going to collapse as many American analysts
at rst predicted. The time has come when we must get a clearer
understanding of Ecotopia.
Ifits social experimentation turns out to be absurd and irresponsible,
it will then no longer tempt impressionable young Americans. If its
strange customs indeed prove as barbaric as rumors suggest, Ecotopia
: will have to pay the cost in outraged world opinion. If Ecotopian
' claims are false, American policy makers can pro t from knowledge
ofthat fact. For instance, we need to assess the allegation that Ecotopia
has no more deaths from air and chemical pollution. Our own death
rate has deciined from a peak of 75,000 annually to 30,000 still a
tragic toii, but suggesting that measures of the severity adopted in
Ecotopia are hardly necessary. In short, we should meet the Ecotopian
challenge on the basis of sound knowledge rather than ignorance and
third-hand reports.
My assignment during the next six weeks, therefore, is to explore
Ecotopian life from top to bottom to search out the realities behind
the rumors, to describe in concrete detail how Ecotopian society
actually operates, to document its problems and, where that is called
for, to acknowledge its achievements. By direct knowledge of the
situation in which our former fellow-citizens now nd themselves,
we may even begin to rebuild the ties that once bound them to the
Union they so hastily rejected.
(May 3) Reno a sad shadow of its former goodtz'mes self With the
lucrative California gambling trade cut o "by secession, the city quickly
decayed. The fancy casino hotels are now mere ophouses their owners
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ECOTOPIA
tong ago ed to Las Vegas. I walked the streetx near the airline terminal,
asking people what they thought of Ecozopia out here. Most replies
nonmmmittal, though I thought I could sometimes detect a tinge of
bitterness. Live and let live, said one grizzled old man, z fyou can
call what they do over there living. A young man who claimed to
be a cowboy smiled at my question. Waaal, he said, I know guys
who say they ve gone over there to get girls It isn t really dangerous
if you know the mountain passes. They re friendly all right, so long
as you aren t up to anything. Know what, though? The girls all have
guns! That s what they say. That could shake you up, couldn t it?
Had a hard time nding a taxi driver willing to take me over the
border. Finally persuaded one who looked as if he had just done 20
years in the pen. Had to promise not only double fare but 25 percent
tip besides. For which I got a bonus of dirty looks and a string of
reassuring remarks: What ya wanta go in there for anyhow, ya some
kind of a nut? Buncha goddamn cannibals in there! Ya ll never get
out alive [ just hope I will.
CROSSING THE ECOTOPIAN BORDER
On board the Sierra Express, Tahoe-San Francisco, May 4. I have
now entered Ecotopiauthe rst known American to visit the new
country since its Independence, 19 years ago.
Myjet landed at Reno. Though it is not widely known, the Ecotopian
government prohibits even international ights from crossing its
territory on grounds of air and noise pollution Flights between San
Francisco and Asia, or over the pole to Europe, must not only use
a remote airport 40 miies outside the city, but are forced to follow
over water routes; and American jets for Hawaii must y via Los
Angeles. Thus to reach San Francisco I was compelled to deplane
at Reno, and take an expensive taxi ride to the train station at the
north end of Lake Tahoe. From Tahoe there is frequent and fast
serv1cc.
The actual frontier is marked by a picturesquely weathered wooden
fence, with a large gate, obviously little used. When my taxi pulled
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ECOTOPIA
up, there was nobody around. The driver had to get out, go over
to a small stone guard-house, and get the Ecotopian military to
interrupt their card game. They turned out to be two young men
in rather unpressed uniforms. But they knew of my coming, they
checked my papers with an air of informed authority, and they passed
the taxi through the gate though only after making a point of the
fact that it had required a special dispensation to allow an internal
combustion engine to pass their sacred portals. I replied that it only
had to take me about 20 miles to the train station. You re lucky
the wind is from the west, one of them said. If it happened to
be from the east we might have had to hold you up for a while.
They checked my luggage with some curiosity, paying special
attention to my sleeping pills. But I was allowed to keep everything
except my trusty .45 and holster. This might be standard garb in
New York, I was told, but no concealabie weapons are permitted
in Ecotopia. Perhaps noticing my slightty uneasy reaction, one of the
guards remarked that Ecotopian streets are quite safe, by day or night.
He then handed me a small booklet, Ecotopz a Explains. This document
was nicely printed but with rather quaint drawings. Evidently it had
been prepared chie y for tourists from Europe and Asia. It might
make things easier to get used to, said the other guard, in a soft,
almost insinuatingly friendly tone that I now begin to recognize as
a national trait. Relax, it s a free country.
My friend, I countered, I ve been in a hell of a lot stranger
places than this country and I relax when I feel like it. If you re
nished with my papers, I ll be on my way.
He snapped my passport shut, but held it in his hand Weston,
he said, looking me in the eye, You re a writer. We count on you
to use words carefully while you re here. If you come back this way,
maybe you ll be able to use that word friend in good faith. We d
like that. He then smiled warmly and put out his hand. Rather to
my Surprise, I took it, and found a smile on my own face as well.
We drove on, to the Tahoe station of the Ecotopian train system.
It turned out to be a rustic affair, constructed of huge timbers. It
might pass in America for a monstrous ski chalet. It even had replaces
in the waiting rooms of which there are several, one a kind of
restaurant, one a large, deserted room With a bandstand where dances
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must be held, and one a small, quiet lounge with leather chairs and
a supply of books. The trains, which. usually have only two or three
cars but run about every hour, come into the basement of the station,
and in cold weather huge doom close behind them to keep out the
snOW and wind.
special facilities for skiers were evidentwstorage racks and lockers
but by this time of year the snows have largely melted and there
is little skiing. The electric minibuses that shuttle from the station
to ski resorts and nearby towns are almost empty.
1 went down to my train. It looked more like a Wingless airplane
than a train. At rst I thought I had gotten into an un nished car there
were no seats! The oor was covered with thick, spongy carpet, and
divided into compartments by knee-high partitions; a few passengers
were sprawled on large baglike leather cushions that lay scattered
about. One elderly man had taken a blanket from a pile at one end
of the car, and laid down for a nap. Some of the others, realizing
from my confusion that I was a foreigner, showed me where to stow
my bag and told me how to obtain refreshments from the steward
in the next car. I sat down on one of the pillows, realizing that there
would be a good View from the huge windows that came down to
about six inches from the oor. My companions lit up some cigarettes,
which I recognized as marijuana from the odor, and began to pass
them around. As my rst gesture of international good will, I took
a few puffs myself, and soon we were all sociably chatting away.
Their sentimentality about nature has even led the Ecotopians to
bring greenery into their trains, which are full of hanging ferns and
small plants I could not identify. (My companions however reeled
off their botanical names with assurance.) At the end of the car stood
containers rather like trash bins, each with a large Ietter M, G, and
P. These, 1 was told, were recycle bins. It may seem unlikely to
Americans, but I observed that during our trip my fellow travelers
did without exception dispose of all metal, glass, or paper and plastic
refuse in the appropriate bin. That they did so without the embarrass-
ment Americans would experience was my rst introduction to the
rigid practices of recycling and re-use upon which Ecotopians are
said to pride themselves so ercely.
By the time you notice you are underway in an Ecotopian train,
you feel virtually no movement at all. Since it operates by magnetic
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ECOTOPIA
suspension and propulsion, there is no rumble of wheels or whine
or vibration. People talk, there is the cIink of glasses and teacups,
some passengers wave to friends on the platform. In a moment the
train seems literally to be ying along the ground, though it is actually
a few inches above a trough-shaped guideway. '
My companions told me something about the background of these
trains. Apparently the Boeing company in Seattle, at the time of
Independence, had never taken seriously the need to diversify its out
put from airplanes into other modes of transportation. The worid
market for new planes had become highly competitive, however, and
luckily the Ecotopian government, though its long-range economic
policies called for diversi cation and decentralization of production
in each city and region, took temporary advantage of the Boeing
facilities to help build the new national train system. While the
Germans and Japanese had pioneered in magnetic suspension trains
With linear motors, Boeing began production on the system only a
year after Independence. When I asked how the enormous expense
of the system had been nanced, my companions laughed. One of
them remarked that the cost of the entire roadbed from San Francisco
to Seattle was about that of ten SST s, and he argued that the total
sociat cost per person per mile on their trains was less than that for
air transport at any distance under a thousand miles.
I learned from my booklet that the trains normally travel about
360 kilometers per hour 0n the level. (Use of the metric system is
universal in Ecotopia.) You get a fair view of the countryside at this
speed, which translates as about 225 miles per hour. And we only
attained that speed after about 20 minutes of crawling up and over
the formidable eastern siope 0f the Sierra Nevadas, at what seemed
less than 90 miles per hour. Donner Pass looked almost as bleak
as it must have to the Donner pioneer party who perished thefe.
We made a stop at Norden and picked up a few late season skiers-a
cheerful bunch, like our skiers, but dressed in raggedy attire, including
some very secondhand looking fur jackets. They carried home-made
knapsacks and primitive skis long, thin, with imsy old fashioned
bindings. The train then swooped down the long canyons of the Sierra
forests, occasionally ashing past a river with its water bubbling
blue black and icy between the rocks. In a few minutes we slid into
Auburn. The time-table, which graphically lays out the routes and
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ECOTOPIA
approximate schedules of a complex network of connecting trains
and buses, showed three stops before San Francisco itself. I was glad
to notice that we halted for less than 60 seconds, even though people
sauntered on and off With typical Ecotopian looseness.
Once we reached the valley oor, I saw little of interest, but my
companions still seemed fascinated. They pointed out changes in the
elds and forests we passed; in a wooded stretch someone spotted
a doe with two fawns, and later a jackrabbit caused great amusement.
Soon we entered the hilly country around San Francisco Bay, and
shot through a series of tunnels in the grass covered, breast-shaped
green hills. There were now more houses, though rather scatteredw
many of them seeming to be small farms. The orchards, elds and
fences looked healthy and surprisingly well cared for, almost like those
of western Europe. Yet how dingy and unprosperous the farm
buildings looked, compared to the white painted farms of Iowa or
New England! The Ecotopians must be positively allergic to paint.
They build with rock, adobe, weathered boards apparently almost
anything that comes to hand, and they lack the aesthetic sense that
would lead them to give such materials a coat of concealing paint.
They would apparently rather cover a house with vines or bushes
than paint it.
The drabness of the countryside was increased by its evident
isolation. The roads were narrow and winding, with trees dangerously
close to the pavement. N0 traf c at all seemed to be moving on them.
There wasn t a billboard in sight, and not a gas station or telephone
booth. It would not be reassuring to be caught in such a region after
dark.
An hour and a quarter after we left Tahoe, the train plunged into
a tube near the Bay shore, and emerged a few minutes later in the
San Francisco main station. In my next column I will describe my
rst impressions of the city by the Golden Gate where so many earlier
Amelicans debarked to seek their fortunes in the gold elds.
(May 4) General impression: a lot of Ecotopians look like oldrz'me
westerners, Gold Rush characters come to life. God knows we have plenty
offreakyJooking people in New York, but their freakishness is self con-
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ECOTOPIA
scious, campy, lheatrical a way of showing of. The Ecotopians are
almost Dickensian. often strange enough, but not crazy-looking 0r
sordid, as the hippies 0f the sixties were. Fanciful hats and hair-dos,
jackets, vests, leggings, tights; so help me, I think I even saw a
codpiece-either that or the guy was supernaturally endowed. There s
a lot of embroidery and decorations made of small shells 0r feathers,
and patchwork-cloth must be terribly scarce they go to such lengths
to re-use it.
And their manners are even more unsettling. 0n the streets there
are electrical moments when women stare me directly in the eyes; so
far I ve looked away, but what would happen if] held contact? People
seem to be very loose and playful with each other, as if they had endless
time on their hands to explore whatever possibilities might come up.
There s none ofthe implicit threat ofopen criminal violence that pervades
our public places, but there s an awful lot of strong emotion, wilfully
expressed! The peace of the train ride was broken several times by
shouted arguments or insults; people have an insolent kind of curiosity
that often leads to ti s. It s as if they have lost the sense ofanonymity
which enables us to live together in large numbers. You can t, therefore,
approach an Ecotopian functionary as we do. The Ecotopian at the
train ticket window simply wouldn t tolerate being spoken to in my
usual way he asked me what I thought he was, a ticket dispensing
machine? In fact, he won t give you the ticket unless you deal with
him as a realperson, and he insists on dealing with you asking questions,
making remarks to which he expects a sincere reaction, and shouting
if he doesn t get it. But most of such sound and fury seems to signify
nothing. There may be dangerous hmatt cs among the harmless ones,
but I haven t seen any yet. Just hope I can preserve my own sanity
THE STREETS OF ECOTOPIA S CAPITAL
San Francisco, May 5. As I emerged from the train terminal into
the streets, I had little idea what to expect from this citywwhich had
once proudly boasted of rising from its own ashes after a terrible
earthquake and re. San Francisco was once known as America s
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favorite city and had an immense appeal to tourists. Its dramatic
hills and bridges, its picturesque cable cars, and its sophisticated yet
relaxed people had drawn visitors who returned again and again.
Would I nd that it still deserves its reputation as an elegant and
civilized place?
I checked my bag and set out to explore a bit. The rst shock
hit me at the moment I stepped onto the street. There was a strange
hush over everything. I expected to encounter something at least a
little like the exciting bustle of our cities cars honking, taxis swooping,
clots of people pushing about in the hurry of urban life. What I
found, when I had gotten over my surprise at the quiet, was that
Market Street, once a mighty boulevard striking through the city down
to the waterfront, has become a mall planted with thousands of trees.
The street itself, on Which electric taxis, minibuses, and deliverycarts
purr along, has shrunk to a two lane alfair. The remaining space,
which is huge, is occupied by bicycle lanes, fountains, sculptures,
kiosks, and absurd little gardens surrounded by benches. Over it all
hangs the almost sinister quiet, punctuated by the whirr of bicycles
and cries of children. There is even the occasional song of a bird,
unbelievable as that may seem on a capital city s crowded main street.
_ Scattered here and there are large conical roofed pavilions, with
a kiosk in the center selling papers, comic books, magazines, fruit
juices, and snacks. (Also Cigarettes the Ecotopians have not managed
to stamp out smoking!) The pavilions turn out to be stops on the
minibus system, and people wait there out of the rain. These buses
are comical battery-driven contraptions, resembling the antique cable
cars that San Franciscans were once so fond of. They are driverless,
and are steered and stopped by an electIOnic gadget that follows wires
buried in the street. (A safety bumper stops them in case someone
fails to get out of the way.) To enabte people to get 011 and oil quickly,
during the 15 seconds the bus stops, the oor is only a few inches
above ground level; the wheels are at the extreme ends of the vehicle.
Rows of seats face outward, so on a short trip you simply sit down
momentarily, or stand and hang onto one of the hand grips. In bad
weather fringed fabric roofs can be extended outward to provide more
shelter.
These buses creep along at about ten miles an hour, but they come
every ve minutes or so. They charge no fare. When I took an
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ECOTOPIA
experimental ride on one, I asked a fellow passenger about this, and
he said the minibuses are paid for in the same way as streets out
of general tax funds. Smiling, he added that to have a driver on
board to collect fares would cost more than the fares could produce,
Like many Ecotopians, he tended to babble, and spelled out the entire
economic rationalefor the minibus system, almost as if he was trying
to sell it to me. I thanked him, and after a few blocks jumped off.
The bucolic atmosphere of the new San Francisco can perhaps best
be seen in the fact that, down Market Street and some other streets,
creeks now run. These had earlier, at great expense, been put into
huge culverts underground, as is usual in cities. The Ecotopians spent
even more to bring them up to ground level again. So now on this
major boulevard you may see a charming series of little falls, with
water gurgling and splashing, and channels lined with rocks, trees,
bamboos, ferns. There even seem to be minnows in the water though
how they are kept safe from marauding children and cats, I cannot
guess.
Despite the quiet, the streets are full of people, though not in
Manhattan densities. (Some foot traf c has been displaced to lacy
bridges which connect one skyscraper to another, sometimes 15 or
20 stones up.) Since practically the whole street area is sidewalk,
nobody worries about obstructions or about the potholes which, as
they develop in the pavement, are planted with owers. I came across
a group of street musicians playing Bach, with a harpsichord and
a half dozen other instruments. There are vendors of food pushing
gaily colored carts that offer hot snacks, chestnuts, ice cream. Once I
even saw a juggler and magician team, working a crowd of children-uit
reminded me of some medieval movie. And there are many strollers,
gawkers, and loiterers people without visible business who simply
take the street for granted as an extension of their living rooms. Yet,
despite so many unoccupied people, the Ecotopian streets seem
ridiculously lacking in security gates, doormen, guards, or other
precautions against crime. And no one seems to feel our need for
automobiles to provide protection in moving from place to place.
I had noticed on the train that Ecotopian clothes tend to be very
loose, With bright colors striving to make up for what is lacking in
style and cut. This impression is con rmed now that I have observed
thousands of San Franciscans. The typical Ecotopian man wears
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ECOTOPIA
nondescript trousers (even denim is common perhaps from nostalgia
for American fashions of the pre-secession decades?) topped with
an often hideous shirt, SWeater, poncho, or jacket. Despite the usually
chilly weather, sandals are common among both sexes. The women
often wear pants also, but loose- owing gypsy like skirts are more
usual. A few people wear outlandish skjn-tight garments which look
like diving wet-suits, but are woven of some fabric unknown to me.
They may be members of some special group, as their attire is so
unusual. Leather and furs seem to be favorite materialsuthey are
used for purses and pouches, pants and jackets. Children wear
miniature versions of adult clothing; there seem to be no special out ts
for them.
Ecotopians setting out to go more than a block or two usually pick
up one of the sturdy white-painted bicycles that lie about the streets
by the hundreds and are available free to all. Dispersed by the
movements of citizens during the day and evening, they are returned
by night crews to the places where they will be needed the next day.
When I remarked to a friendly pedestrian that this system must be
a joy to thieves and vandals, he denied it heatedly. He then put a
case, which may not be totally far-fetched, that it is cheaper to lose
a few bicycles than to provide more taxis or minibuses.
Ecotopians, I am discovering, spout statistics on such questions with
reckiess abandon. They have a way of introducing social costs into
their calculations Which inevitably involves a certain amount of
optimistic guesswork. It would be interesting to confront such infor
mants with one of the hard-headed experts from our auto or highway
industries who would, of course, be horri ed by the Ecotopians
abolition of cars.
As I walked about, I noticed that the downtown area was strangely
overpopula ted With children and their parents, besides people Who
apparently worked in the of ces and shops. My questions to passersby
(which were answered with surprising patience) revealed what is
perhaps the most astonishing fact I have yet encountered in Ecotopia:
the great downtown skyscapers, once the headquarters of far- ung
corporations, have been turned into apartments! Further inquin'es
will be needed to get a clear picture of this development, but the
story Iheard repeatedly 011 the streets today is that the former outlying
residential areas have largely been abandoned. Many three-story
13
ECOTOPIA
buildings had in any case been heavily damaged by the earthquake
nine years ago. Thousands of cheaply built houses in newer districts
(scomfully labelled ticky-tacky boxes by my informants) have been
sacked of their wiring, glass, and hardware, and bulldozed away. The
residents now live downtown, in buildings that contain not only
apartments but also nurseries, grocery stores, and restaurants, as well
as the shops and o ices on the ground oor.
Although the streets still have an American look, it is annoyingly
dif cult to identify things in Ecotopia. Only very sma signs are
permitted on the fronts of buildings; street signs are few and hard
to spot, mainly attached to buildings on corners. Finally, however,
I navigated my way back to the station, retrieved my suitcase, and
located a nearby hotel Which had been recommended as suitable for
an American, but still likely to give me some taste of how Eeotopians
live. This worthy establishment lived up to its reputation by being
almost impossible to nd. But it is comfortable enough, and will serve
as my survival base here.
Like everything in Ecotopia, my room is full of contradictions. It
is comfortable, if a little old fashioned by our standards. The bed
is atrociousiit lacks springs, being just foam rubber over board yet
it is covered with a luxurious down comforter. There is a large work
table equipped with a hotplate and teapot. Its surface is plain,
unvarnished wood With many mysterious stains but on it stands a
small, sleek picturephone. (Despite their aversion to many modern
devices, the Ecotopians have some that are even better than ours.
Their picturephones, for instance, though they have to be connected
to a television screen, are far easier to use than ours, and have much
better picture quality.) My toilet has a tank high overhead, of a type
that went out in the United States around 1945, operated by a pull
chain with a quaint carved handle; the toilet paper must (be some
ecological abomination it is coarse and plain. But the bathtub is
unusually large and deep. Like the tubs still used in deluxe Japanese
inns, it is made of slightly aromatic wood.
I used the picturephone to con rm advance arrangements for a
visit tomorrow with the Minister of Food, with whom I shall begin
to investigate the Ecotopian claims of stable state ecological systems,
about which so much controversy has raged.
14
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(May 5) Maybe they have gone back to the stone age. In the early
evening I saw a group of hunters, carrying fancy bows and arrows,
jump o r a minibus, on which they had loaded a recently killed deeri
Two of them hoisted it up, suspended on a long stick they carried on l
their shoulders, and began marching along the street. (A large hunting
dog padded along with them rst pet I ve seen in Ecotopia, where
animals are evidently left as wild as possible, and people seem to feel
no need of them as company.) A crowd gathered to watch them, little
boys hung around excitedly. The hunters stopped near me for a rest and
also, I suspect, to allow people to admire their kill. One of them caught
my eye and must have seen disgust in it. He rubbed his hand over
the deer s wound, still damp with blood, then ran his nger across my
cheek, as if to implicate me in the hunt. I jumped back, shocked, and
the crowd laughed in what seemed an ugly way.
Later, talking with some of the people there, I learned the group
had been hunting just outside town where, apparently, deer are nu
merous. The hunters looked savage enough (long knives, beards; rough
clothes) but they were evidently quite ordinary citizens of on a hunt.
The deer would be butchered and the meat divided: game is said to
be a source of considerable meat in the Ecotopian diet; it is prized
for its ispiritual qualities!
Whether such practices are forced upon them by scarcities, or are
the result of some deliberate throwback policy, I don t yet know. But
the scene, in the gathering dusk, was ghoulish enough. (M0st Ecotopian
streets are pitch dark at night evidently their power policies have caused
them to curtail night lighting almost entirely. Can t tell why this doesn t
lead to the crime panic it would bring among us. Have asked people
whether they feel safe at night, and they reply Yes without hesita-
tion claim they can see well enough, and turn the conversation onto
something irrelevant: how bicycle lights look, bobbing through the night
like re ies, or how ne it is to be able to see the stars even in the
city. Good thing they don t have cars, or the accident rates would be
spectacular.)
A little trouble with the maid last night, when she thought I took
liberties. We had had a conversation about my picking some owers
on the street and bringing them up to the room. Evidently Ecotopians
don t pick owers, preferring to enjoy them where they grow, and she
rather playfully set me straight on this. Maybe she was just trying to
15
ECOTOPIA
be friendly, but seemed to be giving me the eye, yet wouldn t play. Well,
sublimation makes the pen grow stronger? (No, it makes me wish I
could import Francine for a day or two.)
I like dressing Well, but my New York clothes were making me stick
out here; so have picked up a new wardrobe. Dark green serape with
a hood, soft but so tightly woven I am told it will keep o ' the rain
(andprobably make me smell like a wet sheep). A couple of loose shirts
in .mz'tably gaudy colors, a vest, a oppy suede jacket, two pairs of
denim pants. Also a pair of heavy shoes my elegant Italian street shoes
clearly won t go here! I look in the mirror and laughwifl rang Francine s
doorbell in this out t she d call the police. (One game we ve never played
is rape by Ecotopian agent who sneaks into N Y and seduces woman
ofpromz'nent journalist to gain secret information.)
From what I could determine on my brz efshoppz'ng spree, the clothes
here do not include any nylon, orlon, dacron, or other synthetics. ( I
need a couple of shirts, the drip dry kind. Incredulous clerk: You
mean some kind of synthetic ber shirt? We haven t sold them for 20
years. Followed by a lecture to the e ect that too much electric power
and water are required in the production of synthetics and also they
can t be recycled) I noticed some garments with labels proudly declaring
they were re-used wool. Both fabrics and garments all domestic-
made and the prices seem sky-high.
Don t like the fetishistic avoidance ofsynthetics, but I had forgotten
how nice a good cotton shirt feels to the skin. This quality is emphasized
by the manufacturers they make a point that the fabrics have been
washed several times before being o ered for sale. . .
FOOD, SEWAGE, AND STABLE STATES
San Francisco, May 6. When i arrived at the Ministry of Food for
my interview with the Minister, I was unhappy to nd that she was
too busy to see me. I was introduced instead to an Assistant Minister,
a man in his early thirties, Who received me in a work overalls out t.
His of ce was also surprisingly unimpressive for a person of impor-
16
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tance. It had no desk, no conference table, 110 soft chairs. Along one
wall was a Cluttered series of wooden ling cases, bookshelves, and
tables covered with papers in utter disorderi Against another wall
was a kind of laboratory set-up, with testing equipment of various
kjnds.
The Assistant Minister is, like many Ecotopians, unnervingly re-
laxed, With a deep, slow voice. He sprawled on woven cushions in
a sunny corner of the oor, under a skylight with some kind of ivy
hanging near it, and his lab assistant produced hot water for tea
on a bunsen burner. I squatted awkwardly, and began by asking my
carefully prepared questions about Ecotopian agricultural output.
These were ignored. Instead the Assistant Minister insisted on giving
me a little background. He then began to discuss, not agriculture
at all, but sewage. The rst major project of his ministry after
. Independence, he said, had been to put the country s food cycle on
a stablevstate basis: all food wastes, sewage and garbage were to be
turned into organic fertilizer and applied to the land, Where it would
again enter into the food production cycle. Every Ecotopian household,
thus, is required to compulsively sort all its garbage into compostable
and recyclable categories, at what must be an enormous expenditure
of personal e bn; and expanded eets of garbage trucks are also
needed.
The sewage system inherited from the past, according to the
Assistant Minister, could only be called a disposal system. In it
sewage and industrial wastes had not been productively recycled but
merely dumped, in a more or less toxic condition, into rivers, bays
and oceans. This, he maintained, was not only dangerous to the public
health and the life ofwater creatures, but its very objective was wasteful
and unnatural. With a smile, he added that some of the sewage
practices of earlier days would even be considered criminal if carried
out today.
In my papers over there, he said, you can nd historical reports
of great sums being spent on incinerators to burn up sewage sludge.
Their designers boasted of relatively smog-free stacks. We were of
course accused of sewer socialism, like our Milwaukee predecessors.
Nonetheless, we constructed a national system of sludge drying and
natural fertilizer production. After seven years we were able to dispense
with chemical fertilizers entirely. This was partly through sewage
l7
ECOTOPIA
recycling, partly through garbage composting, partly through reliance
on some novel nitrogenn xing crops and crop rotation, and partly
through methods of utilizing animal manure. You may have seen
from the train that our farm animals are not kept in close con nement
like yours. We like them to live in conditions approaching the natural.
But not only for sentimental reasons. It also avoids the gigantic
accumulation of manure which is such a problem in your feedlots
and poultry factories.
Naturally, this smug account roused all my skepticism, and I
questioned him about the economic drawbacks of such a system. My
questions, however, met a at denial, On the contrary, he replied,
our system is considerably cheaper than yours, if we add in all the
costs. Many ofyour costs are ignored, or passed on through subterfuge
t0 posterity or the general public. We on the other hand must
acknowledge all costs. Otherwise we could not hope to achieve the
stable-state life systems which are our fundamental ecological and
political goal. If, for instance, we had continued your practice of free
disposal ofwastes in watercourses, sooner or later somebody else would
have had to calculate (and bear) the costs of the resulting dead rivers
and lakes. We prefer to do it ourselves. It is obviously not easy to
quantify certain of these costs. But we have been able to approximate
them in workable political terms especially since our country is
relatively sensible in scale.
I obtained the detailed analyses on which his assertions are based,
and have studied them at leisure. Extensive objective research would
be necessary to con rm or disprove them. They do appear to be
surprisingly hard-nosed. Ofcourse the Ecotopian situation has allowed
their government to take actions that would be impossible under the
checks and balances of our kind of democracy.
Next I asked the Assistant Minister about Ecotopian food production
and processing. I knew he must be aware of the great achievements
of our food industry in recent decades, not only in the introduction
of synthetic meat and other protein foods, but also in pre-cooking
and packaging generally. I was curious to see how he Would justify
the regressive practices that, according to many rumors, had returned
Western agriculture to the dark ages, and cooks to their Chopping
blocks and hot stoves (microwave ovens being illegal in Ecotopia).
18
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Again I quote his reply at length. It is, I am discovering, characteristic
of the way in which Ecotopians justify extremist policies.
You must remember, he began, that Ecotopia at the beginning
was faced with a stupendous surplus of food production capacity.
California alone had produced about a third of the food eaten in
the United States. Oregon and Washington had enormous fruit and
grain production. We could produce, therefore, something like ve
times the amount of food needed by our own population. With food
export to the US ended because of the political crisis, our problem
was how to shrink our agricultural output drastically. At the same
time we wanted to end extractive and polluting practices in farming.
Luckily, the new employment policies, which reduced the normal work
week to about 20 hours, helped a lot. Also we were able to absorb
some surplus farm labor in constructiOn work required by our recycling
_ systems. Along with simpli cation in food processing, we also achieved
many economies in food distribution. As your grocery executives know,
a store handling a thousand items is far less dif cult and expensive
to operate than one handling ve thousand or more, as yours do.
But probably our greatest economies were obtained simply by stopping
production of many processed and packaged foods. These had either
been outlawed on health grounds or put on Bad Practice lists.
This sounded like a loophole that might house a large and rather
totalitarian rat. What are these lists and how are they enforced?
I asked.
Actually, they aren t enforced at all. They re a mechanism of moral
persuasion, you might say. But they re purely informal. They re issued
by study groups from consumer co-ops. Usually, when a product goes
onto such a list, demand for it drops sharply. The company making
it then ordinarily has to stop production, or nds it possible to sell
only in specialized stores.
But surely these committees are not allowed to act simply on their
owu say-so, without scienti c backing or government authorization?
The Assistant Minister smiled rather wanly. In Ecotopia, he said,
you will nd many many things happening without government
authorization. But the study committees do operate with scienti c
advice, of the most sophisticated and independent type imaginable.
Scientists in Ecotopia are forbidden to accept payments or favors
from either state or private enterprises for any consultation or advice
19
ECOTOPIA
they o er. They speak, therefore, on the same uncorrupted footing
as any citizen. Thus we avoid the unfortunate situation where all
your oil experts are in the pay of the oil companies, all the agricultural
experts in the pay of agribusiness, and so on.
This was too much. No doubt, I said, it is scientists of this type
who have frittered away the great industrial heritage you possessed
at Independence, and wrecked your marvelous street and highway
system, and dissolved your ne medical centers. What bene ts of
civilization are they prepared to undermine next?
I will not speak to any but food questions, he replied. I can
provide you with whatever evidence you require to prove that
Ecotopians eat better food than any nation on earth, because we grow
it to be nutritious and taste good, not look good or pack efficiently.
Our food supplies are uncontaminated with herbicides and insecticides,
because we use cultivation for weeds and biological controls for insects.
Our food preparation practices are sound, avoiding the processing
that destroys food values. Most important of all, our agriculture has
reached an almost totally stable state, with more than 99% of our
wastes being recycled. In short, we have achieved a food system that
can endure inde nitely. That is, if the level of foreign poisons dumped
on our lands by rain and wind doesn t rise above the present inex-
cusable gures.
The Assistant Minister scrambled to his feet, went to his shelves,
and pulled'down a halfdozen pamphlets. You will nd some relevant
information summarized here, he said. Let me recommend that,
after you have digested it, you follow Ecotopian ways in not wasting
11.
This bad joke took me by surprise, but it did break the tension,
and I laughed. He led me to the door. You may phone if you develop
further questions, he said gravely.
I returned to my hotel and read the pamphlets. One was a highly
technical discussion of the relations between sewage sludge, mineral
fertilizer requirements, groundwater levels and run-off, farm manure,
and various disease organisms. Another, which struck me as particu-
larly depressing because of its moralizing tone, surveyed food habits
that had been common before Independence, analyzing the health
hazards involved. Its humorless approach seemed to imply that soda
dn'nks had been some kind of plot against mankind, Apparently, over
20
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ECOTOPIA
a 30-year period, American soda manufacturers should have been
held personally accountable for some 10 billion tooth cavities! This
relentless tendency to x responsibility on producers is, I begin to
see, Widespread in Ecotopian life to the complete neglect of the
responsibility, in this case, of the soda consumers.
My room boasts a trio of recycle chutes, and I have now, like a
proper Ecotopian, carefully disposed of the pamphlets in the one
marked P. It is a good thing Ecotopians do not have chewing
gum which chute would that belong in?
(May 7) The stable-state concept may seem innocuous enough, untilyou
stop to grasp its implications for every aspect of life, from the most
personal to the most general. Shoes cannot have composition soles
because they will not decay. New types of glass and pottery have had
to be developed, which will decompose into sand when broken into small
pieces. Aluminum and other nonferrous metals largely abandoned, except
for a few applications where nothing else will serve only iron, which
rusts away in time, seems a natural metal to the Ecotopians. Belt
buckles are made of bone or very hard woods. Cooking pots have no
stick-free plastic lining, and are usually heavy iron. Almost nothing
is painted, since paints must be based either on lead or rubber or on
plastics, which do not decompose. And people seem to accumulate few
p goods like books; they read quite a bit compared to Americans, but
they then pass the copies on to friends, or recycle them. Of course there
are aspects oflife which have escaped the stable-state criterion: vehicles
are rubber-tired, tooth llings are made of silver, some structures are
built of concrete, and so on. But it is still an amazing process, and
people clearly take great delight in pushing it further and further.
(Iwas wrong to think more garbage trucks needed: actually Ecotopians
generate very little ofwhat we would call garbageHmaterial that simply
has to be disposed of in a dump somewhere. But of course they do
need more trucks to haul away material from the recycle bins.)
These people are horribly over emotional. Last night after supper I
was sitting in my hotel room writing when loud screams began in the
21
ECOTOPIA
corridor. A man and a woman, threatening each other with what sounded
like murder. At rst I thought I d better keep out of it. They went
0;? down the hall and I gured were probably going out or returning
to their room. But they drifted back, yelling and screaming, until they
were right outside my door. I nally stuck my head out, and found
three or four other hotel guests standing around watching, placidly, and
doing absolutely nothing to interfere. It seemed to be a matter of a
passionate a air coming to a bitter ending. The woman, hair half-cover
ing her teary but beautiful face, screamed at the man and kicked at
him viciously still no action from the onlookers, some of whom in fact
actually smiled faintly. The man, his own face red with anger, took
the woman by the shoulders as ifhe was about to bash her head against
the wall and at this, nally, two of the Ecotopians present stepped
forward and put restraining hands on his shoulders. Instead of knocking
her brains out, therefore, the man was reduced to spitting in her
face whereupon she unleashed a horrible stream of curses and insults,
things more personally wounding than I have ever heard (much less
said) in private, not to mention with a bunch of strangers looking on.
But the man did not seem humiliated 0r surprisedwand indeed gave
back insults just as dreadful as he got. The scene had gone on for
perhaps 15 minutes, with more spectators gathering. It was more
theatrical than anything I ve seen in Italy. Finally the man and woman
evidently ran out of fury. They stood limply) looking at each other,
and then fell into each other s arms, crying and nuzzling each other
wetly, aha' staggered 0,?" down the corridor to their room. At this the
spectators began exchanging lively observations, making the kind of
appreciative and comparative remarks we make after a particularly
vicious round in a boxing match. Nobody seemed to care what it had
all been about, but they sure got a kick out of the expression of intense
feeling! Evidently restraints on interpersonal behavior have been very
much relaxed here, and extreme hostility can be accepted as normal
behavior.
Maybe I m not as good a traveler these days. Don t have much appetite
for the sugarless Ecotopian food, despite their pride in their natural
cuisine. Find myself worrying about what I 1! do if I get sick or have
an accident. The Ecotopians have probably turned medical science back
fty years. I have visions of being bled, like in the middle ages.
22
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Even began thinking almost fondly, last night, of my years with Pat
and the kids. Maybe I m beginning to miss the comfort of just lying
around at home. (Why should this particular jaunt make me so confused
and tired? It s an exciting story, an unusual opportunity all my col-
leagues envy me. I just can't quite seem to get my hands on it.) Kids
used to come into bed with us Sunday mornings, and play Bear Comes
over the Mountain~giggly and oppy and lovable. Afterwards, when
they d gone out, Pat would infallibly ask when I was going away again.
No man can live with reproaches before breakfast. But I loved her in
my fashion.
The Ecotopian work schedule and the intermixture of work and play
can make the simplest things practically impossible to accomplish here.
Went to the wire o ice to le my story yesterday. It has to go via
Seattle and Vancouver, since there have been no direct transcontinental
connections since secession. Di erent clerk in the o ce, picked up the
copy, started reading it, laughed, tried to argue with me about the way
I quoted the food guy. Look, I said, I m just doing my jobw how
about you just doing yours? Put it on the fucking wire!
He looked at me with real hurt, as if I d just told him his o ce
smelled. I didn t realize you were in such a hurry, he said. We don t
get American reporters in here every day you know, and what you re
writing is really interesting. I wasn t trying to be booris .
You can t argue with these people. Go ahead, read it, I said, guring
to shame him into quick action. But he gave me an appeased glance,
said Thanks, and settled down to read. I drummed 0n the counter
with my ngers for a while, but Ecotopian leisure time had clearly set
in. Finally he nished, went over to the machine, sat down, turned and
said, Well, it s okay for a beginning. I ll send it real fast for you.
Then he zapped the thing out at about 80 words a minute! And came
back to hand me the copy with a broad, pleased smile. My name s
Jerry, by the way. I went to school with George (the Assistant Minister)
and you got him down very wet. I suppose I believe him. Anyway,
couldn t help smiling back. Thanks, Jerry, I said. See you tomorrow.
ECOTOPIA
CAR-LESS LIVING IN ECOTOPIA S
NEW TOWNS
San Francisco, May 7. Under the new regime, the established cities
of Ecotopia have to some extent been broken up into neighborhoods
or communities, but they are still considered to be somewhat outside
the ideal long-term line of development of Ecotopian living patterns.
I have just had the opportunity to visit one ofthe strange new minicities
that are arising to carry out the more extreme urban vision of this
decentralized society. Once a sleepy village, it is called Alviso, and
is located on the southern shores of San Francisco Bay. You get there
on the interurban train, which drops you off in the basement of a
large complex of buildings. The main structure, it turns out, is not
the city hall or courthouse, but a factory. It produces the eiectric
traction unitSMthey hardly qualify as cars or trucks in our termswthat
are used for transporting people and goods in Ecotopian cities and
for general transportation in the countryside. (Individually owned
vehicles were prohibited in car free zones soon after Independence.
These zones at rst covered only downtown areas where pollution
and congestion were most severe. As minibus service was extended,
these zones expanded, and new cover all densely settled city areas.)
Around the factory, where we would have a huge parking lot, Alviso
has a cluttered collection of buildings, with trees everywhere. There
are restaurants, a library, bakeries, a core store selling groceries
and clothes, small shops, even factories and workshops ail jumbled
amid apartment buildings. These are generally of three or four stories,
arranged around a central courtyard of the type that used to be
common in Paris. They are built almost entirely of wood} which has
become the predominant building material in Ecotopia, due to the
reforestation program. Though these structures are old-fashioned
looking, they have pleasant small balconies, roof gardens, and veran-
daSMOfICIl covered with plants, or even small trees. The apartments
themselves are very large by our standards with 10 01' 15 rooms,
to accommodate their communal living groups.
Alviso streets are named, not numbered, and they are almost as
narrow and winding as those ofmedieval cities not easy for a stranger
to get around in. They are hardly Wide enough for two cars to pass;
24
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ECOTOPIA
but then of course there are no cars, so that is no problem. Pedestrians
and bicyclists meander along. Once in a while you see a delivery
truck hauling a piece of furniture or some other large object, but
the Ecotopians bring their groceries home in string bags or large bicycle
baskets. Supplies for the shops, like most goods in Ecotopia, are moved
in containers. These are much smailer than our cargo containers, and
proportioned to t into Ecotopian freight cars and onto their electric
trucks. Farm produce, for instance, is ioaded into such containers
either at the farms or at the container terminal located on the edge
of each minicity. From the terminal an underground conveyor belt
system connects to all the shops and factories in the minicity, each
of which has a kind of siding where the containers are shunted off.
This idea was probably lifted from our automated warehouses, but
turned backwards. It seems to work very well, though there must
be a terrible mess if there is some kind of jam-up underground.
My guides on this expedition were two young students who have
just nished an apprenticeship year in the factory. They re full of
information and observations. It seems that the entire population of
Alviso, about 9,000 people, lives within a radius of a half mile from
the transit station. But even this density allows for many small park like
places: sometimes merely widenings of the streets, sometimes planted
gardens. Trees are everywhere-there are no large paved areas exposed
to the sun. Around the edges of town are the schools and various
:_;~r'ecreation grounds. At the northeast corner of town you meet the
marshes and sloughs and salt ats of the Bay. A harbor has been
dredged for small craft; this opens onto the ship channel through
which a freighter can move right up to the factory dock. My infomants
admitted rather uncomfortably that there is a modest export trade
in electric vehicles the Ecotopians ahow themseives to import just
enough metal to replace what is used in the exported electric motors
and other metai parts.
Kids sh off the factory dock; the water is clear. Ecotopians love
the water, and the boats in the harbor are a beautiful collection of
both traditional and highly unorthodox designs. From this harbor,
my enthusiastic guides tell me, they often sail up the Bay and into
the Delta, and even out to sea through the Golden Gate, then down
the coast to Monterey. Their boat is a lovely though heavy-looking
craft, and they proudly o ered to take me out on it if I have time.
25
ECOTOPIA
We toured the factory, which is a confusing place. Like other
Ecotopian workplaces, I am told, it is not organized on the assembly-
line principles generally thought essential to really ef cient mass
production. Certain aspects are automated: the production of the
electric motors, suspension frames, and other major elements. Howev-
er, the assembly of these items is done by groups of workers who
actually fasten the parts together one by one, taking them from supply
bins kept full by the automated machines. The plant is quiet and
pleasant compared to the crashing racket of a Detroit plant, and the
workers do not seem to be under Detroit s high output pressures.
Of course the extreme simpli cation of Ecotopian vehicles must make
the manufacturing process much easier to plan and manage indeed
there seems littie reason why it could not be automated entirely.
Also, I discovered, much of the factory s output does not consist
of nished vehicles at all. Following the mania for doing it yourself"
which is such a basic part of Ecotopian life, this plant chie y turns
out front ends, rear ends, and battery units. Individuals and
organizations then connect these to bodies of their own design. Many
of them are weird enough to make San Francisco minibuses look
quite ordinary. I have seen, for instance, a truck built of driftwood,
almost every square foot of it decorated with abalone shells it
belonged to a shery commune along the coast.
The front end consists of two wheels, each driven by an electric
motor and supplied with a brake. A frame attaches them to a steering
and suspension unit, together with a simple steering wheel, accelerator,
brake, instrument panel, and a pair of headlights. The motor drives
are capable of no more than 30 miles per hour (on the level!) so their
engineen'ng requirements must be modest though my guides told
me the suspension is innovative, using a clever hydraulic load-leveling
device which in addition needs very little metal. The rear end is
even simpler, since it doesn t have to steer. The battery units, which
seem to be smaller and lighter than even our best Japanese imports,
are designed for use in vehicles of van'ous con gurations. Each comes
with a long reel-in extension cord to plug into recharging outlets.
The factory does produce several types of standard bodies, to which
the propulsion units can be attached with only four bolts at each
end. (They are always removed for repair.) The smallest and common-
est body is a shrunken version of our pick up truck. It has a tiny
26
mmm
mmm
mam
etm
mem
mmm
mwv
,
--~
s
ECOTOPIA
V Cab that seats only two people, and a low, square, open box in back.
The rear of the cab can be swung upward to make a roof, and
Sometimes canvas sides are rigged to close in the box entirely.
A taxi-type body is still manufactured in small numbers. Many
of these were used in the cities after Independence as a stop-gap
measure while minibus and transit systems were developing. These
bodies are molded from heavy plastic in one huge mold.
These primitive and underpowered vehicles obviously cannot satisfy
the urge for speed and freedom which has been so well met by the
American auto industry and our aggressive highway program. My
guides and I got into a hot debate on this question, in which I must
admit they proved uncomfortably knowledgeable about the conditions
that sometimes prevail on our urban throughways where movement
at any speed can become impossible. When I asked, however, why
Ecotopia did not build speedy cars for its thousands of miles of rural
highways which are now totally uncongested even if their rights of
way have partly been taken over for trains~they were left speechless.
I attempted to sow a few seeds of doubt in their minds: no one can
. be utterly insensitive to the pleasures of the open road, I told them,
and 1 related how it feels to roll along in one of our powerful,
comfortable cars, a girl s hair blowing in the wind. .. .
We had lunch in one of the restaurants near the factory, amid
a cheery, noisy crowd of citizens and workers. I noticed that they
drank a fair amount of the excellent local wine with their soups and
_ sandwiches. Afterward we visited the town hall, a modest wood
structure indistinguishable from the apartment buildings. There I was
shown a map on which adjacent new towns are drawn, each centered
_ on its own rapid-transit stop. It appears that a ring of such new towns
is being built to surround the Bay, each one a self contained communi~
ty, but linked to its neighbors by train so that the entire necklace
of towns will constitute one city. It is promised that you can, for
instance, walk ve minutes to your transit station, take a train within
ve minutes to a town ten stops away, and then walk another ve
minutes to your destination. My informants are convinced that this
represents a halving 0f the time we would spend on a similar trip,
not to mention problems ofparking, traf c, and ofcourse the pollution.
What will be the fate of the existing cities as these new minicities
come into existence? They will gradually be razed, although a few
27
ECOTOPIA
districts will be preserved as living museum displays (of our barbarian
past, as the boys jokingly phrased it). The land will be returned
to grassland, forest, orchards, or gardens often, it appears, groups
from the city own plots of land outside in the country, where they
probably have a small shack and perhaps grow vegetables, or just
go for a change of scene.
After leaving Aiviso we took the train to Redwood City, where
the reversion process can be seen in action. Three new towns have
sprung up there along the Bay, separated by a half mile or so of
open country, and two more are under construction as part of another
string several miles back from the Bay, in the foothills In betWeen,
part of the former suburban residential area has already been turned
into alternating woods and grassland. The scene reminded me a little
of my boyhood country summers in Pennsylvania. Wooded strips
follow the winding lines ofcreeks. Hawks circle lazily. Boys out hunting
with bows and arrows wave to the train as it zips by. The signs of
a once busy civilizationkstreets, cars, service stations, supermarkets
have been entirely obliterated, as if they never existed. The scene
was sobering, and made me wonder What a Carthaginian might have
felt after ancient Carthage was destroyed and plowed under by the
conquering Romans.
(May 8) Something peculiar is going on in this place. Can t yet exactly
locate the source of the feeling. It s like waking up after a dream and
not being quite able to remember what it was about. The way people
deal with each othermand with me keeps reminding me of something
but I don t know what. Always takes me o guard, makes me feel
I was confronted with some ne personal opportunity a friendship,
learning something s important, love which by then has just passed. . . .
And they often seem to be surprised, a little disappointed maybe as
if I was a child who was not proving a very fast learner. (But what
am I supposed to be learning?)
Then sometimes life here seems like a throwback to a past I might
have known through old photographs. Or a skip ahead in time: these
people, who are so American despite their weird social practices, might
28
ECOTOPIA
be what we will become. (They miss no chance, of course, to tell me
we should get on with it.) Also keep feeling I have gotten stuck on
vacation in the country. Partly it s all the trees, and maybe the dark
nights (which still make me feel a power blackout must have struck),
and also it s hard to get used to the quiet. Must be doing something
to my New York paranoia system, geared to respond to honking,
screeching, buzzing, bangs, knocks, not to mention a shot or a scream
now and then. You expect silence in the country. But here I am in
a metropolitan area ofseveral million, constantly surrounded by people~
and the only really loud noises are human shouts or babies crying. There s
no New Man bullshit in Ecotopia, but how do they stand the quiet?
Or for that matter, how do they stand their isolation om us? Has
bred a brash kind of self su iciency. They seem to be in surprisingly
good touch with the rest of the world, but as far as we re concerned,
they re strictly on their ownelike adolescent children who have rejected
their parents ways. They ll probably get over it.
Ecotopians a little vague about time, I notice few wear watches, and
they pay more attention to things like sunrise and sunset or the tides
than to actual hour time. They Will accede to the demands of industrial
civilization to some extent, but grudgingly. You d never catch an Indian
wearing a watch. Many Ecotopians sentimental about Indians, and
there s some sense in which they envy the Qdi ne l har lost natural
place in theAmerican wilderness. Indeed thisprobably a major Ecotopian
myth; keep hearing references to what Indians would or wouldn t do
in a given situation. Some Ecotopian articleswclothing and baskets and
personal ornamentation perhaps directly Indian in inspiration. But what
matters most is the aspiration to live in balance with nature, walk
lightly on the land, treat the earth as a mother. N0 Surprise that to
such a morality most industrial processes, work schedules, and productsf
are suspect! Who would use an earth-mover on his own mother?
Hotel was okay for a while, but has gotten kind of boring. Have
taken to spending a good bit of time a few blocks away, down near
the waterfront, at Franklin s Cove, a sort of press commune, where
maybe 40 Ecotopian journalists and writers and TVpeople live. They ve
been extremely hospitable-really make me feel welcome. The place must
have once been a warehouse, and is now broken up into rooms. They
cook collectively, have work rooms (n0 electric typewriters, I notice,
29
ECOTOPIA
but lots of handy light video recorders), even a kind of gym. Beautiful
wild garden in back where people spend a lot of time lying around
on sunny days part ofit in crumbling ruins ofone wing ofthe warehouse,
which nobody has bothered to wreck and haul away. ( Time is taking
its course, and we just let it, replied one of the residents when I asked
why this unsightly condition was tolerated.) Center ofthings is a lounge
library lled with soft chairs and sofas. I ve been there so much I even
have a favorite chair.
Ecotopians, both male and female, have a secure sense of themselves
as animals. At the Cave they lie about utterly relaxed, curled up on
couches or floor, opped down in sunny spots on little rugs or mats,
almost like a bunch of cats. They stretch, rearrange themselves, do
mysterious yoga-like exercises, and just seem to enjoy their bodies
tremendously. Nor do they keep this to themselves, particularly I ve
several times walked in on people making love, who didn t seem much
embarrassed or annoyed-it was hardly different from walking in on
somebody taking a bath. I nd myselfenvying them this comfortableness
in their biological beings. They seem to breathe better, move more loosely.
I m experimenting, trying to imitate them. . . .
Especially in the evenings, though of course they have a lot of free
time during the day as well, people gather round and talk the kind
of leisurely talk I associate with college days. Jumps around from topic
to topic, and people kid a lot, and cheer each other up when need be,
but there s some thread to it usually. Last evening spent quite a while
talking to an interesting guy I ve met at the Cove-Bert Luckman (that
seems to be his real name). He was studying at Berkeley at the time
oflndependence bright Jewish kid from New York. Had gone through
Maoist phase, then got into secessionist movement. Politics and science
writer (not an odd combination here) for the S. F. Times. Has written
a book on cosmology, has a mystic streak, but still a reporter s reporter:
tough, wry, well-organized writing. Is surprisingly skeptical about US.
science, which he regards as bureaucratically constipated and wasteful
You made the dreadful mistake, he said, of turning your science
establishment over to established scientists, who could be trusted. But
it s mainly young and untrustworthy scientists who get important new
ideas. You still have a few things happening, but it s lost the momentum
you need. (I wonder. Check when get back.)
3O
uch
1835
ECOTOPIA
After some drinks the conversation got livelier and more personal.
Thought I d do some probing. Doesn t this stable state business get
awfully static? I 61 think it would drive you crazy after a certain point!
Bert looked at me with amusement, and batted the ball back. Well,
don? forget that we don t have to be stable. The system provides the
stability, and we can be erratic within it. I mean we don t try to be
perfect, we just try to be okay 0n the average which means adcting
up a bunch of ups and downs. But it means giving up any notions
of progress. You just want to get to that stable point and stay there,
like a lump.
It may sound that way, but in practice there s no stable point. We re
always striving to approximate it, but we never get there. And you know
how much we disagree on exactly what is to be done we only agree
on the root essentials, everything else is in dispute. I grinned. I ve
noticed that you re a quarrelsome lot! We can a ord to be, because
of that root agreement. Besides, that s half the fun of relating to each
other trytng to work through di erent perspectives, seeing how other
people feel about things.
It s still ying in the face of reality, this striving for stability. Bert
took this more seriously: Is it? But we ve actually achieved something
like stability. Our system meanders on in peaceful way, while yours
has constant convulsions. I think of ours as like a meadow in the sun.
There s a lot of change going on plants growing, other plants dying,
bacteria decomposing them, mice eating seeds, hawks eating mice, a
tree or two beginning to grow up and shade the grasses. But the meadow
sustains itself on a steady-state basis unless men come along and mess
it up.
I begin to see what you mean. It may not look so static to the
mouse.
After his student years Bert traveled a lot -tn Canada, Latin America,
Europe, Asia. Even thought of going to the US. sub rosa but didn t
do it (or says he didn t). Attached to a charming giddy woman named
Clara, some years older and also a journalist they have separate rooms
at the Cave. Bert seems to be a wanderer has also worked on papers
in Seattle, Vancouver, and a little California coast resort town called
Mendocino. We exchanged life histories, and he pumped me for inside
intrigues on my travels, my relations with sources in our government,
and so on. Caught me in a couple ofprevarications, but seems to take
31
1
i
ECOTOPIA
their measure quickly and understand them. We went on talking in
a frank and almost brotherly way, so I tried harder to be candid and
scrupulous. Told him about Francine; he wanted to know precisely the
nature of my relationship with her, and seemed surprised that it is so
tentative, even though it s gone on for three years now. It seems
contradictory to me, he said. You live in separate apartments, see
each other a couple of times a week, spend weeks on end away from
each other altogether. At the same time you don t have a group of
people to live with, to support you emotionally, to keep your collective
life going on actively and strongly while you re apart. I21 think that
during one of these absences you d have split up long ago~one ofyou
would have taken up seriously with someone else, and then there d be
two other little separate worlds, instead of the two you have now. I21
nd that very scary.
It is very scary, I said, "and once or twice we have gotten involved
with someone else. But we have always come back to each othett It
still sounds frivolous to me, he said, frowning. It gives too much power
to loneliness. Here we try to arrange it so we are not lonely very often.
That keeps us from making a lot ofemotional mistakes. We don t think
commitment is something you go o r and do by yourselves, just two
of you. It has to have a structure, social surroundings you can rely
on. Human beings are tribal animals, you know. They need lots of
contact.
You might be right, I said doubtfully. I never thought of myself
that way particularly. Though at one point I remember wondering if
having lots and lots of children might not be a good thing. Well,
there are other kinds of families, you know, he said gently and with
a slight smile. I ll take you to visit some.
Have also had some good talks with Tom, a writer for a major
magazine called Flow. He s maybe 35 but has a face that already shows
lines; also a temper, and he was swearing at somebody who had
challenged his view ofrecent American strategy in Brazil. I kept quiet
at rst, but it happened I knew Tom was right: we had set up a
system of electronically fenced enclaves in Sao Paulo as a means of
controlling guerrilla movements, though it had been portrayed as an
urban-redevelopment measure. Look, said Tom nally we have a
goddamn American reporter right here, why don t we ask him? A ll
right, said the other guy to me, ' do you know anything about it?
32
ECOTOPIA
Yeah, I said, I do. Tom s got it straight. There are sensor elds
all over Sao Paulo. Anything that moves, the army knows about. How
did you get your information? Are you sure?
Sure I m sure. I heard the President give the orderiand I also
heard him tell the press that he d deny it if we reported it. Tom burst
out laughing. He and his opponent didn t speak for several days after
that, but Tom and I made up for it. Talked not only about Brazil also
about functions ofjournalists, and the changes in man-woman relation-
ships that have occurred in Ecotopta. According to him, women in
Ecotopia have totally escaped the dependent roles they still tend to play
with us. Not that they domineer over men but they exercise power in
work and in relationships just as men do. Above all, they don t have
to manipulate men: the Survivalt st Party, and social developments
generally, have arranged the society so that women s objective situation
is equal to men s. Thus people can be just people, without our symbolic
loading on sex roles. (I notice, however, that Ecotopian women still
seem to me feminine, with a relaxed air oftheir biological attractiveness,
even fertility, though I don t see how they combine this with their heavy
responsibilities and hard work. And men, though they express feelings
more openly than American men even feelings of weakness still seem
masculine.
Tom s bright, and cynical as any good newspaperman is, yet strangely
optimistic about the future. Believes that the nature ofpolitical power
is changing, that the technology and social structure can be put at the
service of mankind, instead of the other way round. Skeptical but not,%
I notice, bitter. Must be comfortable to think like that.
Am missing Francine s reliably amiable attentions. (Whenever I m
away I realize anew what a faithful playmate she is; despite our having
deliberately resolved never to be faithful to each other.) Have the awful
suspicion that every woman around me is secretly, constantly tcking
and that I could have them if I only knew the password but I don t.
I must be missing something can the women journalists at the Cove
simply nd me unattractive in some mysterious way? They are friendly
enough, direct, open; they even touch me sometimes, which of course
feels good and gives me a warm rush. But again, it s sisterly: ifI touch
them back, they seem to feel I m making an improper advance, and
back o ? There must be some move, when a woman here comes close
33
ECOTOPIA
to you, that I don t know how to make? Yet I watch the Ecotopian
men, and they don t seem to do anything, except maybe smile a little;
and then things go on from there, or sometimes don tAit s all very casual
and nobody seems to worry about it. Very confusing all around; makes
me feel hung up on my own patterns. Many Ecotopian women are
beautiful in a simple, unadorned way. They re not dependent for their
attractiveness on cosmetics 0r dress they give the impression of being
strong, secure, pleasure-loving people, very honest and straightforward
emotionally. They seem to like me: in the Cove as on the streets they
meet my eyes openly, are glad to talk, even quite personally. Yet I
can 1 get past that stage to any real action. Have to think about that
some more. Maybe I 11 learn something.
THE UNSPORTING LIFE OF ECOTOPIA .
San Francisco, May 9. American sports fans would have a miserable
time of it in Ecotopia. They would nd no baseball and no football,
no basketball, not even ice hockey. The newspapers have what they
label sports pages, but these are devoted to oddball individua} sports.
Skiing, especially cross-country style, gets big coverage. Hiking and
camping, which are usually lumped With shing and hunting, are
treated as sports. Swimming, sailing, gymnastics, ping pong, and tennis
get a lot of attention. So does chess! There s no boxing or wrestling
in Ecotopia, and no roller derby. In short, for the sports enthusiast
Ecotopia is about as dull as you could imagine: the sports scene is
set up purely for the bene t of the participants.
On the other hand, from a physical- tness point of view ordinary
Ecotopian citizens are remarkably healthy looking. An American like
myseif tends to feel a little abby here. Ecotopjans are used to walking
everywhere, carrying heavy burdens like backpacks and groceries for
long distances, and they have a generally higher level of physical
activity than Americans. The women, especially, look marvellously
healthy, even though they do not adhere to our standards of style.
The fat and broken down people we are accustomed to seeing on
our city streets are absent here, and even oldsters seem surprisingly
34
ECOTOPIA
t and hearty. To my questions about this, Ecotopians have replied
Well, nature has equipped us well, and we lead active physical lives,
or some such phrases. It apparently does not occur to them that human
beings in other countries are not in equally good shape.
But my inquiries, pursued further, have turned up an extensive
network of unobtrusive physical activities which, in fact, seem almost
Spartan in their intensity, and participation in some kind of minor
sport is virtually universal among Ecotopians. Even volleyball, God
help them, is a favorite pastime, and at moon or indeed other hours
you can see teams cavorting in factory yards or on the streets. It
doesn t look terribly competitive, but is obviously fun.
Ecotopians also love to dance, which is good exercise; and walking
a lot, which is forced on them by the prohibition of cars, probably
has the compensation of being good for the health. (Runners, whether
for health or haste, are common sights here.) Ping-pong tables seem
to be one of the commonest items of furniture, and I must confess
that when I challenged an awkward-looking teenager to a friendly
1 game, I got stomped!
Ecotopian schools, with their looser scheduling (and better climate)
give children far more outdoor time than ours. So the youngsters
have a high level of physical activity throughout their school years.
. ,School groups often go on expeditions: it s common to see six-year
olds, with heavy backpacks, trudging along with older kids on hikes
which, I am told, may last four or ve days, and in quite forbidding
country. As they move on into higher levels ofschool (the term grade
is not used in our sense) much of the children s time is allotted to
training in shing and hunting and survival skills, at the expense
of basic educational skills. They are forced to learn not only the basic
techniques but also how to improvise ecologically acceptable equip-
ment in the wilds: hooks, snares, bows, arrows, and so on.
Some parents and other adults participate voluntarily in the chil-
dren s eld trips for meat as well as sport, since wild game has
returned to the reforested areas in great numbers. Thus mountain
lions, Wildcats, bears (including grizzlies), and wolves may now be
hunted, along with deer, foxes, and rabbits. (Hunting is usually done
with bows and arrows, not rearms, though most Ecotopian living
units possess shotguns.) The experiences of the children are Closely
tied in with studies of plants, animals and landscape. I have been
35
ECOTOPIA
impressed with the knowledge that even young children have of such
matters a six-year-old can tell you all about the ecological niches
of the creatures and plants he encounters in his daily life. He will
also know what roots and berries are edible, how to use soap plant,
how to carve a pot holder from a branch.
A big sports role is played by Ecotopian rivers and lakes, which
seem to be a magnetic attraction to young peopie even though the
coastal waters are freezing cold. Shortly after Independence, an
expropriation law made all waterfront properties into water parks.
Beautiful exclusive estates were seized and turned into shing com
munes, schools, hospitals, oceanographic and limnological institutes,
museums of naturai history. Public boating, shing and swimming
were permitted in lakes that had formerly been enclosed in fenced,
guarded private developments. The new government even went so
far as to dynamite some of the dams Which had been built on the
rivers~on the dubious grounds that they prevented wh ite water
recreational boating 0r interfered with the salmon runswwhich have
been reestablished with great e brt and enjoy much pubiic support.
A curious physical tness aspect of Ecotopian iife is that in school
the classes in carpentry and other tool work (Which are taken by
most students, girls as well as boys) carry out construction projects
that often involve the handling of timbers, masonry and other heavy
materials.
But the strangest thing about Ecotopian sports for an American
is to understand how Ecotopians get along without the thrills, drama
and suspense provided by our pennant seasons, the pageants of our
bowl games, or the opportunity for boys to identify with star players.
Apparently, the excitement we focus on our major sports has been
entirely diverted in Bcotopia to what they call the war games. These
are never described in the sports pages, however, nor indeed anywhere
else in print. People have been evasive when I have asked about
these games, but rumors that have reached us outside Ecotopia
suggest that rather bestial practices are involved. From conversations
I have overheard, especially among young men, it is clear that
Ecotopians are intensely concerned with these bloody rituals in which
it appears that hundreds of Ecotopian youths perish every year. Soon
I hope to make an eye witness report on one of these controversial
spectacles.
36
lch
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vill
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ich
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ican
ama
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hese
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opia
ions
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Soon
:rsial
ECOTOPIA
(May 10) No progress in my e orts to set up an appointment with
President Allwen. Her assistant friendly enough, however. Says it will
happen in due course, but why don t I look around the country some
more rst, so you have something to talk about. Asked me pointedly
to make sure they get early copies of all my dispatches. Are they waiting
to see what I write before they decide whether to give me my precious
appointment?
Saw Allwen on a TV event dedication of a solar-energy plant.
Altogether unlike our ribbon-cuting ceremonies. Here the people who
do the ceremony are the people who did the work. Cameramen wander -
around among everybody; it s all quite helterskelter, there seem to be
no passive bystanders, everybody is talking to everybody else. The camera
has been with various groups for a while, one of them including this
ratherplain but strong unidenti ed woman who s chatting and laughing
with them. They re showing her some papers, she s joking with them.
After a while it turns out she is Vera. But nobody calls on her for
a speech. She turns to a woman nearby and says, Why don t you tell '
everybody how this all got started?
."Seriously but with absolutely no pompousness, the woman describes
the background of the plant why it was needed here, how the people
iri'volved in the communities it would serve decided what kind ofplant
it: should be, how some novel scienti c developments got worked up.
Then she turned to other people, and they talked about the actual con-
structionefunny stories, mainly, not at all our kind ofsolemn, contribu-
tionwto-the-ages sort ofstu f Certain aspects of the installation are evi-
dently far from perfect at least in some eyeseand the criticisms weren t
kept under cover in the slightest. When this got a little heavy, Allwen
re-entered the conversation. But she didn t play the heavy arbiter or
mother role, she talked about some other case where something had
gone wrong, and told a political anecdote about how the people had
nally gotten together and more or less xed it up. The mood lightened,
mutual con dence returned.
And then, when everybody seemed to have said what they wanted
to say, the group just sort of amorphously decided it was time to turn
on the switch. Amid jokes that maybe it wouldn t work after all, a
child was brought forth to actually push the switch. It worked. Lightbulbs
lighted; people cheered and hugged each other; and then, as champagne
37
ECOTOPIA
was brought out, the camera crews put down their equipment andpicked
up glasses, and we saw no more.
I ve also been using spare time watching some of Allwen s collected
speeches on my videodz'sc player. (Bought a full set to take back with
me.) Clearly a remarkable woman: a powerful personality with a gift
for folksy yet highly political speaking. There is a lot of warmth, yet
a certain menace too: you wouldn t want to be her enemy. Maybe the
old Queen Elizabeth was like that? At the same time Allwen never
seems to rely on the us-against them gambit. The underlying point is
always some kind of unity; there s a family feeling even when she s
chastising someone. I doubt if anyone, whatever their politics, could
be entirely in her bad graces! She has a way of seeming to take the
viewer into her con dence, so that you share the logic and conviction
ofher argument. It would be hard to feel she was selling you something,
the way too many of our television speeches do. Instead she seems to
be giving clarity, strength, wisdom. Maybe as much a religious leader
as a politician? Head of the state ecological church, chief priestess?
Doesn t look it, God knows! But anyway a force to be reckoned with.
ECOTOPIAN TELEVISION AND ITS WARES
San Francisco, May 10. Ecotopians claim to have sifted through
modern technology and rejected huge tracts of it, because of its
iecological harmfulness. However, despite this general technological
austerity, they employ video devices even more extensively than we
do. Feeling that they should transport their bodies only when it s
a pleasure, they seldom travel on business in our manner. Instead,
they tend to transact business by using their picturephones. These
employ the same cables that provide television connections; the whole
country, except for a few isolated rural spots, is wired with cable.
(There is no ordinary broadcasting.) Video sets are everywhere, but
strangely enough I have seldom seen people sitting before them blotted
out in the American manner. Whether this is because of some
mysterious national traits, or because of the programming being
markedly different, or both, I cannot yet tell. But Eeotopians seem
to use TV, rather than ietting it'use them.
38
ECOTOPIA
Some channels are apparently literal parts of the government
structurErsomething like a council chamber with a PA system would
be- Peop1 watch these when the doings of local governments or the
national legislature are being transmitted. (Virtually no government
proceedings are closed to piess and publlc anyway.) Viewers hot only
watch- they expect to partxcipate. They phone in Wlth questions and
cOmments, sometimes for the of cials present, sometimes for the TV
staffs. Thus TV doesn t only provide newswmuch of the time it is
the news. The routine governmental fare includes debates that involve
Public gures, or aspirants to public of ce; many court proceedings
and executive meetings; and meetings ofthe legislatures and especially
of their committees. Running comment is interspersed from a variety I
of sources, ranging from the narrators to vehemently partisan analysts-
There is no rule of objectivity, as with our newscasters; Ecotopians?
in general scorn the idea as a bourgeois fetish, and profess to believe;
. that truth is best served by giving some label indicating your general
position, and then letting y.
Other channels present lms and various entertainment programs,
but the commercials are awkwardly bunched entirely between shows,
' rather than scattered throughout. Not only does this destroy the rhythm
vtr'e re used to on TVwcommercials giving us timely respites from the
drama but it increases the tendency for the commercials to ght
each other. And this is bad enough anyway, because they are limited
.__tdmere announcements, without impersonated housewives or other
,Juconsumers, and virtually without adjectives. (Some prohibition must
exist for all the media, since ads in magazines and newspapers are
similarly bland.) It s hard to get excited about a product s speci -
cations-list, but Ecotopian viewers do manage to watch them. Some
times, I suspect, they watch merely in hopes of a counterad to
follow an annoucement of a competing product, in which the an
nouncer sneezingly compares the two.
Also, the commercials may seem watchable because they are islands
of sanity in the welter of viewpoints, personnel, and visual image
quality that make up normal Ecotopian TV fare. Some channels
even change managements entirelymat noon, or 6 p.m., a channel
that has been programming political events or news will suddenly
switch over to household advice, loud rock music, or weird surrealistic
lms bringing your worst nightmares to garish life. (Ecotopians don t
39
ECOTOPIA
seem to believe overmuch in color tuning. The station engineers
sometimes joke around and transmit signais in which people deliber.
ately come out green or fuchsia, with orange skies.) Then again yen
may come upon a super-serious program imported from Canada 0r
England. And there are a few people who tune in American sateiiite
signals and watch our re-runs, or laugh it up at our commercial;
But this seems to be an acquired, minority taste and it also requires
an expensive special adapter to pick up the signais directly.
Television, incidentally, may be an important reason for Ecotopians
: odd attitudes toward material goods. Of course many consumer items
gare considered ecologically offensive and are simply not avaiiable,
5,50 nobody has them: thus electric can openers,-hair curlers, frying
pans, and carving knives are unknown. And to curb industrial
proliferation the variety which is so delightful in our department stores
is much restricted here. Many basic necessities are utterly standardized.
Bath toweis, for instance, can be bought in only one color, white so
people have to dye their own in attractive patterns (using gentle natural
hues from plant and mineral sources, I am told). Ecotopians generally
seem to travel light, with few possessions, though each household,
naturally, has a full component of necessary utensils. As far as
personal goods are concerned Ecotopians possess or at least care about
mainly things like knives and other tools, clothing, brushes, musical
instruments, which they are concerned to have of the highest possible
quality. These are handmade and prized by their owners as works
of artwwhich I must admit they sometimes are.
Objects that are available in stores seem rather old-fashioned. I
have seen few Ecotopian-made appliances that would not look pretty
primitive on American TV. One excuse I ve heard is that they are
designed for easy repair by users. At any rate they lack the streamlining
we re used to parts stick out at odd angles, bolts and other fasteners
are plainly visible, and sometimes parts are even made of wood.
I have, however, observed that Ecotopians d0 repair their own
things. In fact there are no repair shops on the streets. A curious
corollary is that guarantees don t seem to exist at all. People take
it for granted that manufactured items will be sturdy, durable, and
seIf- xabIe which of course means they are aIso relatively unsophisti-
cated compared to ours. This state of alfairs has not been achieved
easily: I have heard many funny stories about ridiculous designs
40
out
cal
ble
rks
zed
gns
ECOTOPIA
_ reduced in the early days, lawsuits against their manufacturers, and
other tribulations. 0116 law now in effect requires that pilot models
of new devices must be given to a public panel of ten ordinary people
(*9consumel s is not a term used in polite conversation here). Only
if they all nd they can x likely breakdowns with ordinary tools
manufacture permitted.
An exception of sorts is made for video and other electronic items.
These are required to be built of standard modularized parts and
shops must stock component modules as well as test equipment, so
users can isolate and replace defective components. And of course
much electronic gear is now so small that it must simply be recycled
if it stops working. The Ecotopians, indeed, have produced some
remarkably miniaturized electronic devices, such as stereo sets no
larger than a plate, ingeniously responsive controls for solar heat
is
systems and industrial processes, and short-range radiotelephones built
into a tiny earphone. These evidently satisfy a national urge for
V compactness, lightness, and low power requirements.
(Mhy 11) This morning got my rst look at that curious Ecotopian
prdctice known as cooperative criticism. Had stopped in at one of their
little open-front cafes where you can get an overwhelmingly hearty
breakfast. Family-style tables, but it was still early, and conversation
desultory. A man near me who had ordered scrambled eggs broke the
quiet after the waiter brought his plate.
Look at those eggs! he demandedgnot 0f the waiter, as we might
do, but of the cafe at large. He held them up for all to see. They re
totally dried out! At this point, I expected the waiter to try to soothe
the customer and o er him a new plate ofeggs. Instead, both customer
and waiter headed for the kitchen area, which was off to the side of
the room but separated only by a counter. (Ecotopians take pleasure?
in being able to inspect ingredients and see their food being cooked.
Their kitchens are always open to view, and they watch the cooks ratherf
as we watch a pizza thrower.) Who cooked these eggs? the cust orrterg'E
asked. One of the cooks, a woman, put aside a pot and walked over?
to look. 1
I did. What s wrong with them? The man repeated his complaint,
the woman took a fork, sampled the eggs. You must have left them
41
ECOTOPIA
lie on the plate, she said. The plate s got cold too. Several hands
reached out to touch the plate, and sub-arguments broke out about
that, the consensus being that the plate was still pretty warm, and the
woman must'indeed have overcooked the eggs. Why weren t you
watching them? the customer asked. Because I have two stoves and
about 14 orders going! retorted the woman.
At this, some happy customers chimed in, saying that Ruth was a ._
phenomenally careful cook and had done their eggs to perfection. So
then theproblem ofRuth s workload was examined by allpresent, loudly.
(Meanwhile, new customers were dn fting in and all were joining into the
discussion, andevery breakfast in theplace wasgettingstone-cold; nobody
cared.) Somebody asked Ruth why she didn t yell for help when she
got behind, and she blushed and said, with a resentful glance at her
fellow cooks, that it was her job and she could do it. One of the other
customers, who seemed to know Ruth, said he knew she wouldn t ask
for help from the other cooks, who were also busy, but what would
be wrong with admitting that occasionally the load got extra heavy,
and yelling for help?
Here many customers chimed in, telling her they d be glad to step
into the kitchen and pitch in for a few minutes. At this, Ruth began
to weep, whether om shame or relief. A couple of customers came
into the kitchen, hugged her, lent a hand; she probably dropped salty '-
tears into the next couple of orders, but everybody else went back to
their tables, seeming very satis ed with the whole episode, and the
complainer ate his new eggs with gusto, after thanking Ruth loudly
and elaborately when she personally brought them out to him wz'th
many smiles all around them.
Little emotional dramas like this seem to be common in Ecotopian
life. There s something embarrassing and low-class about them, but
they re delightful in a way, and both participants and observers seem
5 to be energized by them.
Usually on my trips I feel pretty frustrated sexually after a couple
ofdays and try to get taken care of: somehow or other. Am still totally
puzzled why these independent Eeotopian women don t react to my
signals. It certainly isn t because they are out of touch with their own
sexuality! Was kidding aroundwt'th one I picked up on the street.
Look, she said after a bit, ifyou just want to fuck why don t you
42
ECOTOPIA
say so? and marched o in disgust. That got to me, somehow. Realized
I don t just want to fuck, as I usually think when I m away. I really
want to gure out what goes on between men and women out here,
and try getting with it: they obviously deal with each other in ways
I don t know about. I feel envious and left out, but also challenged
and curious. Sometimes my confusion settles into a feeling of readiness,
patience, calmness: as if I must soon run into somebody who will make
it all clear. But it doesn t make it any easier that Ecotopians are very
noisy at their lovemaking. Groans and gasps and shudders and moans
percolate through my hotel walls, even though they aren t particularly
thin Evidently they don t have any inhibitions about others hearing
what s going on. 1%
THE ECOTOPIAN ECONOMY:
FRUIT OF CRISIS
San Francisco, May 12. It is widely believed among Americans that
the Ecotopians have become a shiftless and lazy people. This was
the natural conclusion drawn after Independence, when the Ecotopians
adopted a 20 hour work week. Yet even so no one in America, I
think, has yet fully grasped the immense break this represented with
our way of life and even now it is astonishing that the Ecotopian
legislature, in the rst ush of power, was able to carry through such t
a revolutionary measure.
What was at stake, informed Ecotopians insist, was nothing less
v than the revision of the Protestant work ethic upon which America
Ehad been built. The consequences were plainly severe. In economic
iterms, Ecotopia was forced to isolate its economy from the competition
of harder-working peoples. serious dislocations plagued their indus-
tries for years. There was a drop in Gross National Product by more
than a third. But the profoundest implications of the decreased work
week were philosophical and ecological: mankind, the Ecotopians
assumed, was not meant for production, as the 19th and early 20th
centuries had believed. Instead, humans were meant to take their
modest place in a seamless, stable-state web of living organisms,
43
_%;
?22
5 ]
ECOTOPIA
disturbing that web as little as possible. This would mean sacri ce
of present consumption, but it would ensure future survival which
became an almost religious objective, perhaps akin to earlier doctrines
of salvation. People were to be happy not to the extent they
dominated their fellow creatures on the earth, but to the extent they
lived in balance with them.
This philosophical change may have seemed innocent on the surface.
Its grave implications were soon spelled out, however. Ecotopian
economists, who included some of the most highly regarded in the
American nation, were well aware that the standard of living could
only be sustained and increased by relentless pressure on work hours
and worker productivity. Workers might call this speed-up, yet
without a slow but steady rise in labor output, capital could not be
attracted or even held; nancial collapse would quickly ensue.
The deadly novelty introduced into this accepted train of thought
by a few Ecotopian militants was to spread the point of View that
economic disaster was not identical with survival disaster for persons
and that, in particular, a nancial panic could be turned to advantage
if the new nation could be organized to devote its real resources of
energy, knowledge, skills, and materials to the basic necessities of
survival. If that were done, even a catastrophic decline in the GNP
(which was, in their opinion, largely composed of wasteful activity
anyway) might prove politically useful.
In short, nancial chaos was to be not endured but deliberately
engineered. With the ensuing ight of capital, most factories, farms
and other productive facilities would fall into Ecotopian hands like
ripe plums.
And in reality it took only a few crucial measures to set this dismal
series of events in motion: the nationalization of agriculture; the
announcement of an impending moratorium on oil-industry activities;
the forced consolidation of the basic retail network constituted by
Sears, Penneys, Safeway, and a few other chains; and the passage
ofstringent conservation laws that threatened the pro ts ofthe lumber
interests.
These moves, of course, set olf an enormous clamor in Washington.
Lobbyists for the van'ous interests affected tried to commit the federal
government to intervene militarily. This was, however, several months
after Independence. The Ecotopians had established and intensively
44
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HC
Ji
-H
HI
H-
ECOTOPIA
trained a nationwide militia, and airlifted arms for it from France
and Czechoslovakia. It was also believed that at the time of secession
they had mined major Eastern cities With atomic weapons, which
they had constructed in secret or seized from weapons research
laboratories. Washington, therefore, although it initiated a ferocious
Campaign of economic and political pressure against the Ecotopians,
and mined their harbors, nally decided against an invasion.
This news set in motion a wave of closures and forced sales of
businesses reminiscent, I was told, ofwhat happened to the Japanese
Americans who were interned in World War II. Members of distin
guished old San Francisco families were forced to bargain on most
unfavorable terms with representatives of the new regime. Properties
going back to Spanish land-grant claims were hastily disposed of.
Huge corporations, used to dictating policy in city halls and state
houses, found themselves begging for compensation and squirming
to explain that their properties were actually worth far more than
their declared tax value.
Tens of thousands of employees were put out of work as a
consequence, and the new government made two responses to this.
One was to absorb the unemployed in construction ofthe train network
and of the sewage and other recycling facilities necessary to establish
stable state life systems. Some were also put to work dismantling
allegedly hazardous or unpleasant relics of the old order, like gas-sta-
tions. The other move was to adopt 20 hours as the basic work
week which, in effect, doubled the number ofjobs but virtually halved
individual income. (There were, for several years, rigid price controls
on all basic foods and other absolute necessities.)
Naturally, the transition period that ensued was hectic though
many people also remember it as exciting. It is alleged by many who
lived through those times that no one su ered seriously from lack
of food, shelter, clothing, or medical treatment~th0ugh some discom-
fort was widespread, and there were gross dislocations in the automo-
bile and related industries, in the schools, and in some other social
functions. Certainly many citizens were deprived of hard-earned
comforts they had been used to: their cars, their prepared and luxury
foods, their habitual new clothes and appliances, their many ef cient
service industries. These disruptions were especially severe 0n middle
aged peoplewthough one now elderly man told me that he had been
45
3
"
WWe
xmmi
mmml
ECOTOPIA
a boy in Warsaw during Worid War II, had lived on rats and moldy
potatoes, and found the Ecotopian experience relatively painless. To
the young, the disruptions seem to have had a kind of wartime
excitement and indeed sacri ces may have been made more palatable
by the fear ofattack from the United States. It is said by some, however,
that the orientation of the new government toward basic biological
survival was a unifying and reassuring force. Panic food hoarding,
it is said, was rare, (The generosity with food which is such a feature
of Eootopian life today may have arisen at that time.)
Ofcourse the region that comprises Ecotopia had natural advantages
that made the transition easier. Its states had more doctors per capita,
a higher educational leyel, a higher percentage of skilled workers,
a greater number of engineers and other technicians, than most other
parts of the Union. Its major cities, without exception, were broadly
based manufacturing and trade complexes that produced virtually
all the necessities of life. Its universities were excellent, and its resources
for scienti c research included a number of the topnotch facilities
in the United States. Its temperate climate encouraged an outdoor
style of life, and made fuel shortages caused by ecological policies
an annoyance rather than the matter of life or death they would
have been in the severe eastern winters. The people were unusually
welt versed in nature and conservation 101e, and experienced in
camping and survival skills.
We cannot, however, ignore the poiitical context in which the
transition took place. As Ecotopian militants see the situation, by
the last decade of the old century American control over the underdevel-
oped world had crumbledt American troops had failed to hold Vietnam,
and the impoverished peoples of many other satellite countries were
rebelling toot Evading Congressional controls, the U.S. administration
continued secret wars against these uprisings, and the burden of outlays
for an enormous arms establishmentcaused a profound Iong~term decline
in the world competitiveness of American civilian industry. A slow drop
in per capita income led to widespread misery, increased tension between
rich and poor, and ended citizen con dence in economic gains;
for a time, wildcat strikes and seizures of plants by workers required
the almost constant mobilization of the National Guard. After the
abortive antipollution efforts of the early seventies, the toll of death
and destruction had resumed its climb. Energy crises had bred
46
ECOTOPIA
economic disruption and price gouging. And chronic Washington
scandals had greatly reduced faith in central government.
All this, one Ecotopian told me, convinced us that if we wished
to survive we had to take matters into our own hands. I pointed
out that this had always been the claim of conspiratorial revolu-
tionaries, who presume to act in the name of the majority, but take
care not to allow the majority to have any real power. Well, he
replied, things were clearly not getting any better so people really
were ready for change. They were literally sick of bad air, chemicah'zed 7
foods, lunatic advertising. They turned to politics because it was nally ,9
the only route to self-preservation.
So, I replied, in order to follow an extremist ecological program,
millions of people were willing to jeopardize their whole welfare, !
economic and social?
_ V Their welfare wasn t doing so well, at that point, he said.
I . Something had 10 be done. And nobody else was doing it. Also he
shrugged, and grinned we were very lucky. This gallows humor,
which reminds me of the Israelis or Viennese, is common in Ecotopia.
Perhaps it helps explain how the whole thing happened.
(May 13) Mysteriously, the Ecotopians do not feel separate from their
technology. They evidently feel a little as the Indians must have felt:
that the horse and the teepee and the bow and arrow all sprang, like
7] the human being, from the womb of nature, organically. Of course the
, Ecotopians work on natural materials far more extensively and com-
' plexly than the Indians worked stone into arrowpoint, or hide into teepee.
But they treat materials in the same spirit of respect, comradeshz'p. The
other day I stopped to watch some carpenters working on a building.
They marked and sawed the wood lovingly (using their own muscle
power, not our saws). Their nail patterns, I noticed, were beautifully
placed, and their rhythm of hammering seemed patient, almost placid.
When they raised woodpieces into place, they held them carefully, tted
them (they make many joints by notching as well as nailing). They
seemed almost to be collaborating with the wood, rather than forcing
it into the shape ofa building. . . .
Got a strange call on the hotelphone last night, from a gru r sounding
man who asked if he and a couple of friends could see me. He had
47
BCOTOPIA
his phone picture switched of to start, but after I said I d be glad
to talk to him, he turned it on. We met at a co eehouse he suggested,
which turned out to have the atmosphere of a men s club: dark wood
panelling, newspapers on racks along the wall, beer, good co ee, pastries.
They started out by saying how pleased they were to hear of my visit,
and that they hoped relations between the two countries would now
begin to improve.
This was news: no Ecotopians I ve met so far have seemed to give
much of a damn about relations with the US. one way or the other.
I began to study my companions more closely. They were evidently
businessmen ofsome kind there is a way in which business people tend
to assume proprietorship which seemed familiar. I began to see who
they probably were: the Opposition!
The gru one introduced us all. Then, rather gingerly, they began
to explain their position: that, while many of the ecological reforms
of the new government were of course necessary and desirable, others
sti ed their spirit of enterprise. The economy, as you have seen by
now, has been going downhill steadily. It s terrible, what we have lost.
Worse, we are on a collision course with the US.
How is that? I asked.
Let s face it. We are a small nation on the periphery of a very
large one. Persisting in this ecological craziness will sooner or later
lead to an armed conflict, and we will be wiped out. We know what
you did to Vietnam, what you re doing now in Brazil. Our atomic mines
might turn out to be a blu . Then it could happen here too.
So what can you do?
We could take a softer line~make a few compromises We re excited
by your coming because it could lead to resumption of normal relations
between the two countries. From that, we could see the exchange of
pilot plants, to show what happens when you let the managers managem
and gradually a growth of economic interdependence. In time, we could
get our economy going again on modern lines.
Isn t the Progressive Party working in that direction?
There was a pause. Yes, but they only put up a token struggle.
They pay lip service to the idea of change, but when it comes to real
changes, they drag their feet. They re really almost as bad as the
Survivalists. We ve just about given up on them.
So what are you going to do? '
48
ECOTOPIA
They shifted uneasily. We have great hopes from your visit, rst
* ofall. We urge you to speak for the idea of normalization of relations,
here and when you get back to Washington. We hope that will get
things moving. But we also want you to know that we are prepared
to ght for our ideas.
I looked at them, startled. T ight?
They looked back, very solemnly, and then must have decided to take
their big chance. We have been led to believe that the US. government
supports clandestine groups in countries with governments thought to
be unfriendly. The time is coming when normal means ofpolitical action
may no longer serve. Ecotopia has to be made to realize that it must
change course. We are ready for anything. But we need help.
You aren t afraid of being taken simply for American agents?
It s a chance we 11 have to take. We would ofcourse ask for materials
that can t be traced to US. sources. It was my turn to pause. You
mean you are asking for explosives, guns? They looked at me awlittle
disappointed. Of course. We will then be in a position to dramatize
, that the present course has unacceptable costs. There is only one way
to do that.
' Well, I said, you must realize I am a journalist, not a C.I.A.
' agent! They smiled politely but skeptically. However, I suppose I
. could pass on what you have told me to people who might be interested.
How much popular support can you demonstrate for your proposed
'- actions?
, You know how people are they go along with what s popular at
the time, even when it s against their own best interests. But dramatic
action will generate immense enthusiasm.
I looked them over. They are not a terribly convincing lot ofprospective.
terrorists but then probably that s the way most any terrorists lookf ;
. A couple of them are over 50, people who in the US. would be members
> of Rotary or country club normal, productive citizenswbut here nd.
themselves mis ts. A couple are young, hot-eyed, resentful, dangerous.
' How they got that way, I have no idea, but they would probably
be against the regime whatever it was or did. So far, I see no signs
they would have any substantial social backing. All the same, I made
notes ofhow they can be found. Coming out of the co eeshop, we could
have been businessmen who had just worked out a division of the
territory. . . .
49
ECOTOPIA
(May 15) Marissa Brz ghtcloud. A self-adopted, Indian inspired name
many Ecotopians use them. Met me at train yesterday, to bring me
to the forest camp where I am to observe lumbering andforestrypractices
for a few days. Assumed at rst she must be some kind of PR or
government person. Later learned she is one ofseven members ofelected
committee that runs camp and tens of thousands of acres of forest.
Strong, warmly physical womanw slender but with solid hips; dark curly
hair, large intense eyes: I d guess at an Italian family background. It
was still damp morning she wore a rough knitted sweater, denim pants,
some kind of hiking or work shoes. Only decoration a light silk scarf
at her neck owery, subtle pattern.
She had arranged bicycles for us. Panic: I haven t been on a bike
in years! Wobbly at rst. She watched me get onto it again with calm
amusement, then we headed out through the station town and into the
woods. She said little, but watched me curiously. Once we stopped on
a hill, at a good view over a tract of forest. She gestured, then put
a hand on my arm, as if awaiting my reaction. Nice forest, but all
I could think of to say was, Beautiful view. She looked at me a
tri e impatiently, as ifwondering what kind ofperson I could be, anyway.
This forest is my home, she said quietly. I feel best when I m
among trees. Open country always seems alien to me. Our chimp
ancestors had the right idea. Among trees you re safe, you can be free.
This with a mysterious smile.
I could think of no reply. She pedaled o . Seemed fastermor was
I just getting tired? Had a little trouble keeping up, thought I concealed
it. Finally we reached the camp.
It s a group of ramshackle buildings in a grove of very large trees.
Old and unpainted, but with a certain sturdy grace, like old summer
camps; arranged erratically around large central mess hall meeting-
room building. 0/7" at one side a barn lled with machinery; beyond
that an open nursery area of many acres, with thousands of tiny trees
sprouting. The whole place foresty-smelling, as ofneedles slowly decom
posing into a springy layer of humus underfoot. Light ltering down
through the great treeswstrange, soft atmosphere made me feel a little
odd, like a dark church.
As we arrived, several dozen people poured out of the buildings 'to
greet us. A visitor is an event for them, evidently. Marissa stood rather
protectively beside me as they came up and surrounded us. Barrage
0f questions what I ve seen so far, where I live in the US, what I
50
ECOTOPIA
1 want to see here, what is my favorite tree (all I could think of was
Christmas tree botany was not a good subject for me but it got
appreciative laughs). Wisecracks about how I don t look like much of
a lumberjack. Suddenly realized that about half the group are women.
Assumed at the time they must deal chie y with the nursery and the
planting ofyoung trees; later learned they also cut trees, operate tractors,
and drive big diesels.
Before we show him our work, our guest must have his bath, Marissa
declared with a smile. Led me away for the ceremonial bath with which
Ecotopians greet people who come to stay with them even i like me,
they ve only been an hour on the way. More talkative now. She has
lived in this camp for several years, but has an occasional month in
the citywpart vacation and part a change-of pace assignment, evidently.
Obviously very hard working person. At the same time lively and female,
rather mischievous about the members of the camp crew who are city
people doing their forest service. Beforepeople can buy a large quantity
of lumber (for instance to build a house) they are obliged to put in
a period ofsome months oflabor in a forest camp planting trees, caring
for the forest lands, and supposedly setting in motion the new growth
that will one day replace the wood they are buying. (Poetic but foolish
notion~th0ugh it may make people have a better attitude toward lumber
resources.)
She wanted to know whether I had a family, who made up my
. =household (seemed surprised that I didn 1 even live with wife and children,
much less grandparents, cousins, friends, colleagues, but in my own place,
'30 miles away, all by myself: though I spend a good deal of time with
another woman). Asked what my pleasures were~a question I found
hard to answer frankly, but I tried, and her curiosity made it seem
easier. First a sense of power of reaching out to people, to masses 5
ofthem and to key people who can act through my work. Then feelings 1
of craftsmanship in my writing, of intelligence, of knowing I have the 3
background and the originality to grasp strange events and put them
into perspective. And love of luxury, or at least ne things: eating in
the best restaurants, wearing the best clothes, being seen with the best
people. Marissa interrupted ieasingly, Is your woman friend one of
the best people?
Well, in a way. Or rather, the best people like her a great deal,
. even though she is not really one of them.
The bath house is a couple of hundred yards off in the woods. By
51
ECOTOPIA
the time we got there the conversation had taken an oddly personal
turn. You haven t mentioned pleasures between yourself and other
people, men or women. Don t you have friends, don t you like to love
people? Well, ofcourse! I replied, feeling taken o guard. She opened
the door to the bath house, and led me into the dark interior, holding
my hand. Turned on the bath water tap, threw some more wood on
the heating re, gave me a warm, wry smile, came nearer, put a hand
on my shoulder. Do you want to make love with me? ,
I have been feeling frustrated the last few days, but her assertiveness
unnerved me a moment. She s not at all submissive or attentive. She
just wanted to get close to me, to play, and to make love. I gured
this will happen after the bath, but found myself pushed down onto
the wood oor of the bath house. Jesus, I said to mysel this woman
is stronger than I am!
But I mustered my forces, rolled her over. We were both instantly
very excited. She giggled at the rapid fumbling we did with our clothes.
We got enough of them of to manage wshe looking at me intensely
now, no more smiles. Her legs are muscular; as I went into her She
wrapped them tightly around me. It was hard and brief and sweaty,-
her sexual odors are powerful. I lost consciousness of the hard oor
beneath, and of the hot water steadily running into the huge round
tub. Afterward she laughed and disengaged herself. That was nice,
she said; I guessed you wouldn t mind some contact, when I met you
at the train. She looked at me curiously. Did you think of making
a move when I stopped to show you the forest? I know a nice spot
there, and I thoughtm
I guess I still felt like too much of a guest to focus on anything
like that.
Well, I thought of it. I liked you, you re a serious person, even
if you re not a great bicycler! You just seemed sowdistraught or
something. Anyway, we don t make that much of a distinction about
guests. You re expected to join into everything. We ll have you at work
tomorrow. Now I 11 show you how we wash.
We scrubbed each other with an odd shaped sponge, using a dishpan
to scoop water from the tub. (There seems to be no shower.) Then we
climbed in to soak, Marissa smiling contentedly. Seemed to me a
ravishing presence in a way I have never before encozmtered. Not exactly
beautiful, at least by my usual standards. But sometimes, when she looks
52
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t= me, my hair stands up as if I m confronting a creature who s wild
dhd incomprehensible, animal and human at once. Eyes dark brown,
hard to fathom. She was a little rough as we splashed around in the
water bit me, jumped away. Finally realized she wanted me to stop
, being gentle with her Kept relapsing into a kind of silly tenderness.
she d bring me out ofit with a push or a bite
This got very exciting. Eyes shining, she leap! out of tub and ran
out the door dripping I looked after her, surprised. She jumped back
in door, did a comic but enticing little dance, out the door, laughing,
in again and never saying a word. I sprang out and after her, down
a forest path. She s damn fast and also good at dodging around trees.
We got into deeper forest. Suddenly, ducking around a particularly huge
redwood tree, she disappeared into a hollow at its base. Springing in
after her, I found myself in some kind of shrine. She was lying there
' on a bed of needles, raking deep, gasping breaths Dimly visible
suspended on the charred inside of the tree, were charms and pendants
made of bone and teeth andfeathers gleaming polished stones It was
,,,as if] was being sucked into the tree, into some powerful spirit, and
I fell on her as if] were falling freely through the soft air from a
great height, through darkness, my reportorial self oating away.
. We must have made love for hours. Cannot describe. Will not.
Vv';Finally we got up and returned to bath house, Marissa pausing as
we left the tree, mumbling something I couldn t catch. Dawned on me
that it was a prayer of some kind, and that this incredible woman is
. a goddamn druid or something-a tree-worshz pper!
My feet hardly touched the ground as we went back to camp. When
1W? got there everyone was in mess hall having lunch. Noisy, cheerful
seene, big long tables. People smiled at us, made room. (Couple of
5 women didn t smile but looked me over appraisingly, or so it seemed.
Are they all like Marissa, I wonder?)
Later in day, talking with one of the men, learned that Marissa has
a: reputation for being one of the most respansible and hardworking
people on the executive committee. Dz icult for me to focus on that
side of her personality, even though I saw her operating in that role
later in the afternoon. It turns out she has a regular lover in the camp.
But has somehow arranged it so she can be with me during my stay.
Lover is blond, shy, blushes a lot about other things but doesn t seem
53
ECOTOPIA
at all jealous about his woman having made love with me. Evidently
there are other women he can console himself with! Wasn t sure till
nightfall who would sleep with whom. But she came to the little cabin
I m assigned to, quite unanxious about the whole situation.
What we do sexually is di erent from anything that has ever happened
to me. Now that the beginning is over, we are utterly relaxed. We hug,
we wrestle, we lie absolutely quietly looking at each other, we touch
each other with feathety touches that are sometimes erotic and sometimes
not. There seems to be no agenda: I feel no compulsion to fuck her,
though she is enormously desirable to me. She never says in words whether
anything pleases her or not. It s as if the whole American psychodrama
E of mutual suspicion between the sexes, demands and counterdemands
and our desperate working at sex like a problem to be solved, has left
my head. Everything comes from our feelings. Sometimes there is
excitement in a mere look. Sometimes we get to almost terrifying orgiastic
climaxes. But one doesn t really seem more important than the other.
In any case, what happens between us is so extraordinary that I find
myself utterly unconcerned with her regular lover, or what she might
do with him.
Only one thing I don t like: she won t let me use my mouth on her
breasts. You re not a baby, she said, and pushed me away, moving
my hand onto one of them instead: they are rm, t my hand perfectly,
very sensitive to arousal. Have you had any children? I asked. Not
yet, she said, but I will soon. With Everett? Oh, no! We re just
good friends fucking partners, not mates. How will you nd your
mate? She shrugged: What a question! Don t you know?
i' I thought about Pat. I believed I knew, once, but we turned out
E to be just well, living partners. We had two children, but then we broke
up. That must be terribly hard for the children, in your country?
It s bad enough here, where children have many others besides their
parents to love them. Yes, it is. If I was doing it again I wouldn t
leave. She looked at mew] thought approvingty~ in the dim light that
ltered through the forest canopy and into the cabin. Then she gave
me a hug, and turned over to go to sleep.
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ECOTOPIA S BIG WOODS
gealdSburg May 17 Wood is a major factor in the topsy~turvy
Ecotopian economy, as the source not only of lumber and paper but
$15001" some of the remarkableplastlcs that Ecotoplan selentists have
deVeleped- Ecotopians 1n the City and country alike take a deep and
lasting interest in wood. They loveto sinell 1t, feel it, carve it, polish
it. Inquiries about why they p'ersmt 1n usmg such an outdated material
(which of course has been entirely Obsoleted by aluminum and plastics
in the United States) receive heated replies. To ensure a stable
long-term supply of wood, the Ecotopians early reforested enormous
areas that had been cut over by logging companies before Indepenn
dencet They also planted trees on many hundreds of thousands of
acres that had once been cleared for orchards or elds, but had gone
wild or lay unused because of the exodus of people from the country
'nto the cities.
1 have now been able to visit one of the forest camps that carry
out lumbering and tree-planting, and have observed how far the
Ecotopians carry their love of trees. They do no clear-eutting at all,
and their forests contain not only mixed ages but also mixed species
\ Of ces. They argue that the costs of mature-tree cutting are actually
V less, per board foot than clear cuttingibut that even if they weren t,
it Would still be desirable because of less insect damage, less erosion,
d more rapid growth of timber. But such arguments are probably
nly a sophisticated rationale for attitudes that can almost be called
tree'worshipwand I would not be surprised, as I probe further into
Ecotopian life, to discover practices that would strengthen this hypoth-
esis. (I have seen erce-looking totem poles outside dwellings, for
instance.)
Certainly the Ecotopian lumber industry has one practice that must
seem barbarian to its customers: the unlucky person or group wishing
to build a timber structure must rst arrange to go out to a forest
camp and do forest service -a period of labor during which,
according to the theory, they are supposed to contribute enough to
the growth ofnew trees to replace the wood they are about to consume.
This system must be enormously wasteful in terms of economic
inef ciency and disruption, but that seems to disturb the Ecotopians
at least those who live in and run the lumber campsinot a bit.
55
ECOTOPIA
The actual harvesting of timber is conducted with surprising e i
ciency, considering the general Iaxness ofEcotopian work habits. There
is much goo ng off in the forest camps, but when a crew is at work
they work faster and more cooperatively than any workmen I haVe
ever seen. They cut trees and trim them with a strange, almost religious
respect: showing the emotional intensity and care we might use in
preparing a ballet.
I was told that in rougher country ox-teams and even horses are '
used in lumbering, just as they were in Gokd Rush times. And in
many areas a tethered balloon and cables hoist the cut trees and
catty them to nearby logging roads. But in the camp I Visited (which
may be a Showplace) the basic machine is a large electric tractor
with four huge rubber tires. These are said to tear up the forest oor
even less than oxen, which have to drag timber out on some kind ,
of sled. Though heavy, these tractors are surprisingly maneuverable
since both front and rear wheels steer. They have a protected operator s
cabin amidship; on one end there is a prehensiie extension bearing
a chain saw large enough to cut through all but the hugest trees, '
and mounted so it can cut them oh" only a few inches above ground
level. (This is of course pleasant aesthetically, but it is also claimed
that it saves some millions of board feet of lumber each year, and
helps in management of the forest oor.) This saw can also cut trees .
into Ioadable lengths.
On the other end of the tractor is a huge claw device that can
pick up a log, twirl it around lengthwise over the tractor, and carry
it to the logging road where big diesel trucks wait to be loaded.
Ecotopian foresters claim that this machinery enables them to log
safely even in dry weather, since there are no exhausts likely to set
re to undergrowth. It does seem to be true that their methods disturb
the forest very little it continues to look natural and attractive.
Several types of trees usually grow in stands together, which is
supposed to encourage wildlife and cut the chances of disastrous insect '
and fungi invasions. Curiously, a few dead trees are left standing as
homes for insect gobbling woodpeckersl and there are occasional
forest meadows to provide habitats for deer and other animals. The ,
older trees seed young ones naturally, so the foresters generally now
only do arti cial planting in areas they are trying to reforest. The
dense forest canopy keeps the forest oor cool and moist, and pleasant
56
ECOTOPIA
to: walk in. Although it rained for a few hours during my stay, I
noticed that the stream passing near the camp did. not become
, muddy,cvidently it is true, as they claim,_ that Ecotopxan lumbering
ileaVeS the topso intact, cuts down eroswn, and preserves sh. (I
didn t actually see any sh but then I am the kind of person who
: seldom sees sh anywhere.)
The lumber camps themselves do not have sawmilis, though they
055655 portable devices with Which they can saw rough boards in
small quantities for their own needs. The main squaring and sawing
_ of timber, and the production of slabs for pulp, takes place at mills
located in more open country, which buy logs from the forest camps.
The resulting boards are then sold, almost entirely in the county-sized
area just around the mill. Lumber sales are solely domestic; Ecotopia
'1 ceased lumber export immediately after Independence. It is claimed
that, since the US. formerly exported half as much lumber as was
sad in housing, much of it from the West, sorne surplus actually
existed from the beginning of the new nation. Ecotopian foresters
aI'gue that their policies have, since then, more than doubled their
_'er eapita resources of timber. There are, however, no present plans
0: a resumption ofexport.
{Interestingly enough, the Ecotopians themselves have a debate
mprogress about the huge diesel trucks they use to haul logs. Several
. forest workers apologized to me that they are still dependent on these
bisy, smelly, hulking diesels. Yet there are people all over them at
the end of the work day, shining them up one of the few outlets
still allowed in this carless society for man s love of powerful machin
ery. One truck I saw has lost its bumper, and the replacement is
3., large, sturdy piece of wood. As they wear out, the trucks will be
eliminated in favor of electric vehicles. Meanwhile, people argue hotly
over the bumpers extremist ideologues saying that the bumpers
(Which are actually stainless steel, not chrome plate) should all be
replaced with wood, and the traditionalists maintaining that the trucks
should be treated as museum relics and kept in original condition.
The factions seem about equally matched, which means that the
'traditionalists have won so far s'mce a change on such a drastic
matter is only carried out if there is a virtual consensus.
Our economists would surely nd the Ecotopian lumber industry
?a labyrinth of contradictions. An observer like myself can come only
57
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ECOTOPIA
to general conclusions. Certainly Ecotopians regard trees as being
alive in almost a human sense once I saw a quite ordinary-looking _.
young man, not visibly drugged, lean against a large oak and mutter
Brother Tree! And equally certainly, lumber in Ecotopia is cheap
and plentiful, whatever the unorthodox means used to produce it.
Wood therefore takes the place that aluminum, bituminous facings,
and many other modern materials occupy with us.
An important by-product of the Ecotopian forestry policies is that
extensive areas, too steep 0r rugged to be lumbered without causing
erosion, have been assigned wilderness status. There all logging and
re roads have been eradicated. Such areas are now used only fer
camping and as wildlife preserves, and a higher risk of forest re
is apparently accepted. It is interesting, by the way, that such Ecotopian
forests are uncannily quiet compared to ours, since they have no
trail-bikes, all-terrain vehicles, airplanes overhead, nor snowmobiles
in the winter. Nor can you get around in them rapidly, since foot
trails are the only way to get anywhere.
Has Ecotopian livestock or agricultural production suffered because
ofthe conversion ofso much land to forest? Apparently not; vegetables,
grains and meat are reasonably cheap, and beef cattle are common
features of the landscape, though they are never concentrated in
forced feeding fattening lots, Thus an almost dead occupation, that
of cowboy, has come back. And cattle ranches in the Sierra foothills
have reverted to the old summer practice of driving their stock up .
to the high valleys where they pasture on wet mountain meadow
grass. Grasslands research is said to be leading to the sowing of more
native strains, which are better adapted to the climate and resist the
incursion 0f thistles. Pasture irrigation is practiced only in a few areas,
and only for milking herds.
But the true love of the Ecotopians is their forests, which they'
tend with so much care and manage in the prescribed stable state ,
manner. There they can claim much success in their campaign to
return nature to a natural condition.
(May 18) Marissa says I am squeamish about violence. Makes fun
of American war technology, claims we had to develop it because we
58
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can no longer bear just to bayonet a man ~have to spend $50,000 to
avoid guilt, by zapping him om the stratosphere. This because last
night I expressed dismay at the ritual war games. Listen, you ll love
it, she said gaily, you re just ripe for it! With this, a ash of teeth:
she can still scare me a little, sometimes is very aware ofher strengthw
pIain animal strength. And then great peals of laughter. Phoned to
arrange to take me to a war games session not far north of here, which
some friends ofhers will beparticipating in. Her eyes shone with mischief
as she set it all up. Before she even hung up the picturephone we were
all over each other again. Giggling uncontrollably.
She nds my dubious confrontations with Ecotopian manners and
morals endearingly comic. I am childishly wasteful in her eyes. This
morning I had written a few sentences on a page, got disgusted: and
tossed it away. She picked it up, frowned. You ve only used a little
part of this one. Well, it didn t go right, so I wanted a fresh start.
Why can 1 you makeyourfresh startfurther down?1t syou that s making
the start, not the poor paper! Think of the tree it came from. I tore
the sheet up and threw it at her. . . . 0n the other hand, if I lapse into
inattention or mere American businesslikeness, she gets furious and
accuses me of being detached and inhuman. But sometimes, if] am
just lying quietly or thinking or writing, she looks at me as if I am
not. ludicrously un-Eeotopian but merely a fellow human being. It is
at such times, I notice, that we have had our tenderest love-making.
»I got up early next morning, to take train back to city and work
oh my next story. We bicycled together to the station. When the train
warning bell rang I felt surprisingly bereft and blurted out, Marissa,
come with me. She hugged me hard and said, I want to, but I can 2.
I ll come tomorrow though. About sundown. The train swept in, its
air blast pushing us back. I got in and we stared at each other through
the big windows until the train pulled away. Her grave, intense expression
is still in my mind as I sit trying to nish my report on Ecotopian
population policy. Tomorrow night she ll be here, in my room. . . .
It feels good to be back at the Cove. I m beginning to know the
people here, andfeel accepted as a colleague and a person, despite being
an American. Bert is formidably generous, like most Ecotopians, really
brotherly but without the competitiveness that can be mixed with.
Spends much time cluing me in on things here, introduces me to key
people, lends me shirts, gave me a pen that I admired. Maybe it is
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their economy of biological abundance that gives them this generosity?
He has been reading my dispatches, jokes about putting an expose
in the Times titled Weston s Progress, but thinks I am trying seriously
to overcome my jprejudices. He nds the lumber story the best yet, '
says teasingly that Marissa must have inspired me a little. (I have told .
him about our encounter, though not in any detail.) Also likes the story
on Alviso. But the sports story was terrible. You d better keep away '
from that kind of thing. #Are you really going to try to handle the
ritual war games? I told him that Marissa had already arranged far
me to see one, in a couple of days. He looked at me uncertainly. I
hope it goes all right, he said. It s about the trickiest story you ll
face here, I imagine. I might be able to help a little on it, ifyou want, '
I d be glad to look over the draft, give you a little background maybe. ,
Sure you can see it, I replied, but I 11 write it the way I write
it.
We shook hands on that, Ecotopian fashion.
(Later) Unpleasant night visit om the Ecotopian counterwintelligence,
who have somehow heard about my encounter with the underground. ~-
(Or have I been tailed?) Of course, they said, you are perfectly free
to talk with anyone at all while you are in Ecotopia. But you shouldn t :
think we are naive about your government s clandestine operations. It
would be wise ofyou to forget to deliver that message in Washington. Lw
g
And if I don t forget? It will just make more trouble for your 1
friends here. They re not my friends. Then why transmit their
message? I don t like being intimidated.
They smiled. A little country like ours intimidating a big one like
yours? Don t be absurd. There was a pause. I wondered how much
they knew of what I had said. Weston, you are not a fool. We also
know you are not a spy. But would you expect somebody who acts
like a spy to be received in the President s o ce?
Okay, I replied. You ve made your point. No message.
A sweaty experiencewl ll have to watch my step. These Ecotopians.
are not so easy going as they look. And to tell the truth it relieves
my mind didn t much like those people. I ve burned the list of names
and contact points.
60
ECOTOPIA
DECLINE WITHOUT FALL? THE
:EcoTOPIAN POPULATION CHALLENGE
, San Francisco, May 20. Ecotopia s population is slowly declining, and
. has done so for almost 15 years. This startling factw which by itself
would set Ecotopia apart from the US. and all other nations except
Japan;has led to speculation that rampant abortion and even perhaps
infanticide may be practiced here. However, I have now investigated
suf ciently to report that Ecotopia s decline in population has been
achieved through humane measures.
_ We tend to forget that even before Independence the rate of
population growth in the area that became Ecotopia had slowed, as
it had in most of the rest of the US. This was due, according to
: American demographers, partly to the persistent in ation-recession,
partly to the relaxation of abortion laws, and perhaps most of all
- to increased recognition that additional children, in a highly advanced
mdustrial society, could be more of a burden than an advantage to
d. : a'family~the reverse of the situation in agricultural or less advanced
ee acieties. In addition, the horrible Green Revolution famines, in
1 : whichtens of millions perished in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and
It : Egypt, had provided new and grim lessons in the dangers of overpopu-
z. ation.
ur After secession, the Ecotopians adopted a formal national goal of
air al'declim'ng population though only after long and bitter debate. It
was widely agreed that some decline was needed, to lessen pressure
ke \ oh resources and other species and to improve the comfort and amenity
ch " of life. But opinions di ered widely on exactly how a decline could
v50 . be achieved, and how far it should go. Deep fears ofnational extinction
315 ' gave heavy ammunition against advocates of population decline, and
__ economists warned of scal dislocations.
Finally, a three-stage program was adopted. The rst stage, begun
ms unmediately, was a massive educational and medical campaign aimed
m J at providing absolutely all women with knowledge of the various
m l biIth-control devices. Abortion upon demand was legalized; its cost
gsoon became very low, and it was practiced in local clinics as well
as hospitals. As far as statistics could reveal in such a short period,
this program reduced the number of births to a few tenths of a percent
ECOTOPIA
beiow the number of deaths alrnost enough to counterbalance the
still growing longevity. (Ironicaliy, an unusual number of pregnancies
were initiated during the exciting months when Independence was
achieved!)
The second stage, more gradual in effect, was linked to the radical
decentralization of the country s economic life, and was thus more '
political in nature. During this period the Ecotopians largely disman-
tled their national tax and spending system, and local communities
regained control over all basic life systems. This enabled people to
de berately think about how they now wished to arrange their
collective lives, and what this meant for population levels and distribu-
tion. With better conditions in the countryside, the great concentrations
of people in San Francisco, Oakland, Portland,, Seattle, and even the
smaller metropolitan areas began to disperse somewhat. New minici~
ties grew up in favorable locations, with their own linkage necklaces
0ftransit1ines: Napa, on its winding, Seine-like river, at last pollution '
free; Carquirtez~Martinez, stretching out along rolling hills dropping
down to the Strait; and others throughout the country. Some old 7
city residential areas were abandoned and razed, and the land turned
into parks or reforested. Some rural towns, like Placerville, Which
had been in the 10-20,000 people range, gained sate ite minicities
that would in a decade bring them to a total of 40-50,000~whieh
was felt to be about ideal for an urban constellation.
Decentralization a ected every aspect of life. Medical services were
dispersed; the claim is that instead of massive hospitals in the city
centers, beseiged by huge lines of waiting patients, there were small
hospitals and clinics everywhere, and a neighborhood-oriented system
of medicai aides. Schools were broken up and organized on a novel
teacher controlled basis. Agricultural, shery, and forestry enterprises
were also reorganized and decentralized. Large factory-farms were
broken up through a strict enforcement of irrigation acreage regula-
tions which had been ignored before Independence, and commune
and extended-famiiy farms were encouraged.
All these changes, according to my informants, meant notable
readjustments in problems of crowding, and the predictions of some V
anti decline arguments were indeed borne out: there didn t seem to
be as many too many people as before!
62
ECOTOPIA
*' Thus, the pressures for further population control measures waned.
Nonetheless, some ten years ago the statistics showed that population
had indeed taken its rst actual drop by about 17,000 people for
Ecotopia as a whole. This fact was not greeted by the hysteria that
had been widely predicted, and people probably took grim satisfaction
from the news that American society, with its widely publicized
overpopulation, had grown by another three million during the same
period.
The third stage, if we can call it that, was one of watchful waiting,
which has continued to the present. Abortion costs have fallen further,
and the number per year has stabilized. The use of contraceptive
devices now seems universal. (They are all, incidentally, female-con
trolled; there is no male pill here.) Population has tended to drop
I gently at a rate of around 65,000 per year, so that the original Ecotopian
Population of some 15 million has now declined to about 14 million.
it is argued by some extremists that the declining population provides
,a substantial annual surpius per capita and helps account for the
vitality of Ecotopian economic life. Though the decline undoubtedly
;i uences the con dent political and economic atmosphere, I remain
liskeptical of direct e ects the decline, after all, is only 3% per year.
What will happen to Ecotopian population levels in the future?
:Most people here foresee a continued slow decline. They consider
' that a more rapid drop might endanger the nation, making it more
Vulnerable to attack by the United States which is still wider feared
to be desirous of recapturing its lost territories. On the other hand,
seine people hope that American population will itself soon begin
to declinew and if that happens, many Ecotopians are prepared to
accept an inde nite drop in their own numbers. In fact, some radical
Survivah'st Paity thinkers beiieve that a proper population size would
be the number of Indians who inhabited the tem tory before the
Spaniards and Americans came something less than a million for
the whole country, living entirely in thinly scattered bands! Most
Ecotopians, however, contend that the problem is no longer numbers
as such. They place their faith for improvement of living conditions
in the further reorganization of their cities into constellations of
minjcities, and in a continued dispersion into the countryside. In
connection with this, the radicals are currently mounting a campaign
to make train travel entirely free: this, they argue, could make country
63
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ECOTOPIA
living more agreeable to people who nd city pleasures and facilities .
important, since they could then visit the cities virtually whenever
they wished.
Americans are, of course, accustomed to believe that only economic
and population growth can lead to improvement in life. The Ecotopian
experiments, whatever their apparent achievements, have a long way
to go in order to change this basic conviction. Ecotopian circumstances
have been, after all, unusually favorable compared to those in the
rest of the U.S.; the Ecotopians special advantages in fertile agricul.
tural land, a backlog of buildings suitable for housing, and a more
self-reliant Western tradition, have all led them to focus on surpluses,
not shortages~which they have encountered (or perhaps brought
about) only in energy and metals.
Americans would nd Ecotopian population policies alarming in
that, along with Ecotopia s decline in population, the nuclear family
as we know it is rapidly disappearing. Ecotopians still speak of
families, but they mean by that term a group of between ve and
20 people, some of them actually related and some not, who live
together. In many such families not only eating and household duties
' are shared, but also the raising of children in which men and women
seem to participate equally as far as time spent is concerned, but
within a strange power context. Ecotopian life is strikingly equalitarian
in general~women hold responsible jobs, receive equal pay, and of:
course they also control the Survivalist Party. The fact that they also '
exercise absolute control over their own bodies means that they openly
exert a power which in other societies is covert or nonexistent: the
right to select the fathers of their children. No Ecotopian woman
ever bears a child by a man she has not freely chosen, I was told
sternly. And in the nurturing of children while they are under two, '
women continue this dominance; men participate extensively in
the care and upbringing of the very young, but in cases of con ict
the mothers have the nal say, and mince no words about it. The
fathers, odd though it appears to me, acquiesce in this situation as
if it was perfectly natural; they evidently feel that their time of greater
in uence on the young will come later, and that that is the way it,
should be.
It s di icult for an outsider to determine the bonds that hold the
communal groups together, but children may be a key factor, though
64
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economic necessity clearly plays an important part also. In one such
family I visited, I was reminded of the earlier American practice of
having godparentsw-related or unrelated persons who assume a certain
responsibility for children, take a special interest in them, and help
to enrich their lives or give them a refuge from their parents!
Ecotopian children normally live surrounded by informal godpar-
ants, and a cheen'er bunch of kids I have never seen. A willingness
to help nuIture children may well be the crucial quali cation for
membership in one of these families. But there are also families
with no children at all. These have an entirely different atmosphere,
tend to be larger, and are evidently more transient. Some are profes-
sionally oriented journalist groups, musicians, scientists, craftspeople,
01- People concerned with an enterprise like a school or factory. Their
members are mostly younger, whereas the families with children have
members who span a wide range of ages. (It is rare for Ecotopian
old people to live alone, as so many of ours do; they mostly live
in the families, where they play an important role in child care and
eariy education.)
Americans are familiar with rumors ofsexuai depravity in Ecotopia,
but I must report that the sexual practices of these families seem
about as stable as ours. Generally there are more or less permanent
heterosexual couples involved though both male and female homo-
sexual couples also exist, and I gather that same-sex relationships E
pose less ofa problem psychologically than they do with us. Monogamy
is not an o icially proclaimed value, but the couples are generally
monogamous (except for four holidays each year, at the solstices and i
equinoxes, When sexual promiscuity is widespread.) Single members
of the families often take up with lovers from outside, and sometimes
this results in the addition or subtraction of a family member. There
seems to be a continual slow shifting of membership, probably
something like What must have happened with our extended families
a few generations back.
I have made extensive inquiries about Ecotopian attitudes on the
kind of eugenic population planning which has been discussed so
passiOHately in the U.S. either the aiding of natural selection by
deliberate breeding, or farther-out possibilities such as cloning,
whereby actual genetic duplicates of superior individuals might be
produced, or even modi cation of gene structures to produce a race
65
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135inxx
éxwmzsazsgk
}:
ECOTOPIA
0f superman. However, no Ecotopian scientist or citizen has been
willing to discuss such matters, which they View with great distaste.
Nor, when I have ventured the hypothesis that man may be only
a missing link between the apes and a later, superior humanity,
have Iobtained any response except condescending incredulity. Their
reluctance to enter into such speculations may show the extent to
which Ecotopians have blinded themselves to the exciting possibiiities
offered by modern scienti c advances. But it also shows that they
are more willing than we to live With the biological constitutions we
{ now possess.
(May 2]) Everybody suddenly glueH to TV sets. Ecotopian monitor
systems, which seem to be extremely sophisticated for both nuclear and '
general pollution, have detected a sudden increase in the radiation level 5
ofair blowing in from the Paci c. Cause still unknown. Much specula-
tion, on the streets and in media: Chinese nuclear blast gone out of
control? Accident in a Japanese ssion plant? Con ict 0n the Chinese~
Russian border? Nuclear submarine accident o shore? People anxious, ,
depressed, angry. They turn in a crisis to the TV; which they watch '-
z'n tense groups, but not in the passive, dependent fashion ofAmericans .
they actually shout at it, and the switchboards are ooded with picture-
phone callers. Vera Allwen and her foreign minister were obliged to:
appear within an hour and on the defensive, answering angry citizens ,
who put pointed, di icult questions about why their government can t >
do anything. (A lso hotheads who think commando teams should be sent
to disable plants in Japan, China, Siberia which emit wastes into air I,
or sea!) Allwen says she is preparing a sti protest to whoever turns
out to be responsible. Meanwhile Ecotopian ships and agents are on
a crash program to locate the pollution source. So far dead silence
from the US. wire services, which are received in Vancouver and relayed
here, though our satellite reconnaissance must have spotted what hap- '
pened.
There is a widespread tendency to blame technological disasters on
Americans, so I haven t been made to feel terribly welcome in the last ?
few hours. Groups I have been with, watching Allwen and other national _
politicos, seem to think the Ecotopian government is too tolerant of V
66
ECOTOPIA
ollution coming in from outside. Talk about reparations 0n TV ap-
arentl) some internationalpollution- ne system is really beingproposed.
The Japanese will love that.
Have been watching all this mostly from Franklin s Cove, where I
moved today, at their invitation (and urged by Marissa, who doesn t
like hotels at all). You re a journalist, aren t you? they said; Well
then, you ought to live with us! A welcome thought, and I guess I
can nd the time for their cooking and cleaning work crews. My little
room s on the top oor; dormer window looks out toward Alcatraz a
green hump looming out of the Bay, with its cheerful orange lighthouse
tower. Hard to believe such a peaceful grassy island once housed our
worst desperadoes, and was covered with concrete and steel.
(Later) Have found the work crew experience a little unnerving. First
time Ifoined one it was for after dinner clean-up. Ipitched in, American-
style, scurrying around carrying dishes to the sink area. After a few
moments I realized people had stopped their general chatter and were
staring at me. .My God, Will, said Lorna, whatever are you doing,
' running a race? Everybody else laughed.
I blushed, or felt like it. What do you mean? Well, you re hauling
dishes like you were being paid by the dish. Very un Ecotopian! I
looked around, suddenly conscious that everyone else had been working
very leisurely by comparison: Lorna and Brit had developed a sort of
game in which they took turns washing and giving each other little
back rubs. Bert was meanwhile telling about a funny encounter he had
had that day with a reader who threatened to beat him up. And Red
was drinking beer and not doing much of anything; occasionally, when
his attention fell on a dirty pot or something, he would bring it over
to the sink.
Don t you want to get it done with? I replied defensively. When
I have a job to do 1 like to get it over with. What s wrong with a
little e iciency? A little goes a long way, Will, Lorna said. Our
point of view is that if something s worth doing, it ought to be done
in a way that s enjoyable otherwise it can t really be worth doing.
Then how does anything get done? I asked, exasperatedly. You
don t mean to tell me washing dishes is exactly fun? It is the way
we do it, said Bert. Almost anything can be, if you keep your eye
on the process and not on the goal.
67
ECOTOPIA
Okay, I said. I ll try it. So I goofed off in the Ecotopian
manner drank a little beer, tossed some knives and forks into the Sink,
told a joke I d heard that day, then wiped a few tables. But it was
hard to keep my pace down, and harder still to keep in good touch
with the other people I d focus on the task, and blot them out. But
they noticed this, and invented a game around it. Hey Will! they d
yell, we re here! And somebody would tickle me, or give me a pat.
They ll retrain me yet.
(May 23) Marissa s got positively hypnotic powers: when she s here
I lose track oftime, obligations, my American preconceptions. She exists
in a contagious state of immediate consciousness. Somewhere far back
in her head must be the forest camp, her responsibilities there, her plans
to return tomorrow. But she seems to be able to turn them absolutely
of and just be. She seems capable of anything she s the freest and
least anxious person I ve ever known. To the extent I can get in on
this, I begin to feel high and a little strange, as if I was on some kind
ofdrug. I keep thinking she is like a wild animal: ofcourse she responds
to the in uences and constraints of the other animals around (me
included) but these are not inside her head, somehow. She s highly
unpredictable, moody, changeable, yet wherever she is, she s always right
there, with me or whoever it is. (I don t know how to deal with the
jealousy I feel when she turns her attention, like a beautiful searchlight
beam, on somebody else. But I bear it.)
Not that we lie around in bed all the time have actually been fairly
busy, wandering around to visit people she knows, taking expeditions
so she can show me her favorite San Francisco places, eating at peculiar
little restaurants, laughing, sometimes just sitting and watching people
or birds or even trees. She has special trees all over the place, and
they re really important to her. (Thinks I should write a column on
the trees of Ecotopia!) She studies their characters, revisits them to
see how they ve grown and changed, likes to climb in some of them
(she s agile and sure-footed), is immensely happy if they re thriving and
cast down if they re not. Even talks to them or rather matters, since
she knows I think it s kind of crazy.
I realize I am growing terribly attached to her. What seemed at the
beginning like a Iark, the usual brief liaison of a travelling man, has
68
ECOTOPIA
, quickly gotten terribly serious. Marissa is clearly a powerful and
remarkable person: sees through my bullshit, but sees something valuable
under it. By comparison I look back at Pat as almost an artt cial
' person, vapid and rigid and horribly, horribly controlled. Even Francine,
my beloved nutty Francine, with whom I ve had such giggles and
pleasures, begins to seem lightweight. With Marissa I get into feelings
I never knew were there: a deep, overwhelming, scary sharing of our
whole beings, as well as our bodies. There s no denying it we re beginning
to love each other. And despite her free ways, and her still living with
Everett at the camp, she has some erce possessive streak for me gets
angry whenever my return comes up.
Went sailing on the Bay yesterday, with a couple of people from
the Cave. Marissa invited her brother Ben. Older brother; turns out
to be surly and viciously antiuAmerican. As soon as we had pushed
, off he came right at me with arguments and charges. I tried to parry
politely but it didn t help. It s early in the season and the wind doesn t
come up strongly yet, so we veered around trying to set the sails for
a while. Then everybody lay down on the foredeck, getting some sun
, ' and watching the water go by. I went aft to sit with Ben, and offered
' to take the tiller. He scowled and said abruptly, in a low voice, What
f the hell are you messing around with my sister for? Goddamn Americans
can t keep their hands of anything! I answered mildly, We like each
other what s wrong with that? You know what s wrong with it, you
stupid bastardw you re really getting to her, and then you re going to
' ' take ojf I ve never concealed my intentions from anybody, Ben. He
_, looked at me. I ought to just push you overboard, and not turn back!
He made a sudden movement with his hands. I grabbed the rail, thinking
.he might really try something. He grinned wickedly. You creep! I
said. What do you mean, trying to run your sister s life? Making threats?
Think you re the Ma a or something? At this the others, hearing us,
sat up and came back aft. Ben and I exchanged mean looks. We
were just having a little argument, he said. I got up and sat beside
Marissa on the other side of the cockpit. She looked at me, then at
Ben. I 1] tell you about it later, I said. So will I, Ben shot back.
We sailed on, over to an abandoned whaling station on the east side
of the Bay, and put in there for a while. It s a museum now, with
chilling exhibits about whaling and the extinction ofmammals generally.
69
ECOTOPIA
Ben lost no chance to point out how Americans and their technology
had been in the forefront of this tragic and irreversible process. And
indeed I hadn t realized how far it has gone: it is a horrible story.
Our role in it was heavy, and thousands of marvelous creatures that
once inhabited this earth have now vanished from the universe forever.
We have gobbled them up in our relentless increase. There are now
40 times more weight ofhumans 0n the earth than ofall the wild mammals
together!
Marissa mostly stared at the displays of whale life (Ecotopians have
incredible wildlife photographersw they must literally live with the species
they are lmingAthough as far as I can tell Ecotopians don t take
ordinary snapshots of our quick-freeze the-moment type.) It turns out
she has swum with dolphins, but won t say much about the experience
except that it was enormously exciting and quite scary.
0n the way back we passed shrimp boats and other small shing
craftwapparently the Bay, once an open cess-pool, has again become
the fertile habitat which estuaries naturally are (thus my ardent infor-
mant). Was proudly told how many metric tons of tiny, succulent Bay
shrimp are consumed and shipped out daily; even clams, whose shells
the local Indians once piled into huge refuse mounds, have returned
to the mud ats.
Windblawn, a little sunstruck, a little drunk, we returned at dusk
to the Cove and to bed. Ben is really a good brother to have, but
I ve never been able to get him to know where to stop, Marissa said
apologetically. (I had noticed her lecturing him on the dock as we were
stowing the boat s gear away.) He cares about me a lot, even if I ve
never gotten him to understand me. He never likes to see me taking
risks. It s a relic of the family past, I guesswwhen women supposedly
had no independence at all. But without taking risks, I wouldn t feel
I was alive. She smiled at me, with a sweet but inscrutable compan-
ionableness, and laid down in my arms.
What can I possibly mean to this incredible woman? She evades my
questions about what she thinks of me. When she is back at the lumber
camp, she evidently sleeps and lives with Everett as before; yet little
by little, she spends more of her free time with me. Yet she makes
goodhumored fun ofme, correcting my ecological mistakes (like wasting
wash water or electricity) as if she was the highly advanced person and
I a kind of bumpkin, not yet fully acclimated to civilized life.
70
ECOTOPIA
Sometimes, when Isay something about how Ecotopians, or she hersel
appear to me, she becomes very quiet and attentive. The other night
I mentioned their way of holding eye contact for what seems to me
excessively long times, and how this stirred up feelings it is hard for
me to handle. What feelings? she asked. "Nervousness, a desire for
relief, to look away for a while. And ifyou withstand the nervousness
and go on looking? (All this, of course, with her great dark eyes intent
upon mine.) Then I guess tenderness, and a desire to touch. ~It makes
me afraid I ll cry. You strange personmof course you can 619}! She
gave me a long, strong hug.
I had to explain. Not in our country! Maybe here you can teach
me, though. I don t have to be so guarded here, with you. All right,
she said, a faint puzzlement in her eyes. Can I be, for her, some kind
of Mysterious Stranger exotic in spite of myself?
SAVAGERY RESTOREDI ECOTOPIA S
DARK SIDE
Marshali-by-the-Bay, May 24. After much negotiation, I have now
been permitted to observe that monstrous custom which has inspired
_ so much horror toward Ecotopia among Civilized nations: the Ritual
V War Games. Yesterday I became, so far as I know, the rst American
ever to witness this chilling spectacle. My companions and I rose
before dawn and took a train north from San Francisco to the town
of Marshall. Then a walk of 20 minutes (passing two of the small,
home-made shrines that dot the Ecotopian landscape) brought us to
. a hill overlooking a rolling, open piece of country with a creek owing
through it down to the marshy edge of the water.
When we got there, preparations for the ritual were well under way.
Two bands of young men had gathered, one on each side of the
creek. Perhaps 25 were on each side. Each group had built a re,
and prepared some kind of drink in a large cauldronmapparently
a stimulant t0 anesthetize themselves against the terrors to come. Each
man (they ranged from about 16 to 30) had a large, dangerous spear,
with a point of sharpened black stone. And each man was painting
himself with colors, in primitive, erce designs.
71
ECOTOPIA
After a time, when several hundred spectators had gathered, a signal
was given on a large gong. At this, the spectators became tense and
silent. The warriors deployed along both banks of the creek, taking
up positions about a spear length apart. One group, seeming more
aggressive, began a war chant that sounded quite blood-thirsty, though
also perhaps a bit reminiscent of our athletic cheers. When the other
side seemed to hesitate and back 011 from the creek, the aggressive
group crossed it, brandishing their spears, and began a series of rushes
up the other side.
The defenders, however, could not be panicked.Whenever a number
of attackers pressed hard against one of their men, his neighbors
gathered to his defense, shouting and bringing their spears to bear;
and this exible, uid, shifting pattern of offense and defense seemed
to prevail all along the line. Occasionally a group would gather and
rush at the opponents line. But this rush would soon be countered,
though often at the cost of very close calls With the sharp obsidian
blades.
This went on, with much shouting and the crowd growing increas-
ingly excited, for perhaps half an hour the warriors returning occa-
sionally to their cauldrons for refreshment. Then suddenly a scream
went up from one end of the line. My attention had been elsewhere,
so I did not actually see the fatal blow, but others later told me
a warrior had slipped on the grass during one of the rushes, and
an opponent had seized the chance and managed to run a spear entirely
through his shoulder.
At this, all hostilities miraculously ceased. The two tribes retreated
to their original positions. Partisans of the winning side appeared
joyful, almost ecstatic, slapping and hugging each other; the losers
partisans were downcast. Doctors appeared from among the onlookers,
and began attending to the wounded man. There was a lot of blood
on the grass, but from comments around me I gathered that the victim
was not in grave medical danger despite his nasty wound.
The victors now began a dance of celebration. Their partisans came
down the hill to join them. Musicians struck up, and dancing began.
The warriors shared their cauldron with all, in an atmosphere ofexcited
jubilation. Some of the leading warriors on the winning side went
off With women into the bushes. On the losing side there appeared
72
ECOTOPIA
to be a good deal of lamentation, crying, and writhing around. After
a time the res were stoked up again, food was brought out, and
a feast began to take shape. This was held at the camp of the winners;
they magnanimously offered to feed the defeated sidewwho accepted
deferentially.
I learned that an ambulance which had been standing by would
shortly carry away the wounded man (now neatly bandaged up) so
1 went over to speak to him. They had laid him out on a kind of
stretcher made of red cloth with a white cross on it. His body was
arranged in a startlingly cruci x Iike way, with straps on wrists and
ankles. Several women leaned over the stretcher, moaning and from
time to time wiping his forehead with a damp rag.
Oh, how you have suffered! cried one. I have done a man s
thing, he replied, in a rather rote tone. Your poor body has been
/' hurt, you might have died! the women said. Do not think of me,
think of our family: I bear wounds for them. We all suffer!
At this, the young man looked at them in an almost pitying way.
It is nished, he said quietly, and closed his eyes. From the way
he spoke, I thought for a moment that the doctors had been mistaken,
.. and he was dying. But apparently it was just a signal for the women
V to leave him for after they did, he opened his eyes again and looked
around in perfectly cheery spirits.
I seized the opportunity and went up to him. How do you feel?
I feel like a man, he said, relapsing into his former rote manner.
Once more I have survived. Can you tell me what the ghting
1' was about? It was us against them, of course, to see who would
" win. No other reason?
He gave me a curious look. It also is to test ourselves don t you
, understand how good it feels to be frightened, and come through?
Would you do it all over again? Sure. We will do it again, probably
on the second full moon from now. Are you a stranger?
I m an American newspaper reporter, I said, writing articles for
my paper. Can I take your picture? I pulled out my camera, expecting
no objection, but the young man replied NO! Absolutely not! Have
you no decency? At this a group of men nearby turned toward us
in a menacing way.
. Excuse me, I said, realizing I had made a serious blunder. I put
V the camera away quickly. (Later I learned that Ecotopians think
73
ECOTOPIA
sphotography has a dark-
-magic side, as a way oftrying to freeze time~t0
Echeat biology and defy change and death, so it would be especially
:out of place at such a time.) The Ecotopians, however, did not leave
it at that. One of the older men asked me to come and sit beside
him. He offered me a meat-stulTed pastry, and proceeded to lecture ,
me on the meaning of the war games I had been witnessing.
Ecotopians, he began, had always regarded anthropology as a eld
with great practical importance. After Independence they had begun
to experiment in adapting anthropological hypotheses to real life. It
was only over a great deal of resistance that a radical idea such as ..
ritual warfare had become legally practicable, even with the ingenuity v
of the best lawyers. But its advocates had persisted, convinced as
they were that it was essential to develop some kind of open civic
expression for the physical competitiveness that seemed to be inherent v
in man s biological programming and otherwise came out in perverse
forms, like war.
They hoped that Ecotopians would not be forced to ght any actual
wars, since they knew the utter destruction that would result. On
the other hand, it seemed indisputable that man was not a creature
built for a totally and routinely peaceful life. Young men, especially,
needed a chance to combat the others, to charge and ee, to test
their comradeship, to put their beautiful resources of speed and
strength to use, to let their adrenalin ow, to be brave and to be
fearful. In America, my companion pointed out with a smug grin,
you accomplish some of the same objectives with your wars and
your automobiles. They let you be competitive and aggressive and
allowed to risk smashing each other. Of course, you also have
professional football. But it is only a spectator sportwand besides,
the players do not possess lethal weapons. Though I admit we took
some ideas from it.
He went on to argue that Ecotopian ritual war games actually result
in very few fatalitieswsomething like 50 young men die in the games
each year, a gure he insisted on comparing with our highway toll
of about 75,000 a year and our war dead, which tend to average
out to around 5,000 a year. It appears, by the way, that women never
participate in the war games; but before our feminist militants leap
on this point, they should know that the games were established as
part of the Survivalist Party s generally cooperation-oriented program,
74
ECOTOPIA
a gd that Ecotopians prefer to focus women s competitiveness in other
ways: through contests for political leadership, through organizing
work at which women are believed to excelwand through rivalry
over men to father their children.
It is thus chie y young men who participate in the games, and
the meets are set up largely between neighboring groups, something
like our highschool athletic contests but on an even smaller scale.
The game today, for instance, was between two communes that occupy
neighbo ng tenito es. One group raises sheep for wool and cows
"for milk; the other farms oysters in an estuary of the bay. Apparently
in the cities competition is usually between neighborhoods or work
groupsafactory against factory, store against store, as happens in our
industrial bowling leagues. However, there are no leagues, pennants,
and so forth. Each ritual session is a self-contained event, an end
in itself.
. What about the cross? I asked.
' g;;] Well, Ecotopia came into existence with a Judeo-Christian heri-
tage, was the reply. We make the best of it. You will nd many
v expressions of it in our culture still. In this case, obviousiy the young
than is indeed suffering for his family or tribe. We have a lot of
poetry and music that focuses precisely on this suffering, as well as
011 courage and bravery. There s also a little ceremony for when a
wounded man comes back from hospital. You might guess What it s
é hlled: the raising. He stands up and walks.
It. is clear, thus, that the abhorrent spectacle of ne young men
deliberately trying to kill each other is a semi-rehgious rite and a
ractice not lightly instituted, no matter what we Americans may
think of it. It may indeed have antecedents in the institution of
bull ghting, in football, in the Mass, or in the ritual wars of savage
tribes. But its senseless violence, the letting ofblood without ajustifying
. cause, must surely remain a blot on Ecotopia s name among civilized
nations.
(May 25) Goddamn woman is impossible! G01 really turned on at the
war games slayed beside me during the ghting, explaining it to me
in low, excited voice. Then afterward rushed away to the cauldron, drank
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ECOTOPIA
an enormous cupful, looked around in an inviting fashion, and made '-
no resistance when one of the winning warriors came up, propositioned
her, and literally carried her away. (She weighs about 130, as I happen
to know, but this didn t faze him.) Not a glance in my direction.
Later, when rest of us were eating, she sauntered back, ushed and .
sweaty. Ignored my obvious ill humor. Later, when we went back to I
the Marshall hotel, she was relaxed and oppy, and I tossed her around
on the bed a little roughly, wouldn t let her up, more or less raped
her. She seemed almost to have expected this. I felt odd when it began,
confused between hatred and desire, but then they merged in a kind
of hard, tightly holding embrace a welcoming back on her part, and '
a deep acceptance of her on mine. I love her freeness, even when it
hurts.
Just before waking up and writing the war games story, had awful '
dream about it. Myself all painted up, ready for battle. Body greased
and shining and beautiful feel very alive, very strong. Women smile
from the sidelines, I want to make love to all of them. Then there s
a terrible gong sound~reverberates in my head, and panic strikes. Grab
my spear and rush of with the other men. But when we get to the
ghting line and begin to feint and jab, suddenly they turn and look
at me with amazement, realizing I am not one of them. Then utter
despair seizes me, for I know this means they will not ght for me:
I am not one of their Tribe, and I am out there alone, exposed to
the sharp spears of the enemy, and my time has come. . ..
Woke up sweating, hands clutched tight on dream spear. Wished I
was home safe in New York.
Savages!
THEIR PLASTICS AND OURS
San Francisco, May 25. One surprising similarity between Ecotopia
and contemporary America is that they both use huge amounts of
plastics. At rst I took this as a sign that our ways of life have not
diverged so drasticaily after all. However, closer investigation has
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revealed that, despite surface resemblances, the two countries use
plastics in totally di erent ways. '
Ecotopian plastics are entirely derived from living biological sources
v (plants) rather than from fossilized ones (petroleum and coal) as most
of ours are. Intense research effort went into this area directly after
Independence, and it continues. According to my informants, there
were two major objectives. One was to produce the plastics, at low
cost and in a wide range of types: light, heavy, rigid, exible, clear,
opaque, and s0 on and to produce them with a technology that was
not itself a pollutant. The other objective was to make them all
biodegradable, that is, susceptible to decay. This meant that they could
be returned to the elds as fertilizer, which would nourish new crops,
which in turn could be made into new plastics and so on inde nitely,
in what the Ecotopians call, with almost religious fervor, a stable-state
system.
One interesting strategy for biodegradability involved producing
plastics which had 9. 311011 planned lifetime and would automatically
self-destruct after a certain period or under certain conditions. (With
typical biology-centered thinking, Ecotopians refer to such plastics
as dying when they begin to decompose.) Plastics of this type are
used to make containers for beer, food of many types, to produce
packaging materials that resemble cellophane, and so on. These
materials die after a month or so, especially When exposed to
sunlight s ultraviolet rays. I have noticed that the usuaily tidy
Ecotopians have no hesitation about dropping (and stamping on) an
empty beer comainer; it turns out they know that in a few weeks
its remnants will have crumbled and decayed into the soil. Similarly,
Ecotopian householders toss wrapping materials onto their compost
heaps, knowing they will join there in the general decay into rich
garden fertilizer.
Another line of plastics development led to a variety of durable
" materials, which were increasingly needed in place of metals. Metals
' became deliberately scarce in early Ecotopia, when the little mining
and smelting that had taken place were replaced by an entirely
scrap-based metals industry. An amusing aspect of this scarcity was
the nationwide campaign to recycle junked cars, which had littered
the Ecotopian landscape just as they do ours. These formerly worthless
heaps of junk skyrocketed in value, and were hauled up from
77
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ECOTOPIA
creekbeds, pulled out of vacant lots, unearthed in abandoned barns,
and of course salvaged from scrap yards. In a paraliel campaign,
several billion beer and soda cans were collected and recycled.
Eeotopian durable plastics, which are used for minibus bodies,
extruded houses, coins, bottles, and mechanical objects of many
kinds, have molecular structures similar to those of our plastics, and
are virtually decay-proof under ordinary circumstanceswin particular,
so long as they are not in contact with the soil. However, by chemical
advances that have so far remained secret, Ecotopian scientists have
built into these molecules keyholes, which can be opened only by
soil micro-organisms! Once they are unlocked, the whole structure
decomposes rapidly.
This weird but ingenious system means that even a large plastic
object will, if left in contact with damp earth over a long period
of time, eventually decay. Usually, however, when plastic objects are
to be recycled they are broken up into easily handled pieces and
thrown into biovats, huge tubs of a special earthen mush that soil
micro-organisms nd a good habitat. In time the results of this process
are dried into sludge and recycled onto the land. (It is in such vats
that the contents of the recycle bins marked P are dumped.)
Whatever their advantages these plastics do not impress all
Ecotopians, especially those who are fond of wood. It is recognized,
of course, that since plastics can be molded they are capable of taking
shapes that wood is not; and that they can be stronger, more exible,
and often more durable. Extremists, however, still take exception to
any use of plastics, believing they are unnatural materials that have
no place in an ecologically ideal world. These purists will live only
in wood houses, and use only containers such as wooden chests, string
bags, woven baskets, and clay pots. The defenders of plastics, on their
side, have many effective economic arguments, and they have also
produced plastics that have a less plasticky feel and loolo with some
success, it seems to me.
Nonetheless, I have the impression that despite the undeniable
Ecotopian scienti c achievements in plastics, the future may Well
belong to the purists. For in this as in many areas of life, there is
still a strong trend in Ecotopia to abandon the fruits of all modern
technology, however innocuous they may be made, in favor of a poetic
but costly return to what the extremists see as nature.
78
ECOTOPIA
(May 26) Got into big ght with Bert about the ritual war games
story~n0t the story itself, but that I hadn t gone over it with him as
c I had said. Do you always go off and do things purely on your 0wu?
35 he said crossly. Don t you think you might be missing something? Don t
I you know what you might get out of collective work? Well, I said
defensively, I was in a big hurry andyou weren t around, and Fuck
your excuses, he said bluntly. I o erea to work with you as a brother.
That was important. Do you have any idea how competitive and detached
you seem to us? He was furious, and I had the uncomfortable feeling
he was right I had missed an important opportunity. We talked for
a while and I told him how I felt about it, but it will take some doing
to get back onto a decent basis together. Which saddens me more than
1 would have expected; we have become friends.
Beginning to miss the kids a lot more than usual on this trip, and
don t know why. God knows I neglect them when I m home pass up
my weekends with them whenever something unusual is afoot, then try
to make up for it with presents. (Haven t bought them anything in
Ecotopia, though nothing here worth carrying home. Or rather, there
are many worthwhile things here, but none can be bought or carried
away.) Have the feeling I d like them to be here with me, see what
I am seeing, meet the people I know. What would they think ofMarissa?
- She would take their measure exactly, even their spoiledness (which
wouldn t get anywhere with her!) and they d respect and like her. Fay
once said, when she was about six, that she didn t trust Francine. Marissa
is easy to trust. But she never pretends there is no risk in it. . . .
Spoke earlier today with Kenny, a kid living at the Cove. His mother
is away for a week, and I asked him if he was lonely with her gone.
VWiy should I be lonely? Everybody else is here. Suddenly tearful
to think of my children so far away, without me, living what is after
all a dangerous life and getting worse. It s not just the crime and the
crazedpeople everywhere, but the expectation that our children s children
will go on being poisoned by smog and chemicals. (Or will New York
and Tokyo produce a race ofmutants who can breathe carbon monoxide?)
What would their lives be like if they had been born Ecotopian kids?
No ballet classes, stationwagons, shopping expeditions to department
stores. They d do actual hard adult work in gardens and shops and
schools. They d live in a welter of a dozen or more people, exposed
to a lot of sexual vibrations and happenings that would make them
79
rmmmm.
ECOTOPIA
: grow up faster ana' I guess stronger, though it scares me. (I want them V
i protected») But it would be a realer world than New York, I have ,
3 to admit. In better touch with basic natural processes and the nitty
5 gritty with fellow humans. It would be an incredible switch in their
lives. But how do I know they might not thrive on it? ' '
Some random notes that don t seem to t in plans for columns:
Have discovered what those wet suit like garments are. People call
them bird-suits, and often embroider birds on them; also unitards; .
Not uniforms after all, but a new type ofgarment. ManyEcotapiansdislike '
them, in spite of their technical advantages. ( Bird-suits because they
are said to be almost as good a body covering as a bird s feathers!)
Woven of some new combination of bers story confused, some say
from keratin, which would mean bones, hooves, hairwsome think from
wood bers. At any rate the inner layer is woven, thick, spongy (quarter
ofan inch thick). Alleged properties quite magical: when it rains, surface
layer cotton bers swell and lie so tightly together that rain runs off-
when it is hot, the inner layer bers unkink, trap less air, thus allow
faster escape of body heat, whereas when it is cold they curl up, trap '
more air, thus keep body heat in! (This why suits must be skin-tight,
evidently.) Then there is another smooth inner layer, to feel good on ,
the skin. I have tried them on, and in fact bought two to take home even
if I wouldn t want to be seen on a New York street in them! Will V
be interesting to try in our zero temperatures but I 1] take an overcoat ,
along.
Preventive transportation. That s how doctor Jake, Marissa s cousin,
sardonic ofmind but optimist, describes bicycles. Claims that every heart
attack costs the medical system, the patient s living group, the patient s
work group, etc. something between a year and two years salary. Saving
one heart attack can thus pay for something like 500 free Provo bikes.
Besides, he claims that the bicycle is aesthetically beautiful because
it is the most e icient means, in calories of energy per person per mile,
ever devised for moving bodies even jumbo jets eat up more energy,
he says. (Looked me over as a physical specimen, said I was not in
too bad shape for an American. Y0147] probably feel livelier after a
few more weeks here. The food, the air, getting in better touch with
yourself. What do you mean? Knowing yourself as an animal '
80
ECOTOPIA
creature on the earth, as we do. It can feel more comfortable than
your kind of life. Well, I ll let you know, I said.)
Foreign trade note: Natural rubber comes in from Vietnam and
Indonesia. Plastics and plastics-manufacturing machinery seem to be
major export. Some Japanese electronics imported. Books, records,
videodiscs, musicians, performers from all over the worldAexcept the
US! How do they do it?
Good one the other night: Bert got to ridiculing the old Dupont slogan,
Better Things for Better Living through Chemistry. All that meant,
he proclaimed, was nylon, orlon, and the total prostitution of the state
3 of Delaware. We want better living through biology. We don t think
am terms of things, there s no such thing as a thing there are only
i ystems. For the rst time, this didn t sound like gibberish to me. It
would apply to myself too: I am part of systems; no one, not even
myself: can separate me 01f)r as an individual thing. (This realization
came with a sort ofsinking feeling that was not unpleasant. Hmmm?)
An intolerably smugpeople: Young clod about 20 telling me automo-
bfles are such a 19th-century contraption why are you still so hung
up on them? Still, Ecotopians really very American in some ways.
With a curious French in uence~things like train schedules and price
lists have a severe systematizatz on. Perhaps this intellectual rigor neces-
sary as counterbalance to the frivolity and looseness of personal life?
Money: Ecotopian bills seemed comic when I rst saw them. Yet
three weeks later I nd them more attractive than the greenbacks left
in my wallet. Very romantic in style: lush, Rousseau-Iike scenes, almost
tropical, with strange beasts and wondrous plants. N0 images offamous
Ecotopian leaders when asked why not, people just laugh. Maybe it s
a consequence oftheir informal, utilitarian attitude toward moneymthey
bundle it up into rolls and toss it to each other in an o hand manner
I ve only observed among gamblers.
Habitations: You seldom see any store-bought furniture in Ecotopian
houses. They have mattress beds on bare floor, enormous barbaric beds
built of heavy timbers as iffor ancient Vikings; there are houses with
no beds at all, only bedrolls brought out at night, Japanese style. But
neveraproper, ordinary bed, with frame, slats, springs, andan innerspring
mattress!
Have now visited several Ecotopt'an family groups, and am still amazed
at their quietness. After Independence, I am told, great e orts were
81
BCOTOPIA
made to noiseproof things, and a lot of work was put into developing
virtually soundless versions of many machines and appliances. Thus
refrigerators, which among us produce a daily quota ofsht mmies, jiggles,
grunts and rumbles, are silent models, which run on household septic-tank
methane. (Very simple design, so not frost-free, but uses far less energy,
I am tolai) That other great source of urban noise, cars, have ofcourse
been eliminated. Clothes washers and dryers, which can t be made silent,
are usually kept outside in separate huts. Dishwashers, perhaps our most
annoying appliance, are not manufactured at all.
If I can get over minding the quiet, it may be nice to be subjected
only to natural noisesmthe wind, music from other houses, footsteps,
a baby crying. . . .
Could I get any writing done out at the forest camp? When I m
there Marissa s friends tease me because I don t join in on all their
work. And she herself, though she sees my position, thinks I should
participate more. I was shocked to learn that she had told pretty much
everybody in her family many details about our relationship. Don t
you have any sense of privacy? I blurted out. She got furious at me
for this. What are you talking about? These people live with me and
love me. Naturally they want to know what is happening with me! So
I tell them. They give me reactions, advice, they look at me, I see myself
through them as well as through myself. I still don t like it. You
could at least have told me you were going to talk about it. More
fury: Listen, are you ashamed of this relationship? What is so terrible
about telling people about it?
We worked it out nally. I began to feel I do have an exaggerated
need to keep romantic involvements to myself: and I think I got her
to see how strange their practices are to me. She is always assuming
I can just t in perfectly. This gallsvthough it also feels good whenever
I do manage to t in, by working on some job I get praised for, or
really being perceptive about some interpersonal development.
Want badly to spend more time with Marissa, but most ofmy sources
are here in the city. It s painful to talk to her on the picturephone
and not be able to touch. But she won t come in again right away.
Maybe I 11 go out tonight, at least for one night.
Have realized that it is a little scary to be in close touch with the
land, as the Ecotopians are. Not sute how I would handle that. Their
82
ECOTOPIA
little shrines are not merely pious narure-appreciation, I have discovered.
There is even one commemorating a famous murderunot too far, I
suppose, from the mythic way we think about Tombstone, Arizona
though most are devoted to spirits who presumably presided over
especially good times (and sometimes bad times, like the death of
children). Some are little more than poems, scratched 0n scraps ofwood
that will soon decay but that is evidently part of the tradition. They re
like dried cornstalks, one young girl told me, they stand there for
a while so you can see that something grew there, but another season
always follows. My favorite so far is an ornate, subtly elegant maze
laid out in shiny oyster shells on a hill overlooking the sea. In the
center a piece of driftwood reads:
Sun, here we watched you go down
As if it was the last time.
Thank you for the morning.
WOMEN IN POWER: POLITICIANS, SEX
AND LAW IN ECOTOPIA
San Francisco, May 27. The fact that Ecotopia s chief of state Vera
Allwen is a woman is, of course, common knowledge. But most
Americans are unaware that the Survivalist Party she heads is a
woman-dominated organization and that it played a key role in the
struggle for Independence.
While a majority of Survivalist Party members are women, many
men are members also, and some indeed hold high party positions.
The basic cooperation- and biology-oriented policies of the party,
however, are usually considered to be derived mainly from female
attitudes and interests; the chief opposition party, the Progregsivej
Party, continues to express what are alleged by Survivalists to be "2
outdated and destructive male attitudes toward individualism, pro
ductivity, and related issues.
Women are, as in the U.S., a substantial majority of the population
in Ecotopia. The initial growth and success of the Survivalists, I have
83
ECOTOPIA
been told by some long-term members, came from a frank and
Vitalizing recognition of this fact, together with its corollary: that
women have distinct interests and needs which had been, despite some
advances, unmet during the 200 years of American rule. We had
had two centuries of it, and it wasn t good enough, one in uential
Survivalist woman told me.
Although dissatisfaction with life under federal control became
especially deep in the Western states on a variety of grounds (notably
water subsidies to agribusiness), it was apparently only the Surviva-
lists who forcefully argued that secession offered the sole hope of
stable, long-range decent survival. But the acceptance of this perilous
political alternative by citizens of the area that became Ecotopia was,
or at least so I am now told, accomplished only by drastic tactics.
We must remember that a third of the state legislators and a good many
national representatives were women. In their caucuses they had
worked out in preliminary form most of the measures that later
became the basis of Ecotopian government. The debates over how
to put these into practice, and especially whether secession was
necessary in orderto do so, were long and emotionally arduous.
While the women were thus engaged,. the male politicians were
not idle. A crisis ensued when it was revealed that certain important
male leaders had been devising a sort of sexual geriymandering plan
that would have reduced female representation almost by half. This
proposal shocked the populace into erce polarization. When Wash-
ington attempted to interfere on behalf of the gerrymanderers, wide-
zspread de ance of federal regulations began to take place on every
gissue from taxes to pollution. A few months of such chaos led to
j the armed confrontations and growth of new locally controlled organs
?of state~w0rkers councils and citizens councils-which carried out
5 what we must now, with the Ecotopians, refer to as their Independence.
When conditions had stabilized, the Survivalists swept the constitu-
tional convention elections that followed. They then reorganized the
governmental structures of the states and counties, which they consid-
ered outmoded because unrelated to the organic structures of produc-
tion and consumption, and also inherently inadaptable for dealing
with regional ecological systems. They divided the country into ve
metropohtan and four rural regions. Within these they also greatly
extended many powers of governments of the local communities.
84
ECOTOPIA
They also began a second phase of national debate: Whether
Ecology in One Country is possible, or whether Ecotopia s own
survival hinges on the exporting of survivalist doctrines to the rest
of the world. The radicals who take the second position have been
in the minority so far, but as ecocatastrophes overtake other countries
with increasing frequency their strength keeps rising.
Since Americans may be skeptical of how a woman dominated
political system actually operates, I have attended several meetings
of Survivalist Party groups. Judging by these, the Party is unlike any
other I have ever observed. A meeting has no formal agenda; instead,
it opens with a voicing of concerns by many participants. As these
are discussed (often amid friendly laughter, as well as a few angry
outbursts) general issues begin to take shape. But there are no Robert s
Rules of Order, no motions, no votes instead, a gradual ventilation
offeelings, some personal antagonisms worked through, and a gradual
» consensual focusing on what needs to be done. Once this consensus
is achieved, people take pains to assuage the feelings of those members
who have had to give ground in order to achieve the consensus. Only
:after this healing process takes place is there formal rati cation of
the decisions taken the only action during three hours or so that
:has the feeling or ordinary political business as we know it. And
*yet I must admit that, in those three hours, a great deal gets done:
a political problem is indeed faced, de ned, and a decision made;
about it, though only along with a great amount of attention to things
that would be considered, among us, as more in the realm of social ;
life than politics. On the other hand, it must also be admitted that _
people enjoy such meetings, and we might conceivably learn some '
lessons from them.
Although some Americans may expect Ecotopian law to be only
a cover for government tyranny, closer acquaintance reveals that it
operates on much the same principles as ours. Our Bill of Rights
was incorporated into the Ecotopian constitution, though in its original
form Which would seem dangerously sweeping and unquali ed to
most Americans today. Ecotopians, like Americans, maintain an
enormous army oflawyers and tend to work out many kinds ofdisputes
in the courts.
, The content ofthe law, ofcourse, has changed somewhat. Ecotopians
treat as severe breaches of the peace many actions we consider
85
\=
;,
1_
A
ECOTOPIA
white-collar crimes seldom deserving of police or court action. Delib.
crate pollution of water or air is punished by severe jail sentences,
Victimless crimes such as prostitution, gambling, and drug use are
no longer on the books, but embezzlement, fraud, collusion, and similar
gentleman s crimes are dealt with just as severely as crimes like
assault and robbery which are, by the way, rare in Ecotopia, perhaps
because of the personal nature of their neighborhoods and the virtual
; impossibility of anonymity in them. (Strangers get a lot of attention
E in Ecotopia, but the motives for this may not be entirely friendliness.)
V Ecotopian courts mete out nes very seldom, it appears,rpreferring
to rely on imprisonment, which is felt to affect convicted persons
more equally. I hope to visit an Ecotopian prison soon; I am told
that all prisons require the inmates to work, and rumors have circulated
that some verge on slave~labor camps.
American policy irted erratically, over the years, with attempts to
control pollution, But Ecotopian economic law has proliferated wildly
in the obsessive attempt to shape all agricultural and industrial
enterprise into stable-state, recycling forms. It was rst hoped that
industries could be persuaded by public pressure to reduce their
ecological damage. Educational campaigns pointed out that synthetic
ber production used far more electricity and water, and produced
far more noxious by products than natural ber production; that
high-compression engines required more steel, electricity, and high-
priced fuel; that aluminum production required enormous electrical
supplies; that synthetic chemicals tended to damage both man and
environment, often in totally unexpected ways.
A few improvements were secured in the heady months following
Independence. However, even the enterprises that sprang up after
the ight of capital were reluctant to go further on pollution measures
than their competitors. Moreover, attempts to use nes and special
taxes also failed, because polluting rms could always pass costs along
to their customersvwho thus complained they not only had to su er
from the pollution the factories emitted, but had to pay higher costs
for the products too.
In time, therefore, the Survivalist Party introduced a package of
laws that atly prohibited many types of highly polluting manufac
turing and processing operations. Firms affected were to be bought
Off 0r helped through the transition to non-harmful operations by
86
ECOTOPIA
a system of nancial risk spreading. Even so, a number of rms went
out of business rather than attempt such drastic changes.
. Despite such momentous events, it appears that early Ecotopian
policy involved much utilization rather than abolishment of existing
1 governmental machinery. For example, after Independence the staffs
of the huge state highway-building departments were not disbanded,
but rather were set to work, along with their old construction-company
allies, to restore the dismally polluted waterfronts, lake shores, and
riverbanks. In Ecotopia at that time, as in the United States now,
such areas were mainly devoted to factories, warehouses, sewage
plants, railroad yards, dumps, and other unsavory uses. Armed with
the condemnation powers that had earlier been used, as one Ecotopian
told me, to make the world safe for autos and impossible for people,
the highway departments soon cleared the banks of all major and
many minor waterways, and created Seine-like embankments, strip
parks, piers for small craft, grassy and sandy beaches, and other
improvements. Where highways had encroached 0n waterways, the
pavement was used in part as foundations for pavilions, restaurants,
dance halls, and other amusement facilities, while the remaining
» concrete was broken up and used in building the embankments. Bicycle
paths, minibus lines, and transit stops were laid out so as to provide
easy access to the water for all citizens.
' Thus, in areas such as Puget Sound, the Columbia and Williamette
rivers near Portland, and San Francisco Bay and Delta, waterways
became useful for transportation small water-taxis abound, and
ferries cover longer distances. Ecotopians are almost as devoted to
water as they are to trees, and rowing or sailing about in boats are
favorite pastimes. There is hardly an Ecotopian who doesn t spend
some of his time shing, sailing, rowing, swimming, wading, or just
looking at water. The national bird, I am told, is the egret who spends
his days knee-deep in marshes.
While the policies of the Survivalists and the Ecotopian government
may seem extreme or foolish to us, they have not been carried out
in a ruthless manner, as many suspect. For instance, while the national
train system was under construction, existing freeways were used as
highspeed bus routes. Articulated trailer-buses running at 100 miles
per hour were given exclusive right to the lefthand lanes. Experience
gained with this intermediate system was reportedly useful in the
87
ECOTOPIA
management of the train system when it was completed. The
Eootopians thus seem adept at using moderate and gradual change-
overs to reach extreme goals. We may disagree with those goais, but
I believe we must respect their manner of achieving them.
(May 28) Letter from Francine yesterday morning smuggled through
our prearranged emergency drop in Canada. Was somehow a shock
to get itAhadn t really expected to hear from her unless something went
terribly wrong. Same madness in her life as usual: new schemes to astound
the art world, a great sexual coup at a consular cocktail party ~her
rst full rank ambassador! Maybe she misses mewthat would be a switch.
But she would never admit it on paper, if at all. Maximum latitude:
the rules of the game. . . .
Went over to an Ecotopian fair afterward. These are held monthly
in many cities and towns. This one surprisingly large and well organized.
Lasts three days, in the City Hall plaza, which is partly paved but
tree-shaded with a number of fauntains and a creek; it also has the
Steps of the grand old City Hall which serve as bandstand, stage for
performing actors, pantomimists, even jugglers. Plaza was covered with
booths and stands ofall kinds: craftsmen, farmers with produce to sell,
food and drink vendors, fortune-tellers, portrait-sketchers, musicians.
Takes on the appearance of a village: the booth people set up tents
just behind their wares, in which they live for a couple of days.
How many of the thousands strolling about are potential customers,
and how many just friends and families and children of the sellers, I
couldn t tell. In any case the economic functions didn t seem over-
whelmingly pressing. Mainly an enormous party, at which some selling,
bartering, and trading went on. Gives people a chance to see friends
from other areas (many of the merchants come from groups that live
out in the country, but attendfairs regularly to sell their wares). Around
the fringes there are musical groups performing, and there s dancing
in the evenings, when most of the people seem to get together.
This is not one of the four weekends 0f the year when sexual license
is said to prevail (the spring equinox was two months ago) but things
certainly looser than usual. Maybe reacting to Francine s nutty letter,
I got drunk and reckless, and followed two irtatious young women
88
ECOTOPIA
into a tent. Nice sometimes to blot out thoughts of Serious Relating,
and they were willing to play the game of anonymity. I guess it s a
result of my puritan heritage that I ve never been with two women at
once (though I have often wished I had the nerve to try it). These girls
were absolutely cool and matter offact about it, which made it easier.
Sometimes they would both concentrate on me, sometimes I would share
one with the other. They seemed to regard sex the same way we d regard
Eeating, or maybe w'alking m pleasant biological function, but without
{any heavy emotional expectations. Very relaxing. . . .
J Curious note of natural delicacy: they never excluded me from any
of the possible permutations and combinations, or ever expected me
to be a mere voyeur. And nothing I did, even though a total stranger
from another country, seemed to take them aback: they re maybe 22
or so, but they don t seem surprisable by anything men do.
It was an exhausting night; left me feeling Iightheaded. Toward dawn
I got dressed and walked all the way across the city to the Cave, listening
to the fog horns and thinking about Marissa. Though I have twinges
ofjealousy about her, her behavior after the war games and mine this
evening seem parallel and equal in some odd way. I don t feel guilty,
anyway.
Once home, I scribbled a note to Francine, o ering her diplomatic
immunity and telling her about my escapade, and fell asleep. In the
morning I tore up the note, and got back to work.
WORKERS CONTROL, TAXES, AND JOBS
IN ECOTOPIA
San Francisco, May 28. Is the Ecotopian economy socialist? I asked
a high government spokesman this question. I told him that it is
widely considered to be so, by Americans, but that obviously the
information gap of recent decades made a clear understanding dif -
cult. This gentleman gave me a polite lecture, making it clear that
he was speaking to what he considered the major American confusions.
89
ECOTOPIA
The Ecotopian economy, he began, must be considered a mixed
one, like that of the United States; but some elements of the mix
are novel, and because of ecological and political consideratiOns the
balance of the mix is quite different. Not long after Independence,
he reminded me, there was a massive ight of capital, similar to what
happened after the Cuban revolution. Most families of great wealth
ed, going either to Los Angeles, to the East, or in some cases to
their Swiss or French estates This undoubtedly damaged the manage-
rial capabilities of Ecotopian enterprises, he admitted, though the total
1 number of such refugees was only a few thousands, inclgding women
and children.
l The Ecotopian government, faced with the necessity of feeding,
housing, and clothing its population, at rst teetered between a
cautious attempt to carry on enterprises on the old lines, and breaking
through into new and uncharted methods.
But as it happened, my informant argued, in a few months it became
clear they had no real choice; for the people, seeing the former owners
depart, realized that a new era was indeed upon them and began
spontaneously taking over farms, factories, and stores. This process
was chaotic, but it was not anarchic; it was controlled by the local
governments and local courts. The assumption was usually made that
those who had been working in the organization owned it; and
since they had no other means of support, their immediate problem
after Independence was to go on running it pretty much as it had
been run. There were, he pointed out, some examples to go on, of
enterprises taken over by employees in France in the late sixties, and
of course a number of US. corporations had become employee-owned
by purely legal and gradual means.
Such take-overs set the tone for the ongoing tasks of production
and distribution of essentials; and they worked. But more massive
and deliberate economic changes soon took place, above all in the
diversion of money and manpower toward the construction of stable-
state systems in agricultural and sewage practices, and in the scienti c
and technical deployment of a new plastics industry based upon
natural-source, biodegradable plastics. (The transportation system,
which remains an infringement on the stable-state principle, also
consumed many resources in that period.)
90
ECOTOPIA
I inquired about the sources of government revenue for such
large-scale projects. The tax system of former years, it seems, was
entirely abandoned at the time of Independence. Laws formalizing
the forfeiture of property by owners, plus con scatory inheritance
taxes, were legislated. (Aside from persona} articles, no Ecotopian
can now. inherit any property at all!)
Ecotopian revolutionaries took the position, which still appears to
prevail, that a little-recognized yet fundamental defect of capitalism
is that you cannot tax its owners justly for wealth under capitalist
governments always manages to provide suf cient tax loopholes for
itself. The new tax system, upon which Ecotopian government now
depends, relies entirely on what we would call a corporation taxnthat
is, a tax upon production enterprises (including individual craftsmen,;-_
incidentally). It is based partly upon net income, but also partly upon§
turnover, or gross income. Like most functions of governing, taX ig
levying is carried out by the communities (mainly cities), which
delegate very limited powers to the regional or national levels.
The reasoning behind this sytem, according to my informant, is
complex, but it turns upon the view that all taxes are fundamentally
a means of the government seizing a share of economic output and
putting it to publicly determined purposeswand that this seizure should
therefore be at the immediate source, simple, understandable, just,
and open to public View. (Ecotopian tax returns are not con dential,
as with us.)
In recent years, this tax policy has been complemented by laws
that have rede ned the position of the employee very drastically from
an American Viewpoint. The workers in an Ecotopian enterprise must
now all be partners ; a man cannot just set up a business, o er
wages to employees, re them when he no longer needs them, and
pocket whatever pro ts he can make. Grotesque as it may seem, all
Ecotopians who join an enterprise now do so on the same sort of
basis as our high executives. Just as these gentlemen inquire about
pro t-sharing, stock options, tax shelters, retirement plans, and so
on, so do ordinary Ecotopians inquire about the partnership terms
in an enterprise they are considering joining!
There are no personal income, sales, OI property taxes in Ecotopia,
though there is a land tax that encourages concentration and probably
accounts for the remarkable compactness of Ecotopian cities. There
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is a widespread aversion to other types of tax on the grounds that
they are either regressive or promote divisiveness among people~
whereas the enterprise tax, bearing as it does on collective groups,
is thought to promote solidarity, (A paradoxical notion, perhaps, since
these groups compete with each other strenuously enough.)
It is alleged, though of course this would be extremely dit cult
E to prove, that there is no super-rich ckass in Ecotopia. It is admitted
that certain occupational groups, such as artists and scientists and
some doctors, have slightly higher incomes, though national training
policies deliberately seek to keep such di erentials moderate. But there
are now said to be no individuals in Ecotopia who grow personally
rich because they control means of production and hire other men s
labor power. Occasionally, however, strange anomaiies occurwwhen
an enterprise comes up with some remarkable product or service for
which there is an immediate and strong demand. The inventors and
fabricators of the bird suits, for instance, are a small research
collective, originally about 30 people. Because of the appeal of their
ingeniously insulating garments, they are said to have made a great
deal of money recently, even though they have now chosen to take
in some new members and to work even less than the usual 20 hours
per week.
Don t such successful groups use their pro ts to control other
enterprises, or become absentee owners, and thus end up as capitalists
just like ours? The answer on this point was complex, but seems to
boil down to the fact that direct absentee investment by one enterprise
or person in another enterprise is not permitted. Surpluses can thus
only be invested by lending them to the national banking system,
which in turn lends funds to enterprises. This arrangement, which
resembles the one pioneered by the Yugoslavs in the seventies,
obviously gives the bank an immense leverage on the economy, and
makes possibie the sometimes surprisingly large public investments
that have characterized Ecotopian development. (The most it aliows
lucky producers, like the bird-suit people, is the chance to retire and
live off the interest their pro ts can earn from the bank.) This process
clearly needs close study by our economists; it appears to contradict
many Ecotopian protestations of decentralization, even if the national
bank does maintain regional branches which are said to have great
autonomy.
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ECOTOPIA
Ecotopian enterprises generally behave much like capitalist enter
prises: they compete with each other, and seek to increase sales and
maximize pro ts, although they are hampered by a van'ety of ecologi-
cal regulations. I suspect they are not immune to a certain amount
of chicanery and false claims about their products.
However, the fact that the members of an enterprise actually own
it jointly (each with one vote) puts certain inherent limits on what
these enterprises do. For instance, they do not tend to expand endlessly,
since the practical maximum size of a joint-ownership rm seems
to be less than 300 people beyond that they tend to break down
into bureaucratic, in exible forms and lose both their pro tability
and their members, who seek more congenial environments. Small
is beautiful, I was reminded.' Also, the enterprises tend to be just
as concerned with conditions of work as they are with pro ts, and
in many instances members seem willing to accept lower profit and
wage 1evels in exchange for a comfortable pace of work or a way
of organizing work which otters better relations among the people
doing it.
Competitive threats from other enterprises keep such laxity within
bounds, but even so some Ecotopian products are utterly noncompeti-
tive with the products of more ef cient industries abroad. The prices
of clothes and shoes outside the core stores, for example, are sky-high
and draconian tariffs are used to keep out the sweat shop products
from Asiawthe consequence being that many Ecotopians wear home-
made garments, which has by now become considered a Virtue.
It is impossible to assess the relative tax burden of Ecotopia, since
taxes fall only upon enterprises. However, since the Ecotopian armse t
establishment is small (about the size of Canada s) and many functions
of government which for us are very costly (such as education) are 3
organized, strangely enough, on free-market principles, it seems certain
that the relative total tax burden is much lower than ours. This may5
of course help to explain why the drop in Gross National Product
after Independence did not agitate the population more.
The tax revenues are used by the community governments to support
their recycling services, housing, power, water, telephone, medical
services, pohce, courts, and so on. A pro rata share of tax funds goes
to the regional and national governments, to support operation of
larger-scale systems such as the trains, defense, telecommunications,
and most of the research establishment.
93
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Curiously, despite the importance Ecotopians attach to agriculture
and other rural affairs, the Ecotopian constitution is city-based where
ours, inherited from an agricuitural era, is rural-bas ed. With us, the
states have broad powers over cities (including the right to give them
legal existence and set their boundaries). The Ecotopian main cities,
however, dominate their regions through a strict application of one-
person-one-vote principles. Furthermore, the county level of govern-
ment is omitted entireiy.
This curious system evidently leads to continual con ict and jealousy
over the disposition of tax revenues. Instead of relying on a powerful
central tax-collection agency that can attach incomes directly, the
centrai government must continually placate and cajole the local
governments to ensure a continued ow of funds. Thus the Ecotopian
federal structure, which super cially resembles the small government
bodies found under primitive capitalism, makes most of its outlays
on uncontroversial activities that bene t all citizens absolutely equatiy.
There is a surprisingly small national welfare system, considering that
2 Ecotopians enjoy a lifetime guarantee of minimal levels of food,
housing, and medical care. While some citizens, especially those
working on untried developments in the arts, utiIize this guarantee
to exist without jobs (sometimes for years the envy of our young
artists!) most people either feel the guarantee level is too abject to
exist on, or nd it s desirable to work in order to provide themselves
with a lively social} life. The old and disabled, of course, must survive
by taking advantage of the guarantee; and by my observation the
living standard involved, while low, is perhaps slightly better than
that of our Social Security recipients.
Despite the severe criticisms made of the Ecotopoan economic and
tax system by our experts, direct observation can thus only support
the claims of Ecotopian spokesmen, however unwelcome these may
be: the system is now 21 proved and integrai part of Ecotopian life,
and it is not going to go away.
3; (May 29) Just reread last couple of columns. Realize that my attitudes
6 toward the place have changed a lot in three weeks. (And it doesn t
seem to be just Marissa!) Am I getting soft in my writing? Maybe
I didn t know what were the really penetrating questions to be asked
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on that economics stu . Or maybe I m even getting some kind ofover-all
snow job. The whole Ecotopian experiment seemed to me at rst a
silly provincial attempt to construct a decent society when every place
else was going down the drain. From what I had seen of the rest of
the world, I knew it couldn t work, it must be some kind of fraud!
I hadn t believed the rumors about forced labor andstone age degeneracy
and all that crap, but I guess I really did expect to nd there was
something terribly wrong with it, some obvious horrible aw which meant
that we didn t after all really have to pay any serious attention to it;
and my reports would end up documenting that, would make it all go
away. . . .
But it s not going away. In fact the more closely I look at the fabric
of Ecotopian life, the more I am forced to admit its strength and its
beauty. But that just leaves me at a total loss. I don t seem to have i
an attitude to write from any more; all I can do is call the individual é
separate shots as I see them. Is that losing my objectivity? Will Max .
start cutting my copy? Maybe I don t really understand anythingj
anymore, or at least not in the way I used to think I did?
Have come out to visit Marissa at the forest camp. Found her deep
in the woods, selecting trees for cutting. She let me come along if I
wouldn t talk. She walks slowly through the trees, looking at them all
very carefully. Then she ll sit or stand for a while, meditatively. In time
she will walk to this tree and that, attach to each a red ribbon marking
its doom, and murmur a phrase I couldn t catch. Her expression at
these moments is sorrowful yet determined. Then she relaxes and we
walk on to another tract offorest. This is a major part of her work but
it might as well be a ritual of some kind; there is a holiness to it.
Di iculties have at last begun to arise between her and Everett he
still doesn t seem to feel triumphed over, as I would in his place, but
there has been dark talk about one of them having to leave. (I wish
he would I now nd myself terribly jealous of her having anything
to do with him.) At supper an argument came up over whether it would
be a good idea to re-establish relations with Washington. Rather to
my surprise, Marissa strongly in favor, with some ingenious arguments.
I got many dirty looks, even though I didn t say much. Everett is, after
all, a member of the family, and I am an interloper.
Was invited along on a provision trip to the nearby town. Four of
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us, bumping along in a little electric truck. Went to one of the core
stores. Apparently the goods in them are produced by automatedfactories
to government Speci cations. Standardized, very plain though often
attractive, and incredibly, astoundingly cheap. Thus socks about a quarter
of our prices, but only in black or white; Standard plain pants, shirts,
underwear similarly priced. I happen to need a new T'shz'rt, and got
two, considering the bargain (saffron colorl). Food sections Ofcore stores
o er a modest coverage of dried, frozen, preserved items. You could,
if you wished, subsist on these for a tiny sumwand I have met a few
artists and other oddball types who claim they do, being unwilling to
spend their time earning the income needed for better fare. Many
Ecotopians however seem to buy only breaa beans, rice, fruit and similar
staples from these stores, relying on small independent shops for meat,
produce, etc. or shipments from fellow communes. (Lumber camp gets
its meat, milk and vegetables from a farm commune 15 miles away.)
Standardization is carried amazingly far in the core stores. Preserved
foods come in only three sizes ofcontainers (all biodegradable, natural-
ly) -one about the Size of a small pickled-herring far, one like a large
jam jar, and one huge, the kind our restaurants get fruits in. These
go by metric contents, not our giant, jumbo, etc. or our intricate
can numbers. The labels, however, very lovely in design. And some of
the goods have style, like the shoes.
Had lost my hairbrush somehow, and the core stores carry only
natural brt'stle types. When I said that I wanted a proper plastic-bristle
one, my companions looked at me a bit strangely, took me to an
antiquarium. Turnea' out to be a special store where you can buy
items no longer available in ordinary stores-including, it turns out,
many items we sell in drugstores.
{Eeotopian pharmacies, as they are called, are cramped little places
that sell almost nothing but prescription drugs. The Ecotopian medical
profession went through the pharmacopeia after Independence and
ruthlessly eliminated many tranquillz'zers, energizers, sleep inducers, and
other drugs such as cold remedies. In fact they now license no behavior~
control drugs at all. Which may have been a contributing factor in
reorganizing their schools: unable to make dt' icult children adapt to
the schools, they had to adapt the schools to the children! I asked
one doctor what happens with insomnia. Well, usually this indicates
a social problem, not a medical one, he said. So we try to help the
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person change his life rather than his body chemistry, which is probably
working ne. Besides, in Ecotopia it can be fun to stay up all night,
you know. The 20 hour week has loosened things up a lot )
Anyway, the antiquarium was patronized mainly by elderly women
and a few rather decadent-looking young people, who laughed a lot
and seemed to be looking for campy artifacts. With my plastic brush
I got a lecture about it being impossible to recycle because it s the
old type ofplastic. Damn thing will last for hundreds ofyears, said
the clerk with distaste. Well, I 11 remove it from his precious country '
when I leave. . . .
Marissa and iends tellin3 me about origins ofpolicy that all buildings
must be of renewable and biodegradable materials. There was a time
after Independence when only wood structures were permitted the
guiding genius of the period being one Archibald Fir, an architect. He
wrote a remarkably in uential study ofearlier wood building, and helped
lay down the speci cations that plastics had to meet to be allowable
as building materials. I asked why he took the name Fir, and not perhaps
Redwood? Marissa: Well, he was a modest man really, you see, and
a realist. (He was also, it turns out, author of a magni cently biting
attack on megastructures.)
Must go back to the city tonight. Trying to get Marissa to come
too. But I am getting to be more part of life at the camp. Today before
supper we were all sitting around playing (there s really no other word
for it). Well, Will, somebody says, what can you do to entertain
us? I went hopelessly blank. People had been singing; I can t sing.
There had been jokes; I ve never been able to remember jokes. People
had laughed and teased each other, in a kind of vaudeville-routine way;
I ve never been able to do that hostile-friendly act. The fantasy ashed
through my mind, I could tell you the story of my life, but I realized
I couldn t do that eitherwit would be too boring, it has no climax.
Knowing Marissa was ashamed for me, I blurted out lamely, Well,
I don t know I m afraid I m just not very entertaining. Nobody ever
taught me how to entertain people~we relied on television, I guess.
They absolutely wouldn t accept this; they thought I wanted to be coaxed.
When it got through that I meant it, people were sad and embarrassed
for me. Listen, said one of the men, we won t let you get away
with that. You can t deny you know how to sing Row, Row, Row Your
Boat, okay? All right, start us on a round with that. So I took a
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deep breath, happened to come out more or less on key, and after a
minute it went marvelously, everybody doingfunny harmonies and fooling
with the rhythm, and laughing at me. I shall have to extend my
repertoire. . . .
RACE IN ECOTOPIAI
APARTHEID OR EQUALITY?
San Francisco, May 29. There are surprisingly few dark-skinned faces
on San Francisco streets, and I have now learned why. After Indepen-
dence, the principle of secession became a lively factor in Ecotopian
political life. Thomas Jefferson and other early American patriots were
quoted in its defense. The black population, whose economic depriva-
tion under white control had made it increasingly nationalist and
separatist even before Independence, apparently joined in the general
" exultation when the great break with Washington came. But in the
months following, black separatist parties grew up to dominate the
ghettoes of Oakland and San Francisco-having been strangled by
the white suburbs earlier, the black population now wanted to control
their own territory. After a long and bitter political struggle, the black
areas (and also Chinatown in San Francisco) were of cially designated
as eity-states within Ecotopia. They had their own city governments,
levied the usual taxes, had their own police and courts, their own
industries, and owned farms in the nearby countryside. In fact they
possessed all the attributes of tiny independent countries even includ-
ing the issuance of postage stamps and currency except for the
carrying on of foreign relations.
This situation, though it satis es many blacks, seems to others
inherently unstable, and they argue for full independence as the only
long-range solution. One scheme, which is currently being debated,
would relocate the entire black population in a new territory including
Monterey Bay and the Salinas Valley, which would provide abundant
agricultural resources and direct access to the Paci c sea lanes. The
political and economic problems posed are monstrous, of course, but
such things were carried out in Eastern Europe after World War II.
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A few black people have preferred to continue living or working
outside the black areas (which are often referred to as Soul City).
They seem to be fully integrated into white society, with intermarriage
frequent. Life within the black territories, judging by my limited
observations, has more hold-overs from pre-Independence days than
Ecotopia as a whole. In fact a few private cars are still mysteriously
tolerated, and people chng to certain symbois of the old ways: there
is a brisk trade in high-quality Scotch whisky and other imported
luxury goods which are hard to nd in Ecotopia elsewhere. The per
capita income is said to be about 10 per cent higher than in the
white areas, largely because of longer working hours probably a
consequence of the lag in black consumption before Independence. .I
We re still making up for lost time, one stylish black man put it
to me.
The culture of Soul City is of course different from that of Ecotopia
generally. It is a heavy exporter of music and musicians, novels and
movies and poetry, both to the rest of Ecotopia and to Europe and
Asia. Black architects, bred in the ghettoes, have been leading propo-
nents of rebuilding Ecotopian cities on people centered rather than
car-centered principles. Black enterprises, it is sometimes said, seem
to be more naturally collectivist than those in white areas.
Since a high proportion of convicted criminals in early Ecotopia,
as in the US, tended to be black, Soul City faced a major problem
in this eld. After Independence, with the legalization of marijuana
and some other drugs, amnesties were declared for prisoners whose
acts would no longer constitute crimes. A few guilty of sex crimes
and crimes like loitering, drunkenness, and vagrancy were also freed.
While the curbing of heroin traf c by taking it over as a government
monopoly reduced the crime rate of Soul City as of other areas, a
substantial black inmate population remained, and black penologists
were forced to take the lead in prison reform.
What is most surprising to an American observer is the severity
of current sentences for violent crime. An ordinary street mugging,
0f the type Which in New York may bring a one to- ve-year sentence,
and a time served of perhaps 18 months, here may bring a at ve-year
sentence With no possibility of parole.
However, the serving of such sentences is quite different from its
equivalent in our prisons. N0 large prisons of our type are maintained,
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either in Soul City or elsewhere in Ecotopia. Prisoners are dispersed
in many small institutions housing only a few dozen inmates each.
During the day inmates participate (under light guard and sometimes
none at all) in the general life of societywholding jobs with ordinary
job rights and pay. However, they (together with their wives, husbands,
or lovers if they so desire) are con ned at other times. This curious
policy is justi ed by arguing that people guilty of violent crimes
generally commit another one when freed, and thus end up in prison
again; indeed traditional prison life increases their tendency to commit
violence. (Except for murderers, perhaps, who usually kill spouses
or acquaintances, and seldom repeat.) In the American system, the
argument goes, prisons were only training schools for the inmates
next crimes. Soul City penologists, on the other hand, believe their
relatively humane policies actually give inmates the time and opportu-
nity to develop non-criminal modes of life in realistic life circum-
stances. They present impressive gures on the relative re-imprison
ment rates for their inmates and ours, but naturally I have no way
of verifying their accuracy.
Interestingly enough, ritual war games are practiced among the
Soul City population also, but spears are considered too savage a
weapon. Long} heavy sticks, rather like the quartersta 's of Robin
Hood s men, are used instead, and the participants wear crash helmets.
Thus the games are usually ended not by a messy wound, but by
one of the participants suffering broken ribs 01' limbs, or being knocked
out.
Although virtuaily all inhabitants of Ecotopia still regard English
as their native language, the establishment of Soul City brought a
considerable emphasis on Swahili in the schools, and many adults
now speak it. Other blacks, however, regard this an an arti cial and
useless step; they point out that black youngsters are already in effect
bilingual since they master both standard English and the street
dialect which is, however, steadily becoming more widely acceptable
in business and professional dealings in Soul City. Swahili may be
useful in the growing trade with African states. Awareness of Africa
is acute among Ecotopian blacks, and I gather that Ecotopia is the
source of considerable nancial and munitions aid to revolutionaries
in South Africa. 7
This, like other aspects of the Ecotopian race situation, is an
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uncomfortable irony for Americans. We look with horror on the
apartheid society of South Africa, where the dominant white minority
has enforced rigid segregation in every aspect of life. In Ecotopia,
the biack minority has itself enforced a similar segregationwthough
of course it makes some difference that this was voluntary whereas
that of the Africans was forced upon them by the whites. But this
admission that the races cannot live in harmony is surely one of the
most disheartening developments in all of Ecotopia, and it clouds
the future of our nation as well. Its example bodes ill for our own
great metropolitan areas, whose black center cities are themselves
already rife with talk of secession.
(May 30) At rst Marissa refused to come to city with me, almost
as a matter of principle. It s the weekend, I said, surely you can
get away for two days! Why should I be the one who has to get
away? Why don t you get away? Why should I have to come to you?
I live here you re just visiting at the Cove! Our arguments become
surprisingly bitter, puneuated by shoves, curses, growls, venomous looks:
there is much at stake. I tried to patch things up and get a little warm
feeling going with a hug; she Slapped at me, took her sleeping bag
and went out into the forest somewhere to sleep I lay down, glumly,
and got to sleep very late. Sometime near dawn I felt her slide into
bed beside me. She laid a cool hand on my shoulder. We must learn
to take turns, she said. We circled arms around each other, and fell
asleep.
But nothing is resolved, of course. Her sense of sel determinatton
is unshakable. Later in the day she said she still didn t want to go into
the city with me now, even if it was her turn. I had invited her to
come along tomorrow to Punta Gorda where they re going to show me
a thermal sea-power set-up . This is a welcome developmentiseems to
show a certain warming up in my o cial reception, and makes it more
likely I ll get to see Vera Allwen soon.
But the whole idea displeased Marissa: she came out with a crack
about foreign dignitaries. The train ride north is supposed to be
inordinately beauti xI through lush farmland, mountain passes, orchard
country, but none of that appealed to her. She said, though, she d like
}01
ECOTOPIA
to come to the Cove when I m back from the trip. This dispelled my
glumness a little. But it is hard to take her insistence on coming and
going only as she pleases. Which is strange, because that is after all
how Francine operates: is it maybe that I have never wanted anything
more from her? Can t imagine what it would be like to live with someone
like Marissa: the notion is exhilarating but scary, like an earthquake.
(Felt my rst one the other day, and broke out in a sweat though it
just jiggled the room a little.
ENERGY FROM SUN AND SEA
Puma Gorda, May 31. One of the least known and yet staggering
achievements of Ecotopian science and technology is the massive
thermal-gradient power plant at Punta Gorda, which I have just been
allowed to visit. (Similar but smaller plants also exist near Monterey
and at other points along the coast.) This is perhaps the most impressive
of the means by which the Ecotopians have pursued their ideal of
pollution-free sources of energy.
Like the rest of the worid, Ecotopia is watching closely the ever
more promising attempts to harness atomic fusion energy for practical
purposes. The prospect does not entirely overjoy the
Ecotopians, however, for they have a sentimental dislike of stringing
power lines over their Iandscape and believe there is something
unnatural in processes that concentrate gigantic quantities of energy
at any one point; they are more interested in the technologies of
generating energy near where it is needed.
Nonetheless, in this as in other matters, they are not exactly the
senseless romantics some Americans think. When I visited the Ministry
of Energy I discovered that of cials there are well aware of the
historical tendency for energy~rich cultures to conquer or dominate
energy-poor ones. The EEotopia'ns are not, contrary to popular belief,
headed back toward a Stone Age life. They use far more power than
wouid be expected from travelling across their countryside «but both
its sources and its uses tend to be diffused, concealed, and novel.
The Ecotopians inheiited a system of oil and gas red power plants
(which they closed within a few years) and a number of atomic- ssion
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plants. They believe that ultimately ssion cannot be tolerated because
of radioactive byproducts and heat pollution, but they have been
willing to live temporarily with the ssion plants located in remote
and little-inhabited areaswthough they have redoubled engineering
precautions against nuclear explosions and extended hot Water dis-
charge pipes more than a mile to sea. (With what I am beginning
to realize is typical Ecotopian ingenuity, the seacoast plant discharges
are carried in huge pipes made of rigid plastic which is extruded
with air bubbles in it so that it is slightly buoyant. Thus it tends
to oat, and is anchored in place just below keel depth by cables
to the ocean oor.)
Also inherited from pre-Independence days is an unconventional,
and ecologically respectable, source of geothermal power. In the
hot-springs region north of San Francisco, turbines are spun by steam
coming up from the bowels of the earth. It is a hellish scene billows
of steam issue from pipes and wells, with loud hissing noises; the
earth seems ready to explode. Despite the contrast with our quietly
humming powerhouses, this geothermal system has advantages: cost
is low, it adds virtually no pollutants to the atmosphere, and only
a small amount of warm water to the run-o in nearby streamswone
of which has become the site of swimming resorts that are open even
in winter.
Ecotopia also took over numerous hydroelectric installations at dams
in its great mountain ranges. However, these are regarded as temporary
expedients too, since they tend to silt up after a few generations,
and have unfortunate effects on salmon and other wildlife. Ecotopian
thinking has moved uniformly toward power sources which, like solar
energy, earth heat, tides, and wind, can be tapped inde nitely without
affecting even the local biosphere. (Ecotopians thus take a childish
delight in the windmills and rooftop wind-driven generators that are
common in both cities and remote areas.)
The major thrust of Ecotopian energy research and development
has involved two main sources. One is the energy of direct solar
radiation, and several systems now exist for capturing it. Some require
large installations and some small, but most are impressive in size.
One type is a silvered parabolic mirror about 30 feet across that
focusses the sunlight. Since the sun moves during the day, the receptor
at the rays focus must move too so this odd-shaped device sits like
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a spider on a web of thin cables on which it pulls itself about, seeking
maximum warmth, and sending steam through a exible pipe to d ve
a generator on the side. Much of the southern part of Ecotopia is
Virtually desert, but these installations have reportedly proved effective
in more northerly areas as well.
Another type is a bank of massive photo-cells, similar to those used
on satellites but enormous in size. I have Visited one cell-bank south
of Livermore, which uses a secret type of receptor material. The softly
rolling grassy hills are faced on their south sides with literally city
blocks on end of a glassy substance, in squares about two meters
on a side. Narrow aisles run along the hillside, evidently mostly for
the convenience of cleaning crews, whom I saw one evening wetting
and wiping down the plates.
During the day the heat and glare are intense, but the setting is
silent, placid and peaceful. Grass continues to grow in the aisles and
under the plates, which are mounted a few feet off the ground. I
heard a meadowlark, and noticed the tracks of eld mice underfoot.
This cell bank must cover an area several miles on each side, perhaps
20 or 30 square miles in all: it s the size of a major airport. It generates
enough power for a chain of minicities, and Ecotopian planners believe
that in cloudier climates too such installations are becoming economi-
cally feasible.
Even this huge set up, however, is hardly remarkable beside the
Punta Gorda thermal sea power station, which might be taken for
a reconstruction of some mad duke s medieval fortress. It squats 0n
the shoreline at a point where deep and very cold water hes only
a few miles offshore, and sucks up seawater through a monstrous
pipe. Smaller pipes run this way and that, connected to generators
and pumps. Engineers explained to me that the system is something
like a giant refrigerator running in reverse. Since Water can store
enormous quantities of heat energy, even a relatively small tempera
ture di erentiai can be made to yieid large amounts ofpower ifsuitably
ingenious heat exchangers are employed-«but great quantities ofwater
must be pumped up to take advantage of this principle. The sheer
architectural mass of the plant is overwhelming; it seems almost an
extension of the tides themselves. (The deep cold water is very
nutrient-rich. Some of it is therefore pumped into nearby ponds to
warm up before being injected into the system along with already
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warm surface water but while in the ponds it feeds sh and shell sh,
which are an important byproduct of the plant.)
Going from the sublime massiveness of this great project, which
must win the admiration of anyone who sees it, to the Iidiculous,
I must describe a peculiarly Ecotopian power-generating device, which
in its way also helps to explain what a fanciful people we are dealing
with. Recently I visited an Ecotopian family in their country house.
(Many Ecotopian living groups either have some kind of shack in
the woods or are associate members of a country commune, where
they spend some of their time.) This delightful retreat was located
in an utter mountain wilderness, many miles from the nearest power
line; but when I got there I found a radio was pounding out music.
This radio, it turned out, was powered by a waterwheel! Some clever
inventor has built a small wheel which oats in midstream suspended
from cables, thus avoiding costly and ecologically damaging embut-
ments. It generates 24-volt power which, stored in a couple ofbatteries,
is plenty to run the radio, a pump, and the few electric Eights needed
in a country place where people go to bed early. My hosts expressed
great glee when I admired this incredible contraption. In fact they
tn'ed to give it to me to take home, but since it weighs about 30
pounds, this is fortunately out of the question.
This house, like many city dwellings, is heated by the system now
widespread in Ecotopia using solar radiation stored in a large water-
tank underground, from which heated water can be pumped through
radiators in the living areas. Much of the south walls and roofs of
Ecotopian buildings are devoted to the heat-receptors for these devices,
but since they greatly reduce the cost of operating a house and also
eliminate the chief need for energy from a central source, Ecotopians
regard this limitation With affection. They also like to point out that
the system can be adapted to heating wash water and the distillation
of seawater, which is useful in coastal communities where summer
water supplies are uncertain.
No survey of Ecotopian energy developments would be complete
without mention of an extremely daring project which wiil be truly
revolutiona1y~if it works. The photosynthetic chemistry of a green
growing plant, as is well known, enables the plant to capture solar
energy and use it in the plant s own growth. Ecotopian scientists believe
they have now worked out a process whereby, in specially bred plants,
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ECOTOPIA
this process could be electrically tapped directly. Such an unbelievably
elegant system would be nearly perfect from an Ecotopian point of
view: your garden could then recycle your sewage and garbage, provide
your food, and also light your house!
(June I) Got back [tom the north this afternoon and found Marissa
already at the Coveasitting in my chair in the library, reading. It
always surprises me how she ts into other scenes, without feeling like
an interloper. Perhaps it is because Ecotopians have such strong ties
to their own family tur they feel secure everywhere? Or is it that
the country is so small it is in some way all one huge extended family?
At any rate she feels at home at the Cove.
We went up to my room arm in arm, very close and companionable.
It s marvelous to be wanted by her: she s direct and solid andpassionate,
and it makes evegzthing possible. I don t quite know what s di erent
in making love with her. She uses her body in a direct and intimate
way that enables me to do the same, somehow. She is in tune with
herself, her own biological being, and through some contagion I find
myself doing the same. I feel stronger with her than I usually have I
like my own body better too, have more trust in its functioning. I don t
worry about it getting cold, or sick, or tired, or not performing well
sexually; I almost don t think about it at all, the way I have in the
past. And the sexual contact between us goes on getting better and
better. We are perfectly open and loose and trusting; sometimes we
lose ourselves, our selfconsciousnesses, in tremendous bursts of shared
feeling closeness and orgasms that are really di erent from anything
in my life before. Yet we never speak of it; it just happens. And not
that it s weirdAstrange positions or anything. We sometimes fool around
with oral sex in one way or another, and it s pleasant for fun and games
or preliminaries, but for the real contact we both like intercourse, the
old standby. (Odd, because Ecotopians are supposed to be so liberated
about sex, I had imagined them doing almost everything but straight
fucking!) We seem to do it for hours, it just goes on, rising and falling
in intensity, changing tone or emotional color, like a leisurely walk
up a lovely mountain, in no hurry to reach the top. But then nally
we reach it, sometimes without realizing we were near, and the view
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ECOTOPIA
is splendid and the air is clear and I feel like I am really living at
last
Can it go on this way? At any rate it seems I can never get enough
ofher I watch for the chance to drag her to bed, I m almost shamefully
focused on having her, on having more of this extraordinary kind of
experience. . . . She is sleeping now, and I study her as she lies stretched
out under my quilt. There is so much intensity in her it brings out
all of mine. When I am with her I feel more solid heavier, almost
literally, as if my feet are planted more rmly on the earth.
I realize the relation with Marissa is changing my whole idea of F
what men and women are like together. Things I used to take for granted ,
with Francine now begin to seem bizarre to me. Men never snap their
heads around to look at Marissa, the way they do with Francine whose
bright blonde hair is like a beacon. Marissa wears no make-up at all,
never, and now that the fashion cycle with us has come round again
to heavy lipstick and eye shaa'ow and so on, I rst found her a little
pale-looking, too reticent about herself. And yet what intensity there
is in her eyes, the way she moves her mouth, the liveliness of her body!
It is as if Francine possesses the signs or signals that are supposed 1
to mean sexuality and vitality, Marissa just has sexuality and vitality,:
so she doesn t need the signals
I used to particularly enjoy going into a fancy restaurant or a cocktail
party wzth Francine. It was like displaying a prize won in some contest.
And she makes the most of it breasts always seeming about to burst
her dress; that special ambiguous look from me to the others, inviting I "
competition and comparisons and irtations. With Marissa, coming into .='
a place is just coming into the place. We will relate to the people there 5
individually or together, intimately or not at all, as it happens to go.
Most people nd Marissa attractive she grows on you, subtly but she
never presents herself as an object to be struggled over, and she never 5
pretends to feelings she doesn t have. And yet she expects a greatE
emotional commitment from me we have had terrible scenes because:
she felt I was not living up to our relationship
Yet sometimes I miss Francine. herfrivolousness her lightheartedness,
her sense of social style and reparteewMarissas awfully serious, and
sometimes I get angry that she won t indulge in game-playing. Francine ,
is game for anything, I suppose because to her nothing much matters.
i
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Is her appeal that with her I can be irresponsible, loll about on those
enormous tits, be childish?
(So why should it be hard for me to be grown up?)
Here I am, 36 years old, involved with one gorgeous, playful woman
Eat one end of the continent, and with one passionate, serious woman
{at the other. Marissa would hate everything about New York, and
Francine would hate everything about Ecotopia. Lucky ladies, to have
such a famous schizophrenic for a lover. . . . But how can I bear being
so split?
Maybe I should have been a poet after all, as I used to think when
I was a teenager. Maybe it s only artists who can really handle their
personal contradictions by putting them into their work?
Under Marissa s questioning (patient but unrelenting!) I have also
been thinking back to my marriage with Pat. I don t see, when I look
at Ecotopian love relationships, or marriages, that awful sense of
Z constriction that we felt, the impact of a rigid streotyped set ofexpecta-
. tionsithat this was the way we were going to relate to each other forever,
that we had to, in order to somehow survive in a hostile universe.
Ecotopians marriages shade of more gradually into extended family
connections, into friendships with both sexes. Individuals don t perhaps
stand out as sharply as we do; they don t present themselves as problems
or gifts to each other, more as companions. Nobody is as essential (or
as expendable) here as with us. It is all fearfully complex and dense
to me, yet I can see that it s that very density that sustains themwthere
are always good, solid alternatives to any relationship, however intense.
Thus they don t have our terrible agonizing worries when a relationship
is rocky. This saddens me somehow it seems terribly unromantic. It s
their usual goddamned realism: they are taking care of themselves, of
each other. Yet I can see too that it s that very realism that allows
them to be silly and irresponsible sometimes, because they know they
can a ord it; mistakes are never irreparable, they are never never gaing
to be cast out alone, no matter what they do. . .. And perhaps this
even makes marriages last better they have lower expectations than
we do, in some ways. A marriage is a less central fact of a person s
life, and therefore it is not so crucial that it be altogether satisfying
(as ifanything or anybody was ever altogether satisfying.) Though people
do split up in ways that are clearly, very painful for them. But not
the wrenching feeling offailure that both Pat and I had when we broke
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up Jhe feeling that utter disaster had overtaken us, especially her of
course, but also me, really: or the feeling offault, that we had somehow
not done it right, the way We were supposed to, that I had not given
her what women were supposed to expect to be given (rather than nding
for themselves or in themselves) and therefore I and we had failed, and
had to ,su er for it. No Ecotopian seems to carry that kind of guilt.
And even though it seems to dilute something intense and precious in
life, I am beginning to envy them a little, and also to see that their
joint way of protecting themselves is stronger and more fruitful than
the individual defensive way I have tried by keeping my relationship
with Francine light and tentative and limited. . .
COMIVIUNICATIONS IN ECOTOPIAI PRESS,
TELEVISION AND PUBLISHING
San Francisco, June 2. As a working newspaperman, I am naturally
cun'ous about the press of other countries, and I have spent a good
deal of time with Ecotopian editors, writers, and television newsmen
and women. The conditions they work under would be intolerable
for me or most of my colleagues. Nonetheless, I have gained a healthy
respect for their integrity, hard work, and devotion to the public welfare
as they see it.
The basic situation of the Ecotopian media is that, in the political
confusion after Independence, laws were passed Which e 'ectively
broke up the existing media corporations. Friends in the legislatures
who had previously protected the publishing and broadcasting indus-
tries were no longer in power. Thus the fundamental Eeotopian press
law forbade multiple owuerships under any circumstances: that is,
the corporations that owned magazines, newspapers, TV and radio
stations were required to divest themselves of all but one operation
in each city. Generally (and mistakenly, as it turned out) they decided
to keep their chief TV stations.
But a series of further con scatory laws followed, narrowly regulat-
ing the types and amounts ofadvertising that were permitted, requiring
augmented quotas of public service broadcasting, and so on. These
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laws worked out to give unfair advantages to small, independent
entrepreneurial groups, who came forth in staggering numbers. In
place of the one daily newspaper San Francisco fonnerly enjoyed,
there are now sixArepresenting every shade ofopinionwplus numerous
weeklies, monthlies, and specia1~interest newsletters. These service a
wider area than the San Francisco paper covered earlier, for the capital
city s media have now, to a certain extent, become national in
circulation. Still, papers are thriving in other cities as wen: Seattle
has four, Portland three, and even Sacramento has three. There has
been an equal proliferation in the magazine eld. This fragmentation
does not seem to be as hard on the individual reporters and writers
as might be expected. They do not yearn for the security of our big
media corporations, but seem to enjoy the thrill of doing their
freewheeling best for a small operation even though its days may
be visibly numbered.
Television has been similarly decentralized and broken up. Each
existing station was early forced into a great deal of local program-
ming~though centralized news services were allowed. The government
itself acquired several channels to be used for political programs both
local and national government affairs (as I reported in an earlier
column) are more 01' iess continually visible on TV: hearings, commit-
tee meetings, debates.
In such circumstances entertainment obviously was forced into a
back seat. It consisted mainly of old lms and a plethora of amateurish
shows: rock music concerts, comedians, endless technical arguments
about ecological problems. It is hard to imagine any large number
of Americans watching such programs, which make little attempt at
Showmanship and are further dulled by the absence of the surrealist
commerciais we have.
How good is the news coverage in Ecotopia? Spot comparisons
with our press from the months just before my trip reveal that
Ecotopian coverage is surprisingly competent in those areas of the
world it chooses to deal with. Because of the lack of diplomatic
relations, of course, no Ecotopian correspondents can be stationed
in the U.S., so information on US. events is skimpy and derived
mainly from European press services. World news on the other hand
seems to be excellent: for instance, the Ecotopian papers had run
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ECOTOPIA
accounts of the latest American air strikes in Brazil more than a week
before our newspapers had. . .
Although the general picture ofthe Ecotopian media is one ofalmost
anarchic decentralization, a jungle in which only the hardiest survive,
here too we nd paradoxes. For the newspapers, which are even sma er
than your tabloids, are actually sold through electronic print-out
terminals in the street kiosks, in libraries, and at other points; and
these terminals are connected to central computer banks, whose
facilities are rented by the publications. Two print-out inks are
available, by the way: one lasts inde nitely, the other fades away
in a few weeks so the paper can be immediately re-used.
This system is integrated with book publishing as well Although
many popular books are printed normally, and sold in kiosks and
bookstores, more specialized titles must be obtained through a special
print out connection. You look the book s number up in a catalogue,
punch the number on a juke-box-like keyboard, study the blurb,
sample paragraphs, and price displayed on a videoscreen, and deposit
the proper number of coins if you wish to buy a copy. In a few
minutes a print-out of the volume appears in a slot. These terminals,
I am told, are not much used by city dwellers, who prefer the more
readable printed books; but they exist in every corner of the country
and can thus be used by citizens in rural areas to procure copies
of both currently popular and specialized books. All of the 60,000-odd
books published in Ecotopia since Independence are available, and
about 50,000 earlier volumes. It is planned to increase this gradually
to about 150,000. Special orders may also be placed, at higher costs,
to scan and transmit any volume in the enormous national library
at Berkeley.
This system is made possible by the same fact that enables Ecotopian
book publication to be so much more rapid than ours: authors retype
their edited nal drafts on an electric typewriter that also makes a
magnetic tape. This tape can be turned into printing plates in a few
minutes, and it can simultaneously be fed into the central storage
computer, so it is immediately available to the print-out terminals.
Aside from this professional publishing, Ecotopia also supports
a sizable amateur industry. Authors, artists, political groups, and
specialized organizations have easy and cheap access to print because
Ecotopia early developed portable, fooi-proof, easily repairable offset
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printing presses, and deployed them everywhere in schools, of ces,
factories and so on. Ecotopian children of eight know how to operate
them with satisfactory results.
The variety of matrials printed in this way is staggering: cookbooks
(many Ecotopians are devoted to ne eating, no doubt one of their
cultural links to the French), political tracts, scienti c papers, comic
books (these have a wide and weird development, being the chosen
medium of some excellent artists), experimental literature, poetry,
how-to-do-it manuals for crafts or skills, and so on. These range in
style from the tawdrily home-made to the superbly personal and
creative.
The Ecotopian fondness for a craft, guild, almost medieval approach
to things also surfaces in their publishing, despite its modern technolo-
gy. Each newspaper, magazine, or book bears a colophon a listing
of who edited the manuscript, typed it for the tape, ran the press,
handled the binding, etc. When I said this seemed rather immodest
in the modern world, I was told that vanity had nothing to do with
itwthe main consideration was to x responsibility, which the
Ecotopians try to decentralize and personalize wherever possible.
(June 3) Sitting around the re at the Cove last night, swapping
old newspaper stories, drinking mulled wine. Every once in a while
somebody would stomp in out of the chilly evening and join us to warm
up. But they still like to tease me. After a while Bert began it: Come
on, Will, tell us what s the biggest Story the Times ever suppresse .
What do you mean by the biggest? I pam ed. Well, whatever you
think was biggest. Bay of Pigs was pretty big, I guess, but that was
a long time ago and anyway they did decide to run it, even 1f it took
three days to get around to it.
I would have opposed holding up on that, I said, frowning. They
ran it, as I understand, when they realized other papers would break\
the story. Even then the old man felt he was betraying the President. \
\
A burst of unkind laughter greeted this remark, which didn t surprise
me, of coursemyou don t nd much sympathy for US. government
policies or gures among Ecolopians. After that the paper printed
everything, as far as I heard. Do you know about the Pentagon Papers? \\
112
ECOTOPIA
Yeah, they were okay on that one, Tom agreed, even if it was
stale news.
Look, Will, Bert said, leaning back with that intent expression
he gets when he s getting down to serious business. What are you going
to write about the Helicopter War? We think that was the most serious
suppressed story since Independence. I know you were only 19 or 20
at the time: so was I. But there wasn t a line about it in any of your
major papers. Your underground papers had some stu i but they never
get anything straight it all sounded like third hand paranoiac raving.
Dead silence, all eyes on me. I took Some deep slow breaths. I know,
even though I was just a reporter on a student paper at the time, that
rumors had circulated for some while about trouble on the Ecotopian
borders. A couple of young hotshot friends, a few years older than I,
wanted to go out and track them down. But the wire service had a
good man in Reno, and of course a whole bureau in Los Angeles. The
editors thought that ifanything important happened, they d know about
it all right. Soon after, the army had put through unusual rush orders
for large numbers of replacement helicopters, but these were explained
as part of the Latin American buiId-up that was beginning then. Besides,
by then the shock of the secession had largely spent itself, and readers
were tired of Ecotopia. Public attention was mostly on the chronic
economic crisis. The public opinion polls showed that while nobody was
happy about Ecotopt'a, nobody was too unhappy about it either. The
likelihood that our government would risk a secret invasion seemed
remote; I certainly hadn t lost any sleep over it.
Are you putting me on? I said. What Helicopter War? Oh,
come on, said Bert angrily. Are you giving us the old no se nada?
We heard a few rumors, I admitted. Our people must have looked
into it. What happened, some skirmishes 0n the border? It was a
fucking war, man! There were thousands killed on both sides!
Red, who must be about 50, spoke up from the sidelines. He s less
talkative than most Ecotopt ans, so his words tend to carry extra weight.
I was in it, he said simply. Tomorrow morning I could take you
down and showyou something that might convinceyou. But he wouldn t
tell me what it was.
We talked on through the evening. Their stories seem to agree too
closely to be merelyfabrt'cations. Amount to something like this: a minor
war took place in almost total secrecy. It lasted only a few days, but
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they claim it was a major turning point in maintaining the new nation.
Ecotopians knew, ofcourse, that Washington was full ofhawks favoring
an immediate and if necessary genocidal solution to the secession.
Ecotoptans also knew that the hawkish views had so far never won
out partly because of the economic problems that reannexing Ecotopia
would have presented by then, partly because it had been feared since
secession that New York, Chicago, Washington, and maybe other cities
had been mined with atomic weapons.
Red s story is that immediately after Independence, the Ecotopt ans
realized that anti-helt'copter devices were a high priority, and several
rather navel ones were produced in very large numbers. One, taken
over by the Ecotopians from the US. Army upon secession and then
manufactured by the former missile plants near Sacramento and San
Francisco, was a radar guz ded rocket carried by a single man (or woman).
After its bazooka-like shell was red, however, the rer continued to
point the weapon at the moving target, and the radar beam actually
steered the rocket till it hit the target. Another type was based on a
French and Russian device, and used infrared homing to guide a missile
toward the exhaust of a ying target; these were especially useful at
night. Another, much cheaper, used a very simple rocket that trailed
long wires, which tangled with the copter s rotors and caused them to
lose control and crash. These weapons were, apparently, distributed
throughout the country. You mean to all army units? I asked. To
all army units and all households and living groups too, Red smiled.
They were everywhere, hundreds of thousands of em, believe it or not.
What he says happened was that the US. Army andAir Force launched
a major secret attack: from bases in Southern California, Colorado
and Montana, and from several carriers o shore, huge squadrons of
helicopters roared over the Ecotopian frontiers, escorted by ghter-
bombers. This may not have been too much ofa surprise: the Ecotopt'ans
claim an excellent intelligence operation. Much destruction was ofcaurse
caused by the jets, which attempted to soften up landing sites in the
approved Vietnam technique. An alarming number ofjets, however, were
shot down. Worse still, when the copters came in, they encountered
heavy ground re from the borders and coastline all the way to their
touch-a own points.
M We just shot them all down, said Red calmly.
[ 3 gh / Vhat do you mean, shot them all down? That s impossible!
ECOTOPIA
You might think so, he replied. But we had many times more
rockets than they had helicopters. We just nished them of as fast
as they came in. They might have got some on the ground if they had
concentrated them all on some open area out in the Valley. But they
were overcon dent and they had it all carefully programmed to lay down
men all Over the country. Well, we got something like seven thousand
in three days. A lot near the borders, but all over the place too. When
they counted up their losses, and still didn t have any men on the ground,
they steppe .
That s incredible, I said. They soon would ve realized what was
going on and changed their strategy. Maybe their computer wasn t
set up for that, said Bert drily. Also we messed up their communication
channels a little bit. I ve heard that half the time when they thought
they were talking to each other they were actually talking to our guys.
Who gave them, um, a lot of wrong information and got them into
some nasty wrong places. What really stopped them, though, was
probably that we nally told them we would detonate the mines in
American cities if the attack went on another day. It was that close.
This fratricidal vision stunned me, though I know what civil wars
are like. What did you do with prisoners of war? I asked. There
weren t too many, said Red. You don t usually survive the crash of
an exploding copter. We hung onto the pilots for a couple of months,
until we were pretty sure it was over. ( Your people were getting busy
in Brazil along about then, too.) The other guys we talked to for a
while and then shipped them down to L.A. Some of them, I ve heard,
later came back out here to live.
We talked long into the night. Well, what are you going to do,
Will? Bert nally asked. What the hell did he expect me to say? More
Checking, rst of all, I replied. And then I d have to nd a way to
handle it that wouldn t be in ammatory. I don t want another war any
more than you do.
Lucky you have broad shoulders so you can carry the world around
on it so easily! Bert laughed. And everybody seemed disappointed by
my reply. But I m not some irresponsible nut who can write whatever
' comes into his head.
ECOTOPIA
ECOTOPIAN EDUCATION S SURPRISES
San Francisco, June 4. Schools are perhaps the most antiquated aspect
of Ecotopian society. Our computer-controlled individual home in
struction has no parallels here. Pupils are still assembled physically
all day for their Eessons. (Indeed few electronic teaching aids are used
at all, in the belief that simply being in the presence of teachers
and fellow pupils has an educational effect.) In fact if Crick School,
which I visited, is any example , Ecotopian schools look more like
farms than anything else. An Ecotopian teacher replied to this
observation, Well, that s because we ve crossed over into the age
of biology. Your school system is still physics dorninated. That s the
reason for ali the prison atmosphere. You can t allow things to grow
there.
Crick School is situated on the outskirts of the minicity of Reliez
and its 125 students trudge out to the country every day. (About
a dozen such schools ring the city.) The school owns eight acres,
including a woodlot and a creek. The name is in honor of Francis
Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. There is not a single
permanent building of any signi cance; instead, classes take place
either outdoors or in small, temporary-seeming wood buildings barely
big enough to hold a teacher and 10 pupils, which are scattered here
and there on the school grounds. I was unable to locate the school
of ce, and when I inquired, I was told the school has none its records
consist ofa single drawer-full ofcards! With only a half dozen teachers,
my informants said, the coordination and decision-making for the
school is simply part of everyday life. Since class periods uctuate
wildly (there are no hour bells) the teachers can always get together
if they feel like it, and they also eat supper together once a week
for more extended discussions.
Incredibly enough, the Children spend only an hour or so a day
in actual class work. When I asked how they are kept from destroying
the school during the times they are not under teacher control, I
was told that they are usually busy attending to their projects. I
could see evidence of such projects on every hand, so perhaps the
explanation, optimistic though it may seem to us, is accurate.
The woodlot is a main focus of activity, especially for the boys,
who tend to gang up into tribal units of six or eight. They build
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ECOTOPIA
tree houses and underground hide-outs, make bows and arrows,
attempt to trap the gophers that permeate the hillside, and generally
carry on like happy savages though I notice their conversation is
laced with biological terminology and they seem to have an astonishing
scienti c sophistication. (One six year-old, examining a creepy-Iooking
bug: Oh, yes, that s the larval stage ) There are some projects, such
as a large garden and a weaving shed, which seem to be dominated
by girl children, though some of the girls are members of chie y
male gangs. Most of the children s study and work time, however,
is spent in mixed groups.
By work, I mean that children in Ecotopian schools literally spend
at least two hours a day actually working. The school gardens count
in this, since they supply food for the midday meals. But apparently
most schools also have small factories. In the Crick workshop I found
about 20 boys and girls busin making two kinds of small wooden
articieswwhich turned out to be birdhouses and ats for seedlings.
(The ats, mercifuily, are uniform in dimensions and style. The
birdhouses assume fanciful shapes and many different sizes. This
double standard is not by accident.) The system is intended to teach
children that work is a normal part of every person s life, and t0
inculcate Ecotopian ideas about how work places are controlled: there
are no bosses in the shop, and the children seem to discuss and
agree among themseres about how the work is to be done. The shop
contains a lot of other projects in one stage or another of development.
In working these out together, as I watched them do for a half hour
or so, the children need to use concepts in geometry and physics,
(10 complex calculations, and bring to bear considerable skills in
carpentry. They marshal the necessary information with a verve that
is altogether different from the way our children absorb prepackaged
formal learning. The children also, I am told, dispose of the workshop
pro ts as they please. Though some of the money seems to be
distributed (equally) among the individual children, some is used to
buy things for the school: I was shown a particularly ne archery
set that was recently bought in this way.
It was sunny during my visit, but Crick School must be appallingly
muddy in the rainy winters. To provide some protection, and also
to give a place for meetings, parties, lms and video shows, the school
possesses a giant teepee-like tent. The white canvas covering is no
117
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ECOTOPIA
longer new and carries many charming decorative patches. Usually
the lower rim of fabric is rolled up to head height, making the teepee
into a kind of pavilion. Here the children sometimes play When it
is raining heavily. (They are never forbidden to go out in the wet,
and learn to take care of drying themselves off.) A large pit in the
center is the site of occasional barbecues, when a deer (or one of
the school pigs) is roasted and eaten; and a kitchen at one side of
the teepee is often used by groups of children making themselves
lunches or treats,
Does this extremely unregulated atmosphere lead to wild conduct
among the children? So far as I could tell, not at all; in fact, the
school is curiously quiet. Small bands of children roam here and there
on mysterious but obviously engrossing errands. A few groups play
ball games, but the school as a whole has little of that hectic, noisy
quality we associate with our schoolgrounds. Indeed at rst I could
not believe that more than 30 or 40 children were present, considering
the lack of babble. The tribal play groups, incidentally, are not all
of an age; each contains some older kids who exercise leadership
but do not seem to be tyrannical. This is perhaps encouraged by
the teachers, or at least not discouraged, for they work with groups '1
at one general level of development but do not object if an older
or younger Chitd wishes to join in or just watch one ofthe class sessions.
Some of the teachers, especiaily those occupied mainly With the
younger children, apparently teach everything. But other teachers
specialize to some extentwone teaches music, another math, another
mechanics -by which he means not only that branch of physics,
but also the construction, design and repair of physical objects. In
this way they feel free to indulge their own interests, which they assume
will have an educational effect on the children. Certainly it seems
to keep their own minds lively. All the teachers teach a lot of biology,
of course. The emphases and teaching loads are exible, and set by
discussion among the teachers themselves. .
This, like the genera} operation of the school, is possible because
of the most remarkable fact of all about Ecotopian schools: they are
private enterprises. Or rather, just as most factories and shops in
Ecotopia are owned by the people who work in them, so the schools
are enterprises collectively but personaliy owned by the teachers who
run them. Crick School is legally a corporation; its teacher members
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ECOTOPIA
own the iand, buildings and reputation (such as it is) of their school.
They are free to operate it however they wish, follow whatever
educational philosophy they wish, and parents are free to send their
children to Crick School or to another school as they wish.
The only controls on the schools, aside from a maximum fee rule
and matters of p1umbing and safe buildings, stem from the national
examinations which each child takes at ages 12 and 18. Apparently,
although no direct administrative controls exist, the indirect pressure
from parents to prepare children for these exams_as well as for lifeuis
such that the schools make a strong effort to educate their students
effectively. The exams are made up yearly by a prestigious committee,
comprising some educators, some political gures, and some parents a
partly elected and partly appointed body whose members have tenure
for seven years and are thus somewhat insulated, like our senators
or judges, from short-term political pressures.
Indeed there seems to be a brisk competition among schools; and
children switch around a good deal. On the secondary level the
situation is apparently a little hke ours; one school near San Francisco,
which has produced a large number of scientists and political leaders,
consequently has a long waiting list.
It is hard to tell how the children themselves react to the competi-u
tiveness that exists, on some levels, along With the laxity of Ecotopiani
life. I often saw older children helping younger ones with school work, ,
and there seems to be an easy working recognition that some people:
know more than others and can aid them. But greater ability doesn t
seem so invidious as with us, where it is really valued because it}?
brings rewards of money and power; the Ecotopians seem to regard 3
their abilities more as gifts which they share with each other. Certainly
I never saw happen at Crick School what I have seen in my daughter s x 1
American school: one child calling another stupid because he did ,
not grasp something as fast as the rst child did. Ecotopians prize 1
excellence, but they seem to have an intuitive feeling for the fact
that people excel in different things, and that they can give to each
other on many di erent levels.
Do Ecotopians accept the idea that poorer parents might not be will-
ing or able, given the tuition costs, to send their children to school
at all? In this crucial area, Ecotopians have not allowed their thinking
to revert to that of harsher ages. Rather than a scholarship system,
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ECOTOPIA
however, they give outright sliding grants to families with incomes
below a certain level, and one component of these is marked for
tuition. Thus the Ecotopian state, while not willing to lift the burden
of education entirely oil the parents backs (thus perhaps encouraging
larger families!) is still willing to force citizens to educate their children
in some manner. The possibility of kickback schools, such as arose
in the US. when tuition vouchers were rst tried, does not seem a
great worry in Ecotopia, where the welfare of children is discussed
constantlywand where the children themselves generally run school
newspapers that are, if anything, ridiculously critical of their own
schools, and would surely spot anything sneaky going on.
Judging by my briefvisit, the fact that no formal curriculum prevails
does not mean that Crick students miss the basics of reading, writing,
and arithmetic, though they tend to learn them in concrete contexts.
But they also learn a great deal of sideline information and sk ls.
An Ecotopian 10 year-old, as I have observed, knows how to construct
a shelter (odd though some of the boys shacks looked); how to grow,
catch, and cook food; how to make simple clothes; how hundreds
of species of plants and animals live, both around their schools and
in the areas they explore on backpacking expeditions. It might also
be argued that Ecotopian children seem in better touch With each
other than the children in our large, crowded, discipline-plagued
schools; they evidently learn how to organize their lives in a reasonably
orderly and self propelled way. Chaotic and irregular though they
appear at rst, thus, the Ecotopian schools seem to be doing a good
job of prepan ng their children for Ecotopian life.
(June 6) This morning Red and I went out to a hidden scrap yard
south of San Francisco. There, piled in formidable heaps as we pile
autos in ourjunkyards, were hundreds ofwrecked US. Army helicopters,
most ofthem badly damaged. Had been gone over by salvage crews~in-.
struments, cables, motors, and so on were missing from most. But
, undeniably U.S. aircraft, every last one. I phoned Marissa with this
: crushingpiece ofinformation. Well, didyou reallydoubtit? she asked.
Do you still think people would try to deceive you? I don t know
what to think, anymore. Except about you. And what s that? I ll
tell you when I see you.
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(June 7) Just came from the War Ministry, where I tried to get the
o cial Ecotopian view on the Helicopter War. The whole Ministry
occupies only three oors of what used to be the Federal Building in
San Francisco. No press information section at all. I was just taken
into an o ice and introduced to a young man by his name, with no
rank dr'sc overed later that he s some kind of general. He con rmed
outlines I d been given earlier, and offered 7,679 as the precise number
of copters shot down, although some of the count had to be made
from rather fragmentary pieces, you know.
What he really wanted to tell me about was the militia system Ecotopia »
adopted after Independence. Regarded it as a great social innovation,
seemed not to be aware we had tried it in 1789 and couldn t make
it work. (And if we tried it now the units would probably turn into j
gangs of armed looters!) Local arsenals; men train yearly, do work ;
projects for a couple of weeks Their organization sounds more like?
guerrilla bands than a real army, but they evidently have excellent radioé
communications and a very e icient national command system. Denied
that heavy forti cations exist on the borders, though they are mostly
mountainous and could be made virtually impenetrable. Remember
Dienbienphu! he laughed. Would not disclose locations of armaments
research, which is evidently highly decentralized. Citizenry said to be
the source of many usable military ideas: An ordinary person invented
one of our cheapest anti-helicopter weaponsma simple rocket trailing
wires. He was a bad shot, and his idea enables you to bring down a
copter even ifyou miss the body of the thing.
Says they would like their military establishment to wither awayfurther
(it s now about the size and relative cost of Canada s) but can t trust
the US. enough yet. Seemed a very smart and hard working o cer.
Not a trace of the kind of bureaucratic featherbedding mentality that
plagues our armed services, either. I bet they do have Washington mined.
(Later) Have nally decided not to le a story on the Helicopter War.
Can t see any useful purpose being served, at this late date. Yes, the
Times was wrong not to pursue andprint the story while it was happening.
And I suppose, hard though it is for me to admit it, there may be}
other unknown chapters of similar enormity in our recent nationalk
historymthtngs that were mistakes, or at any rate grave risks, and should
have been exposed, attacked, debated. But I can see what would happen
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ifI re opened all those old sores now. (Assuming, of course, that Max
would print the story if] sent it, which is, to say the least, uncertain.)
I would be the agent of new rancor between our people and Ecotopia.
I d be attacked by our rightwingers as a turncoat, giving away our
secrets. And I confess this charge would hurt a little, silly as it seems.
Whatever seeds of mutual understanding my series of reports may be
generating would be killed. The resulting tension would be Sure to make
it impossible to have any kind of serious opening conversations with
President AIIwen or even to remain in the country, for that matter!
(Responses from her secretary are a little warmer these days he even
commented favorably on that column about the economy. Still, nothing
de nite about seeing her.)
You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. I
remember the chill that motto used to be able to send down my back.
Then I had to learn that truth was not some single easy thing you
could know automatically, but an uneasy and always tentative com-
.I pound offacts, inferences, balances inherently hypothetical even when
" it seems altogether obvious: like science, I suppose. We go on re ning
it, through the years, but we never ever really reach it. (And so our
freedom is conditional too?) Someday I will write the Helicopter War
story. But it is not part of this assignment.
Now must go downstairs and face the goading from Bert and the
rest. Lucky bastards.
LIVING IN PLASTIC TUBING
Santa Cruz, June 8. We extrude plastic sausage casings, wire, garden
hose, aluminum shapes, and many other items, but the Ecotopians
extrude whole rooms. They have devised machinery that produces
oval-cross-section tubing, about 13 feet wide and 10 feet high; the
walls are six inches thick, and there is a at oor inside. The tubing
can be made solid, 01' windows can be punched out along the sides.
It can be bought with ends cut off square or on the diagonal. The
resulting houses take many shapeswin fact I ve never seen two that
were alike but you can get the general impression by imagining that
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ECOTOPIA
jet airplane cabins could be bought by the yard and glued together
into whatever shapes you had in mind.
Most Ecotopian buildings are wood, the material Ecotopians love
best. But wood houses are complicated to build and thus expensive
compared to these extruded houses, which are made ofa plastic derived
from cotton. The extruded houses also have the advantage of portabil~
ity (a standard section about 12 feet long is light enough to be lifted
by four men) and Ecotopians show great ingenuity in using them.
Cut off at one angle and glued together, they produce a square
house; on a different angle, a hexagonal 0r octagonal house. You
can glue sections together into an irregular zigzag shape, or make
them into a long looping string, with branches or protrusions, enclosing
a sort of compound a common pattern for extended-family groups
living in open country. You can build a central space out of wood
or stone and attach extruded rooms onto the outer edge. You can
cut doors or windows with a few minutes work. And not only can
the sections be glued together by unskilled labor, their cost is very
low a room~size section costs less than a fth of what a standard-con-
struction room costs, including 2i couple of windows. This, I was told,
is the astonishing result of producing housing on a truly industrial
eontinuous-process basis, instead of by handwork.
I have just inspected one of the plants in which these extruded
houses are produced. It resembles one of our car washes. A large
vat cooks the ingredients into a foam-type moldable plastic. The foam
is then squirted under pressure though a huge oval slot, and hardens
as it comes in contact with the air. After passing over some supporting
rollers, it has window holes punched if desired, and is then sprayed
inside and out with a hard-surface plastic. This has a strange neutral
color and resembles a dried corn leaf which is not surprising since
it is derived from corn plants; it is washable, can be painted though
few Ecotopians use paint, and modestly ts in with natural landscapes.
Finally the tubing is cut o into different lengths and stored in a
nearby eld until needed.
The oor of the tube has troughs molded along the sides to
accommodate Wiring and water pipes, which are also avilable in
standard section lengths and connect to outlets, toilets, and so on.
Ecotopians are always talking of integrated systems, by which
they mean devices that cater to several of their ecological fetishes
123
ECOTOPIA
at once. The extruded house system o ers a number of examples.
Probably the most startling is the bathroom. Ecotopians have put
into practice an early notion of our architects, and produce entire
bathrooms in one huge molded piece, proportioned to slide neatly
into a section of extruded room. It contains all the usual bathroom
components, including a space heater. A companion unit, a large
plastic tank, is buried outside, and connected by two exible hoses.
This, it turns out, is a septic tank, which not only digests sewage
but produces methane gas in the process, which in turn operates the
heater! The ef uent that runs out the other end is not at all repulsive,
but clear and excellent for watering gardens, so that ordinarily the
garden is placed adjacent to the bathroom. Sludge is removed from
the tank every few years and used for fertilizer. This system may
seem disgusting to some, but it has its advantages, especially in rural
areas. And when you remember that gas and electric energy in
Ecotopia are inordinately expensive (costing about three times what
they cost us) it is clear why such an odd but thrifty idea has caught
on widely. Another integrated system Ecotopians are proud of is the
heat-pump solar heating device; these are especially effective with
the extruded rooms, consume no fossil fuel or even water, and require
only a small amount of electricity to operate their pumps.
Incidentally, one curious symptom of the high cost of energy in
Ecotopia is that houses tend to be abominabiy iil lit. They contain
lamps of several kinds, used for reading and work purposes though
Ecotopians avoid uorescent tubes, claiming their discontinuous emis-
sion patterns and subliminal icker do not suit the human eye. But
for ordinary socializing their houses are lit by small bulbs and often
even by candles (which they produce from animal fats as our ancestors
did).
Such peculiarities aside, an extruded house has a comfortable feeling
once you get used to it. The fact that walls and ceiling merge into
one another can make for unease at rst, yet it is snug and secure
too. Ecotopians decorate houses in many different modes, but those
who live in extruded houses tend to use even more rugs, coverlets,
blankets, and other woven objects, presumably to soften the severe
geometrical lines of the structure. Sheepskin and fur rugs are also
common. Because of the extremely good insulation and air seal
provided by the foam shell, extruded houses are easy to heat in fact
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ECOTOPIA
the windows are usualiy kept wide open and their inhabitants thus
tend to wear little clothing indoors. (Indeed some of them are totally
unconcerned about nudity~l was once greeted at the door by an
Ecotopian wearing nothing at all.)
One of the pleasantest houses I have yet visited had extruded rooms
arranged like spokes of a wheel around a central stone core. This
provided the living, cooking and eating area, which was octagonal
in shape and had a translucent dome over it. An indoor tree, perhaps
15 feet high, stood in a miniature garden under the dome. One side
of the main octagon opened out toward the river from which the
house stones had come. The other sides had sliding doors opening
into a sen'es of tube rooms, ve of which were bedroom-study-retreat
rooms, one a spacious and luxurious bathroom complete with replace,
and one a sort of work room with a small bathroom. Plants and
woven fabrics were everywhere, forming beautiful contrasts with the
pale, graceful extruded shapes. In one of the bedrooms, a soft,
deepwpile rug continued up the walls to window level; aside from
a low bed, there was 110 other furniture, though a bank of cabinets
lined the far end of the room. These, I discovered, are available
prefabricated, like other kinds of dividers for the extruded rooms;
but often people devote great artistry to making their own, with
fantastically beautiful woods and intricate detail work.
Extruded houses lack the many built-in appliances of our trailers,
but they are probably much more durable; some have been lived
in for 15 years now. They are easily patched by the occupants. Once,
to demonstrate this, an Ecotopian who was showing off his house
to me took an axe and chopped a gaping hole in it! Then the family
gathered round, plugged up the hole with shreds of foam, and neatly
glued on a piece of surface plastic. The whole process, accompanied
by much laughter, took about 10 minutes.
Like all plastics manufactured in Ecotopia, the extruded houses
can be broken up and thrown into biovats, digested by micro-organ
isms into fertilizer sludge, and thus recycled onto the elds from
whence their materials came. Oddly, the one serious problem encoun-
tered when they were rst used was that they tended to blow away
in high winds. But instead of our heavy, excavated foundations, they
now use large adjustable corkscrew devices which anchor each corner
but leave the earth surface undisturbed.
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Many Eootopians are fond of these products of housing automation.
But they are very unceremonious about them, and treat them with
none of the almost religious respect they extend to wood structures.
If a family member dies or leaves, his room may be siiced off and
recycled. When a baby is born or a new person joins a group, a
new room can be glued onto the existing constellationma long room
for an adult, a short one for a child. Any self respecting architect
would shiver at such a prospect, but it does make the houses a direct
expression of the life inside them.
(June 9) Marissa and I apparently an a more exible basis now after
doing the Helicopter War checking I went out to the camp for a bit
of rest, and yesterday she went down with me to the extrusion plant.
It turned out she had never been in an extruded h0use~must have put
a lot of energy into avoiding theml and concluded they were awful.
G0! furious when she saw I was fascinated and impressed. I knew
it! They re just a piece of your American junk! She banged 0n the
slick surfaces, made terrible faces. For a moment I didn t take it too
seriously, but then suddenly realized her reaction was intensely personal
and concerned something much more important: she felt I was backslid-
ing, losing whatever sense she and other Ecotopians have banged into
my head since I ve been here. Began to weep. How can you love wood
the way you say you do, and yet be sympathetic to this insane arti cial
crap? Just feel it, feel it! (I felt it. She s right: it s got a sort ofpale,
neutral, clammy feel, and no smell, and very little texture.) Wildly, and
. crying again: I will never, never, never live in one of those things,
. never!
Suddenly I knew we are on the verge of new developments I don t
understand, where everything has taken on a new and subterranean
importance; there is some sense in which she is watching me, evaluating
me, which is di erent from her playful cultural arm-wrestling at the
beginning. Whatever it is in me that she cares about, she really cares
about. . . . We have also reached some new, more relaxed level 0fsexual
relating. For weeks she accepted my sexual appetite for her as a kind
of aberrant fact of nature that would pass, and it has we are now
in a much better balance, she pursues me as much as I pursue her.
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ECOTOPIA
We look at each other with a lovely sense of mutual desire Strange,
swelling, bursting sensation in chest when I think about [teas ifI want
to pour myself out to her, from the heart. I always worry about being
sentimental, I said last night, but I m going to say anyway that I
love you. She looked at me intently. What do you love about me?
Your intensity and your freeness. And the way we are joyful togetheri
not just in bed, other times too.
Well, she said, speaking carefully, I have begun to love you too.
I love your intelligence, your kindness. And you startle me with your
strange viewpoints on things. And actually I m more joyful with you
than with other people. Maybe you liberate me in some way. You re
the most powerful person in my life these days.
1' What do you mean) powerful? That I have friends in Washington?
, She laughed. My God, no! You just bring out a stronger kind of
glove than I have for anybody else.
z The kind of love you would have for a mate?
We looked at each other gravely for a while. I m not sure, she
:said nally. Ifyou were an Ecotopian, I think it would be. But maybe
{it s because you aren t an Ecotopian that it s so exciting to be around
you. You re more of a cynic than we are, so I want to test everything
against you! But you re so terribly rootless too
At this, to my surprise, she began to cry. And to tell the truth I
suddenly didn t feel so cheery myself She s right: I am a homeless
wanderer, and somehow this trip is bringing into new perspectives the
things I thought were settled the way Pat and I had worked things
out with each other and the kids, my easy loose relationship with Francine.i
I m beginning to see that to an Ecotopian, who always has a strong;1
collective base to return to, a place and the people of that place, my;i
existence must seem pathetically insecure. I have never cried about it.'
But maybe I should. _ . .
E
%
SEPARATION OF FUNCTIONS: RESEARCH
AND TEACHING IN ECOTOPIA
Berkeley, June 9. American universities are our major source of
scienti c innovations, and important for social policy formulation as
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ECOTOPIA
well. But, in line with their penchant for small scale organization,
the Ecotopians have attempted to separate research functions from
teaching functions. This has brought about a striking proliferation
of small research institutes. These are usually located near universities
and their staffs are partly permanent members and partly university
professors on their year-off research rotation. These institutes seem
to contain 30 100 membeIs scientists, technicians, machinists, and
so on it is hard to tell who is what, as their professional roles are
not so well de ned as with us. One such institute I have Visited, near
Monterey, was studying a variety of oceanographic and related
biological problems. Another, south of San Francisco, concerned itself
with astronomy, astrophysics, and so on. (The Mt. Hamilton telescopes,
I am told, are once again usable due to the drop in air pollution
and city illumination levels since Independence.) Scienti c institute
laboratories such as these appear to a layman to be well equipped,
and Ecotopian scientists are often invited to international congresses
Where their work is highly respected for its originality, though Ofcourse
it is not as broad in scope as ours, nor anywhere near as well nanced.
The atmosphere of the research institutes, considering the great
national responsibility they bear, is surprisingly playful. There isra
great deal of sitting around with coffee or tea or marijuana, and many
projects seem to make constant use of children s construction-set
materials. The electronic equipment in many 1abs lends itself to games
in which, I was told, a certain amount of fooling around turns out
to generate surprising and useful ideas.
Ecotopia also manages to support a sizable number of utterly
independent and very small research out ts, often two~ or three person
labs. Many scientists think these tiny grouplets are the source of the
most brilliant ideas in Ecotopian science for reasons that are not
well understood but are thought to involve the kind of solitary,
independent minds attracted to such free circumstances.
It is not clear how these small projects are nanced, much less
supervised, if indeed they are supervised. Evidently there are central
government funds that are disbursed through an organization like
our National Science Foundation, Whose advisory committees are
required to devote certain sums to high-risk projects, usually proposed
by younger scientists. It is believed that if one in a hundred of these
projects results in an interesting discovery, the money can be consid-
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ered well spent. The great example cited to me was the nding of
a photochemical mechanism that could tap electrical energy directly
from algae and other growing plants. This was the work of two
26-year-olds, reportedly rather antisocial types with somewhat odd
interests that happened to contain an unusual combination of botany,
plant physiology, and electronic miniatun zation. (Although this
achievement has not yet proved itself in practical power-generation,
it did win them a Nobel Prize.)
My scienti c background is not suf cient to evaluate some of the (
claims that have been made to me, but great stress has been laid ,
on the fact that natural processes have been adapted to produce
chemicals we obtain from coal and oil. Thus fermentation which we
use mainly to make liquor turns grain, beet sugar, and other crops
into alcohol which is widely used for heating and cooking, as well
as for the production of other chemicals. The Ecotopians are extremely
proud that they employ petroleum products solely for lubrication and
even there are making progress toward producing heavy, durable oils
from vegetable sources. Plant breeding is highiy developed, and plant
care has attained a positively Japanese level of sophistication. Special
types of oceanographic research are highly advanced; a seaborne unit,
for instance, has been at work for some years in an attempt to decode
the speec of dolphins and Whalesispecially equipped divers live
among dolphins at sea for long periods, just as ethnographers would
do if they wished to learn the language of an unknown tribe. Active
research also continues on additional ways of harnessing solar, wind
ad tidal power.
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 reorienta~
tion of nationai production technology which foilowed Independence
was achieved only through massive scienti c e ort.
There is one striking lack in Ecotopian science, which reminds one
how drastic have been the e ects of secession in some areas. Neither
in Ecotopian universities nor in research institutes can one nd
professors of several once ourishing disciplines: political science,
sociology and psychology. Their practitioners evidently drifted o into
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other elds philosophy, biology, and so on. Many books on the former
subject matters of these elds continue to appear, but they are treated
as part of general citizenly concern and are not considered to have
scienti c standing. History, 011 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 cn'mes ofAmerican industrial leaders and corporations whose
records fell into the public domain at the time of secession.) Economics
is also still an active eld, 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 univer s V
sities than in ours. While I was visiting Berkeley, a college dean was L
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 a airs without bene t Of eOl interference
fromlwa 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 of ce 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 coilegial professors, who are
often felt to be brilliant but erratic by their regular colleagues, are
sometimes lured away from other univerities for a year; sometimes
they are eminent men of Eetters, 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 31
institutions of higher education has shrunk considerably. People seem i
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 require-1
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ECOTOPIA
ments. 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 l
prerequisite.) The respect given to people thus turns upon achieve-
ment; 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 certi able expertise and
de ned professional elds, often with severe consequences. Thus the
magni cent departmental system at Berkeley was abolished, together
with its elaborate cum'culum 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 mentalf
processes proper to the humanities, the biological and physical!
sciences, and political thought. l
Incredible as it may seem to us, this competence is thought to be :
objectively de nable, 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 yearwlong 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
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programs that take place in research institutes, farms, factories, and
other productive institutions ofthe society. Here students are subjected
to the same standards as their masters. The publication of a briiliant i
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. E '
And panicipation in the community, whether a college, a living group, t
01' 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 stiil 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 organiza- i
tions. 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 Walk Street.
011 the other hand, the curious combination of inteliectual rigor {
and lack of customary disciplinary boundaries may explain why so i
many Eootopians are expert at arguing esoteric positions (sometimes 3'
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 o ce: she has
expressed interest in my columns, and will work me into her schedule
soon. This clearly justi es 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
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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 ercely
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 it 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
rst 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 video-
lms, or indulge in some original artistic activity. However, few of
these gain the recognitionwand 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 continu
ing 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
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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
[Jhighest achievements, a kind of ultrademocratic shrinking of the scale
fof creative excellence. Apparently, if art is something everybody does,
{a Picasso or a Van Gogh no longer seem quite so special.
Nor do there seem to be big-name architects in Ecotopia. People
themselves design and built 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 govern-
ments 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 Can'bbean music. Bands from Spanish back
grounds play with an obvious Latin American in uence. White bands
tend to play music that sounds to me something like Balinese gamelan
orchestras an intn'cate, cerebral, yet driving jazz, with many home-
made drums and gongs prominent in it. (This is said to be derived
from earlier rock styles.) There are also groups using classical instru-
mentation violins, clan'nets, utes, and so onwwho 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
I34
ECOTOPIA
some people in the vicinity dancing. Classical music, incidentally, is
also heard Widely, especially as played by street musicians.
It s dif cult 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 oomplaints about being deserted, diIges for the
unhappy end of true love, expressions of anger or despair. There I
is a resilient humor to some of these songs, but evidently the Ecotopian I
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 electri -
cation. At the time ofIndependence, rock music was entirely electronic,
and groups carried around with them a whole truckload of heavy
ampli ers. 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 orientai 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 arti cial aid
of electricity. Their nal argument was that ampli ed music was a
biological o ense because it damaged eardrums. The development
of small, inexpensive ampli ers undermined their rst point, and the
last didn t seem to impress young Ecotopian musicians any more than
it had our ovm. And so the debate rages on.
A number of Ecotopian artists have apparently gained some inter
national status, with shows in Paris and Tokyo However, the main
focus of Ecotopian artistic activity is aggressiveiy domestic In fact I
one young artist went so far as to refuse even to give me his name,
test it be bmited about the world through my coiumns. We re likeé'
the Balinese, he insisted. We have no fart we just do everything,
as well as we can. The effects of this attitude can be seen not only
in the high level ofbeauty attained by craft products pottery, weaving, 2
jewelry, and so onw 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 Eootopians provide for each other.
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ECOTOPIA
(June 13) Must get this down straight before it gets furred over.
Got up yesterday morning and found the Cave 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 hesitatt'on 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 admitwit
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 sel 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 ofyou, Bert jibed at me. They all picked up their spears
and we jostled out the big door and into the street the ghting 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 as sometimes coming in on a refrain. People along the way
watched as 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 highschool 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. T00k
o my sweater and gave it to one of the women not sure if it was
Brit 0r Lorna. The chanting grew stronger, and the spirit of the group
changed. As we approached the park it was as tfthe 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.
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Then suddenly we were 017 the street and into the park, and there
was the ritual cauldron, with barbaric cups hanging from the rim,
gleaming in the sun. And o 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 ghters was enormous, as they gathered around
our cauldron. How beautiful they were, how courageous! One by one,
they stripped o r their street clothes and put on their war garments:
leatherjackets and shorts, decorated in gorgeous designs, some astrologi-
cal, some totem-am'mal, some purely arabesque. Cups began passing
around (nobody helped himselfwyou 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
ifmy hand could not grip the cup, and expecting it to fall to the ground,
ignominiously. Don t remember if I even made an efort to hold it.
But I drank somehow, and there was a great shout, and hands were
, patting me on the back, and a ghting out t 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 ofenergy, like what we call second
wind but moreso all my muscles felt strangely powerful.
They banged the gong for the ght to begin. I had watched our men
practice in the garden with their spears, but the actual weapon seemed
1 heavy and awkward. I was afraid my inexperience would endanger my
brothers. But their eyes ashed companionably and we all rushed onward
Etogether, and began with our enemies the fearful dance I had dreaded
and dreamed of. Their rst charge horri ed me. I had never seen such
open looks of murderous malice in another man s eyes, and it was hard
not to break and run and cry for mercy. But we rallied, regrouped,
pushed back against their advance with a compact front ofmany spears;
and they could see that if they pushed further, one of them would be
mortally exposed. Step by step then, not wishing to abandon an
opportunity If we should falter, they began to retreat.
At this, or so I seem to recall, I or someone near me uttered a bestial
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ECOTOPIA
kind of triumphant growl, a truly blood-curdling noise. At any rate,
I have never felt anything quite like that moment. The dread of their
advance was replaced by an unutterable feeling of strength which we
all shared, and knew we shared. Making feints and jabs with our spears,
and threatening cries, we spread out and pushed them back, looking
for weak spots, occasionally ganging up to single out one of their men
and try to cut him o .
On one of these surges I must have gotten carried away by my
enthusiasm and misjudged the distance. The balance of movement in
these war games is more delicate than it seems, and the other side can
seize an advantage in a fraction of a second. At any rate, I must have
stepped a pace or two too far, or too much to the left or right. The
enemy suddenly counterattacked in a way that isolated me on my left.
Jerry, who was there, had to jump back for an instant until Tom leaped
forward to give him added strength and in that moment a spear pierced
my side just above the waist.
Must have passed out immediately, though I dimly remember cries
and shouting and hands helping me to lie down on bloody grass.
By asking people later, have found that I was then bandaged up
by a doctor and taken to the small nearby hospital where I am making
this diary entry. It is a messy wound, apparently, but did not a ect
anything crucial. It aches dully, but I can bear it. They took most
of an hour to operate, cleaning up the wound and sewing me back
together. I came to again just at dusk, and found I am assigned a
rather beautiful nurse named Linda. You were brave, she said, after
explaining to me that I was emerging from the anesthetic fog. Did
she mean the war games or the operation? I was too drowsy to ask.
The hospital must be empty she seems to have little to do except look
after me. But this is very welcome, since I tend to hallucinate more
ghting when I close my eyes, and I don t like the idea of going to
sleep. . ..
(June 14) Last night after I nished diary entry I told Linda about
the hallucinations. Figured she would get me a sleeping pill, but she
just asked me to tell her about them. Then she began to massage my
forehead and shoulders, which slowed my mind down very soothingly.
After a while she just sat there, with a hand resting on my chest. Calmly,
138
ECOTOPIA
as if she would stay all night if necessary. I must have gone right to
sleep, and this morning when I woke up she was sitting in the chair
next to the bed. It turned out she did stay all night (the couch in the
corner of the room was rumpled and sleptq n) and that, furthermore,
this is standard practice in Ecotopian hospitals.
Her long hair swung as she came over and sat on the bed. How
do you feel? she asked It was hard to say. I was tired, as if] could
sleep for hours more, Yet the sun was appealing, it made me want
to stretch. I became conscious of bandages, and ofthe fact that moving
caused pain. I lay still and looked at her.
Some ofyour friends will come visit in a bit, she said. But maybe
you d like some breakfast? Yes, I m very hungry. The doctor ll
be around in a little while. We can fortify you rst. What would you
like to eat?
I thought a minute. I d like to have a farmer-style breakfast: steak,
eggs, potatoes, pie, tomato juice, co ee, t0ast She smiled. You do
want to get well, don t you? All right, I 11 see what the cook can do
for you. She pointed to a button at the head of the bed. Ifyou push
that, it buzzes me here, no matter where I am or what I m doing.
She indicated a small radio receiver at her waist.
As she went out, I felt something like you do when a slot machine
pays of: you have trusted yourself to the ckle ngers of fate, and
instead of the expected loss, you get bounty. I have survived, the sun
is shining, and somebody has sent around this marvelous woman to
take care of me. . . .
I gorgea' myself on the breakfast, though I wasn t quite as hungry
as I d thought. The doctor arrived. Not my favorite image ofa physician
long of hair and loose of attire, and took a personal interest in my
background and business which vergea' on prying, but he seemed
competent enough. Probed and poked and listened, pronounced me well
on the road to recovery. The antibiotics are evidently working: no signs
of infection. Tomorrow, he said, I ll be able to move around. Today,
you ll have to content yourself with passive pleasures. I II have Linda
give you a bath this afternoon. And maybe a little massage for now."
I had been thinking of asking someone to phone Marissa for me,
but Linda rather pointedly said she s already taken care of it, and to I
just relax and enjoy the massage-whtch turned out to be a lovely sensual
experience. Linda s aim seemed to be to make every muscle and nerve
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ECOTOPIA
in my body warm and conscious of itself. She stroked and kneaded,
with a soft, steady rhythm that put me into a dazed, dreamy state.
As she worked I couldn t help sighing repeatedly with sheer joy and
amazement, and this must have pleased her; at the end she sat down
beside me, covered me up, gave me a hug, and said, You re certainly
appreciative!
Well, I ve never been treated so well in hospital before. Our hospitals
are . Well, they re excellent medically ofcourse, but they re impersonal.
The nurses are all business, very overworked, and they re not so pretty.
I m probably not so pretty as you think right now, either. It doesn t
matter, does it. Not much. She sat back, and I closed my eyes happily.
I must have dozed again. In a while I was wakened by voices, and
there in the room was Marissa, full of a sardonic kind of sympathy,
with some friends from the Cave. She appraised Linda with steely calm
and e iciency; evidently decided she was all right. (But while Marissa
was there she didn t let Linda near me, I noticed; and Linda took this
in good grace, evidently feeling the patient would be back in her hands
soon enough.) My guests had brought a picnic basket and a good deal
of wine, which they proceeded to open. Linda pitched in too, as ifsuch
things were the normal way of life in a hospital room. They cranked
up my bed so I could see the Bay, half hidden by trees, and opened
the window; and before long the room was littered with bottles, little
cloths spread out for the food, and laughing people.
Marissa s attitude toward me has somehow changed. Maybe it s my
participating, even ifsort of inadvertentbz, in the war games: she seems
to feel I am a better person for it more solid and real. (In a roundabout
Way I mentioned that I thought I had seen her in the park~could she
have been there? She laughed and denied it.) And I am proud ofmysel
after all. I will treasure my scar. Most of all, it feels good to be treated
as less of a foreigner by her, even in jokes: Anyway, she said, now
you have a little Ecotopian blood in your veins! (because of the
transfusion during my operation).
What with the wine and the good company, it turned into rather
a party. It was ne to be the center of attention, and I blurted out,
You know, I m not used to being made happy when I m supposed
to be su ering! This caused a burst of laughter. Linda looked at me
protectively, as if] was a child who had just said something ridiculous
but lovable, and everyone was beaming at me. It was some kind of
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ECOTOPIA
magical moment. I became overwhelmingly certain that I was, indeed,
going to get well. You certainly have funny hospitals in Ecotopia,
I said We try to stay out of ours, but yours are about the nicest
places to be.
That s the idea exactly, said Linda. People recover best if they re
happy. {We don t separate medicine and life. So we do try to make._
the hospitals the best places there are. That s why what you said about
sa ering seemed so crazy to us.
Don t patients just try to prolong their stays inde nitely, then? I
asked. Why go home?
No, actually, they don t. They really truly recover, and want to get
on with living. You ll see. In a couple of days. . . . She smiled at me
softly.
(Don t you see, I wanted to tell her, I am still needy of contact and
a ection and human directness, from Marissa and you and everyone,
and I love you because you sat by my side during the long night when .'
I was raw and wounded in body and soul, and because you somehow
know what I need and simply give it to me, for this little while when-
I need it most, without my having to give anything in return )
(June 15) We believe in encouraging all your life forces, the doctor
said when I expressed pleasure in Linda s massages. And then, as I
half expected (is it Doctor s Orders or her own initiative?) in giving
me a sponge bath she wryly stroked me into an erection and got me
o j My ambitions leaped up, quite obliterating thoughts ofsutures and
bandages. Marissa has gone back to the camp, speaking stern words
to Linda on leaving. Linda s hands and quiet smile fascinate me, but
the pains I still have under the bandage keep me from moving my pelvis
very much Will I be considered well enough to leave just at the point
I am well enough to really fuck her?
(Later) Cable Sent over from Cove: WHY DON T YOU GET A GUITAR
AND GO SING UNDER THE PRESIDENTIAL BALCONY? FAINT HEART NEVER
WON FAIR INTERVIEW. THEN GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE WHERE IT S
SAFE. FRANCINE. That damned woman could foul up my whole project
yet. Hope the Ecotopian secret police have a sense of humor and still
understand our kind of women.
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HOSPITALS AND HEALTH CARE:
THE ECOTOPIAN WAY
San Francisco, June 15. An unfortunate accident has given me the
chance to observe Ecotopian hospital procedures rst hand. I have
been recuperating, the past few days, from a nasty gash. But I am
mending well, and expect to be out of the hospital tomorrow, though
I will have to take it a bit easy for a while.
The greatest difference between Ecotopian hospitals and ours is
in scale. Though the medical care I have received seems to be at
the highest level of sophistication, from the atmosphere here I might
be in a tiny country hospital. There are only about 30 patients 'all
together, and we are practically outnumbered by the nursing staff
(who, by the way, work much longer hours than ours, but in compen-
sation spend as much time on vacation as they do on the job). X-ray,
surgery, anesthesia, and other services seem to be fully as competent
as ours, though the physical appearance of the hospital might strike
an American as a bit rustic: the walls are not tile, and I missed the
smell of disinfectant which I ve always associated with hospitals. On
the other hand everything seems clean and well cared for, and the
doctors, though clearly unfamiliar with the expectations of American
patients, are alert and seem well trained.
In one respect the Ecotopians have taken a profoundly di erent
direction than our modern hospitals. They do not employ electronic
observation to enable a central nurses station to observe many patients
at once. The theory, as I have gathered it, is that the personal presence
and care of the nurse is what is essential; and the only electronic
gadget used is a small radio call set that can retrieve your nurse
from anywhere on the hospital premises without bothering anybody
else. The nurses are highly trained in a number of specialties unknown
to ours, particularly massage, which they regard as important for
stimulating the body s recuperative powers.
Ecotopians are covered by a type of cradle-to-the grave medical
insurance which has had drastic effects on the medical system. Instead
of control by the profession itseIf, the clinics and hospitals are respon-
sibIe to the communities normally to the minicity units of about
10,000 people. Thus the power of the physician to set his own fees
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has evaporated, though a doctor can always bargain between the sala-
ry offers of one community and another, and in fact doctors are reput-
ed to have among the highest incomes despite the fact that they are
much more numerous than with us. Doctors perform many duties
that nurses or technicians perform in our more specialized system;
on the other hand, nurses and technicians also perform a good many
of the services that our doctors reserve for themselves. I have noticed
that conversations among doctors, staff, and patients are a good deal
livelier than in our hospitals; evidently the moral and scienti c author
ity of the doctor has been diluted. Conditions can t be too miserable
for the doctors, however, or more of them would leave the country;
as far as I can tell, only a few hundred left at the beginning (mostly
very high-income specialists) and none at all have left in recent times.
Ecotopia does not import foreign-trained doctors to stalT its hospitals,
as we are still forced to do, because its medical schools were almost
doubled in capacity immediately after Independence.
My strength has not permitted me to do much investigating while
hospitalized. However, the gravest problem of Ecotopian medicine
would seem to be a dearth of really top noteh specialists. Specialists
do exist, and are consulted on many occasions, but they are required
to do general practice as well. This wasteful system is justi ed by
the argument that it keeps them in touch with the medical needs
of the people as a whole; but it clearly represents a serious reduction
in the best utilization of specialist training and abilities. In fact some
specialties have died out entirely. For instance, babies are usually
delivered at home by nurse-midwives except in a few cases that
present complications, and the hospitals have neither maternity wards
nor obstetricians.
Intensive-care units are also not developed as highly as in our hospi-
tals. This clearly involves a certain hard heartedness toward terminal-
ly ill 01' very critically ill patients, who cannot be kept alive by the
incredibly ingenious technology American hospitals have. This may
be partly an economic necessity, but also Ecotopians have a curiously
fatalistic attitude toward death. They prefer to die at home, and elder-
ly Ecotopians spend a good deal of time and energy preparing them-
selves for death. It is even said that, like American Indians, they
can select the day of their death, and almost will themselves to die.
At any rate, when they feel their time has come, they let it come,
143
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comforting themselves with their ecological religion: they too Will now
be recycled.
On the other hand, the Ecotopian medical system has a strong
emphasis on preventive care. The many neighborhood clinics provide
regular check ups for all citizens, and are within easy reach for minor
problems that might develop into major ones. No Ecotopian avoids
getting medical care because of the expense or the inaccessibility of
health facilities. -
A11 Ecotopian doctors receive what we would call psychiatric train-
ing, though psychology and psychiatry no longer constitute separate
elds. My doctor, thus, paid considerable attention to my psychic
state as well as to my medical injuries. It is claimed that mental illness
has shown a decline since Independence, but it would be extremely
dif cult to evaluate such claims because of the drastically altered cir-
cumstances. I can con rm, however, that Ecotopian streets are not
enlivened by the numerous and obvious crazies we are familiar with
in our cities. 011 the other hand, the security and con dence achieved
by the Ecotopians with their dense, highly personalized style of neigh-
borhood and extended-family living are bought at a substantial price
in anonymity and freedom. Ecotopians have the feeling, I was told
by one doctor, of never being alone. The commonest psychiatric
symptom for which people visit doctors, he told me, is having fantasies
about solitude and about committing violent crimes. (It is a strange
tribute to the ritual war games that it is mainly older people and
women, who do not take part in the games, who are troubled by
such violent impulses.) Some people nd it helpful to take wilderness
hiking trips by themselves, where they can be totally alone for weeks
at a time. Still, it is doubtful if Ecotopians are happier than Americans. i}
It seems likely that different ways of life always involve losses that
balance the gains, and gains that balance the losses. Perhaps it is j
Only that Ecotopians are happy, and miserable, in different ways from i
ourselves.
(June 15, later) Have just been given a message from the President s
assistant: they hope I recover satisfactorily. I am to let them know
when I am back in action. Good news!
144
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ECOTOPIA
The doors in the thick masonry walls have been opened, and I can
chat with my neighbor a woman of 45 who almost lost an arm in
a shing-tmwler winch accident. Her nurse is a debonair man, maybe
30, good at telling stories, and probably at other things too. Gets her
to laugh a lot, anyway, sometimes with pleased blushes. I am now allowed
to take short walks along the hill outside. We see otherpatients, generally
(though not always) with opposite-sex nurses. Remarked to Linda that
their intimate methods of treatment could sometimes pose problems for
the nurses. She was irritated by my attitude. First, she said, every
treatment is unique. Second, there is something in every person to values
and love (here she smiled) even in a dumb chauvinist ugly American
bastard like you. Third, nurses are also persons, and we have control
of what we do or don t do. Do you think I m your slave or somethingP f
She made a face, cu ed me on the shoulder, took me back inside. I m
afraid she was right. My culture has in icted many handicaps along
with its blessings.
Have been reading some Ecotopian novels. They exude a curiaus
feeling of security, almost like 19th-century English novels: 0 sense,
probably derived here from the stabIe state notion, that the world is
a decent and satisfactory place which will sustain us despite some
di culties. There are terrible dramatic incidents and psychologically
harrowing events, ofcourse, but none ofthe totally freaked out, nihilistic
paranoia of our novels. At rst the stories seemed puzzlingly vapid to
me; I couldn t gure out why anybody would nd them interesting.
How come they didn t have that exciting nightmare quality? Some of
them even have happy endings. . . . After a while, they seem more like
life okay to spend time with, reassuring. Come to think of it, Ecotopia
itself is beginning to feel a good deal more reassuring: when I needed
care, I was taken care of.
(June 16) Now my wound has been given a new bandage very small.
Linda and I have initiated it with a long, gentle session of love making
with hardly any pain, just occasional small squeaking shoots of
discomfort.
Linda, I m beginning to realize, really isn t quite as pretty as I thought
at rst, and she is not perhaps the most piercingly intelligent person
145
ECOTOPIA
in the world either. But she is a born nurse: immensely kind, warm,
sustaining, with an extraordinary accepting, loving, physical presence.
Does she want me to leave, or stay longer? (I gather that an Ecotopian
with friends or family in the vicinity would probably go home tomorrow.)
But she won t discuss it. There s nothing that can be said about that,
she always replies, a little crossly. When you are well enough, you
will leave. You ll know when the time has come.
And then you ll get another patient-lover? Idiot. But she knows
I have not overcome my confusions on these things, so she comes over
and hugs me. When you go, I get a vacation, and I can go anywhere,
on my railway pass. I m planning to go hiking in the desert. And I 11
think about you a lot. And you ll write about me in your diary. (She
has discovered my notebook.)
Yes, is all I can reply, and I hug her, and feel like crying. This
country has certainly taught me to cry, and for some reason it feels
good, as if it is not only my tear ducts that have been opened up. . . .
(June 17) I Vhen I left the hospital this morning and headed out to
see Marissa at the camp, I stopped at one ofthose fantastic camping sup-
ply stores they have, and bought Linda 0 new sleeping bag a super
down- llea job that rolls into a tiny stu ' sack and will keep her snug L
in the coldest desert night. Choice ofdark green, brown, blue, or aming
orange. I picked orange. Feeling foolish, I wrote on the card, Stay
warm Love. Had it delivered to the hospital so she would get it before
her vacation begins.
Marissa delighted to see me. Asked wicked titillating questions about
Linda s attentions, insisted on inspecting my scar, made fun of pretty
nursie taking care of poor wounded Willie. We laughed and horsed
around gleefully it really did feel sensational to be back with her.
Somehow, though, we got into this ferocious argument. Carried away,
I mentioned my recurrent fantasy of taking her back to New York
with me when my assignment here is over. She reacted instantly that
I it was an asinine idea, absurd: What would I do there? I a' be just
E an appendage to you. There s no way I could make a life for myself
1
in that kind of society. I felt, to my surprise, terribly hurt at this:
as if our love for each other could have no impact on the real world.
E I raged and moaned, accused her of not caring for me, of not wanting
146
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ECOTOPIA
to continue being with me. She reassured me about loving me, but would
not budge on the basic question. I broke out in a cold sweat, feeling
horrible. I wanted desperately to make love to her, but my sexual felings
were somehow bottled up; nothing would happen.
Eventually we took a long walk through the forest. Am beginning
to understand how she feels about trees. We walked up the valley, taking
it easy, then came back past the hollow tree where we had rst made
serious love. It was still a magical place. But this time we just sat
down quietly inside the old trunk, watching the light fade into dusk,
touching each other lightly. Despite the quarrel, I am happier than
I have been in a long time, and dread it coming to an end. Will put
0/7for one more day going back to the city, and the work which will
soon be over.
(June 18) Was told this morning that Vera Allwen would see me today
at four, though strictly ofthe record and informally. Have just returned
from her o ce, and transcribe here the essentials of what happened.
The President is a very direct person. Despite being rather small and
a tri e stout, gives of a strong air of authority. Clearly well used to
exercising power. But not businesslike and cool about it, like many
of our politicians, who are sometimes hard to tell from business-
men heads full of impersonal calculations that happen to be power
equations instead of money ones. She is powerful as a person, not as
a bureaucrat or the head of an institution. Dif cult to express. (Have
heard that some of the old-ttme communist leaders, Ho Chi Minh and
Mao Tse tung, had this quality too.) Gave me the feeling I ve had in
playing chess with people who turn out to be much better playerSMOf
being mysteriously outclassed. A truly remarkable woman. Found myself
taking refuge in the feeling of being an emissary I might not measure
up to her myself, but at least I had a mission to carry out.
I presented our President s case for normalization of relations, ex-
plaining the advantages, chie y economic, that could ensue for Ecotopia.
She is not against thisn-replied that Ecotopia already has a certain
trade with many other countries, and in fact would welcome additional
outlets for some surpluses (wine above all) and would buy a few things
from us in return (though vague about what). Medium of exchange
would have to be yen, but this could be concealed from our public.
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ECOTOPIA
Asked me why we are prepared to take risk of having Ecotopian
consulates in our major cities, considering the unrest already generated
by Ecotopian ideas among ouryouth. Not sure I handled this right made
light ofdanger, expressed con dence, etc. May have seemed ridiculously
naive if their intelligence service is as good as I suppose. For all I
know, they may be nancing the secessionist movements we are beginning
to notice in the Great Lakes region and the Southeast.
Main point: absolutely no hope for reuni cation, now or ever. Long,
impassioned speech on this that the notion shows the lack of contact
with reality ofour government, that on every major social index Ecotopia
would lose by reuni cation (she ran down the list), the problem is how
the United States can follow Ecotopz a s lead, not vice versa, that all
the large countries should break up into smaller ones, that even if her
government wanted reuni cation her people would not stand for it, and
so on. A wildly nationalistic, aggressively secessionist diatribe. Then
she stopped short, xed me with powerful eyes: You cannot be serious.
My government I began, but she interrupted: You cannot be
serious. Silence. Long silence. She waited, sat back, still glaring at
me. Uncomfortable moment to be sure, at that point I was no longer
clear what would really be gained from steps toward reuni cation. For
the U.S. or anybody, including myself.
She gave me a faintly ironic smile. You know, she said, I have
now said everything I have to say as an o cial. Perhaps we could just
talk as two human beings from now on? She poured me a brandy
(Ecotopian, I noticed, not French!) from a shelf next to her desk. She
walked around, sat down nearer to me. It is Friday afternoon, the
end of a long week. No more business but I would like to hear what
~ you really think of our country, what you have seen and done. We
have, naturally, been reading your reports with care. To be frank, we
have been pleasantly surprised at their growing fairness, and the unusual
curiosity they re ect. Perhaps you have had a better time in Ecotopia
than you expected? Her eyes crinkled in an almost conspiratorial smile.
Startled, I looked back rather blankly, then managed to say, Well,
yes, in fact that s true.
You are not as personal in your columns as our journalists tend
to be, so we have not been able to judge ifyou have had good experiences
among us.
I put down my personal experiences in a diary. Many of them have
148
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ECOTOPIA
been very good, but they re not for publication. You should understand
that by our standards my columns have probably seemed rather too
personal.
Yes, I know. I also know that you have been doing in Ecotopia
as the Ecotopians do, where that has been possible for you. We are
grateful for the moderation you ve expressed. But of course we want
more ofyou still. We have more to give you, I suspect, and there are
still things you haven t graspe . But I have grasped correctly that
I cannot give our President any real hope?
None whatever.
And if our hawks prevail?
Your hawks were not insane enough to destroy the country in order
to reunify it at Independence, so we doubt they will be now. But that s
enough of that. I d like to know what you have been feeling while
you ve been with us. You can be frank; I have not reached this position
by being a gossip, and nothing will go beyond these walls. I like you you
have done brave and good work. I am interested in everything that
has happened to you here.
Rest of conversation uncomfortably personal, cannot record. It was
almost like a psychiatric interview. Kept getting the feeling that she
was somehow, without ever even'hinting at it, probing my loyalties,
exploring the ambiguities of my feelings. I kept quoting what I have
so gingerly written in the columns to which she would always have
some oblique reply, pretty much indicating that she saw how my mind
had worked. Even seemed to know about Marissa which I suppose
should be no surprise. (In a small country ordinary conversation does
the work that a secret service is required for in a big one?)
The talk left me feeling exhausted depressed, as if a huge weight
has settled on top of my head This country is really too much Even}
the President wants to mess with your soul. .W'hat I had hoped would:
happen in the interview did not happen. Whatever she was hoping for
must not have happened either got the feeling that she was disappointed,
had expected more. As I left: I had the ash that she reminded me
of my grandmother, whose disappointments were visited upon several
generations of my family.
Went back to the Cove, where everybody was dying to know what
happened. Was surly to them, came upstairs to write down these notes.
It has stayed cloudy the whole day today. Dismal auguries all around.
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ECOTOPIA
E(June 18) Visit with the President has really gotten me down. Whole
trip now seems like a waste oftime. This place is lost for us no question
?about it! Forever. Period. The journalists at the Cave keep hounding
'me to tell them what was discussed. I say nothing. Since they re not
dummies, they know there may have been more than reportorial reasons
for my visit out here. And they can see from my downcast state of
mind that it didn t work, whatever it was. They are sympathetic but
a certain distance between us has been apparent since the interview.
Have caught some sort of u headache, sore throat, a little tempera-
ture. (Thermometer is marked in Centigrade, so I don t quite know
how serious, but only one notch above normal.) Couldn t sleep at all
last night. I go down for a bite now and then, but everybody is always
after me. Even Bert. Had to tell him plainly to stop it.
Must try and sort the whole experience out in my head in some new
way. Find that I dread the idea of Marissa coming in and seeing me
in such dismal shape. The jverspective she said she loves in me seems
to have dissolved utterly. Must phone her and tell her I m sick so she
won t come.
Was fantasizing a balance sheet headed Ecotopia, and down in
two long columns go all the pros and cons. The list gets grotesquely
long and dim and blurry, and I hear Marissa laughing Finally I just
rip it up, and my head spins, and I despair
ECOTOPIAI CHALLENGE OR ILLUSION?
San Francisco, June 19. Where is Ecotopia going in the future? After
more than six weeks intensive study of the country, I nd it still
hazardous to guess. There is no doubt, I have been forced to conclude,
that the risky social expen'ments undertaken here have worked on
a biological level. Ecotopian air and water are everywhere crystal
clear. The land is well cared for and productive. Food is pientiful,
wholesome, and recognizable. A11 life systems are operating on a
stable-state basis, and can go on doing so inde nitely. The health
and general well-being of the people are undeniable. While the
extreme decentralization and emotional openness of the society seem
alien to an American at rst, they too have much to be said in their
150
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ECOTOPIA
favor. In these respects, I believe, Ecotopia offers us a di icult
challenge, and we have far to go to even approach their achievements.
On the other hand, these bene ts have been bought at a heavy
cost. Not only is the Ecotopian industrial capacity and standard of
consumption markedly below ours, to a degree that would never be
tolerated by Americans generally, but the Ecotopian political system
rests on assumptions that I can only conclude are dangerous in the
extreme. In my earlier columns I described the city states that have
already, in effect, themselves seceded within Ecotopia. There is talk
currently of formalizing the Spanish speaking and Japanese commu-
nities of San Francisco the latter, of course, an economically sinister
development because of the threat of Japanese capital taking over.
Jewish, American Indian, and other minorities all contain militants
Who desire a greater autonomy for their peoples.
It is, admittedly, dif cuit for an American to criticize such trends
when our own society, after the failure of the integrationist campaign
of the sixties, has grOWn ever more segregated though somewhat less
unequal. However, it is still the American ideal that all men and
women should obtain equal protection from the law and have equal
status as citizens of one great and powerful nation. The Ecotopian :
principle of secession denies this hope and this faith. While seemingly 1
idealistic, it is in fact profoundly pessimistic. And the consequences
seem clear. The way propounded by Ecotopian ideologues leads away
from the former greatness of America, uni ed in spirit from sea
to shining sea, toward a balkanized continent a welter of small,
second-elass nations, each with its own petty cultural differentiations.
Instead of continuing the long march toward one world of peace and
freedom, to which America has dedicated itself on the battle elds
of Korea, Vietnam, and Brazil (not to mention our own Civil War),
the Ecotopians propose only separatism, quietism, a reversion toward
the two bit principalities of medieval Europe, or perhaps even the
tribalism of the jungle.
Under Ecotopian ideas, the era of the great nation states, with their
promise of one ultimate world state, would fade away. Despite our
achievements of a worldwide communications network and jet travel,
mankind would y apart into small, culturally homogenous groupings.
In the words of Yeats (an early 20thvcentury poet from Ireland a
very small and secessionist country) The center cannot hold.
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ECOTOPIA
Ecotopians argue that such separatism is desirable on ecological
as well as cultural groundswthat a small regional society can exploit
its niche in the world biosystem more subtly and richly and
ef ciently (and of course less destructively) than have the superpowers.
This seems to me, however, a dubiously fetishistic decentralism. It
assumes that the immensely concentrated resources ofthe superpowers
are innately impossible to use wisely. I would be the last to deny
that the huge administrative machines of our governments and
international corporations must commit an occasional error, or miss
an occasional opportunity. Nevertheless, to condemn them and elimi-
nate them, in favor of small-scale innovations modeled on' the
Ecotopian experience, would seem to risk throwing the baby of
civilization itself out with the polluted bathwater. Ifwe wish to achieve
better living conditions for ourselves and our descendants, surely the
wiser utilization of the methods we know best is the only way to
accomplish it.
(June 20) Blah, blah, blah. Can hardly bear to reread that last column.
They ll probably love it in New York. Real objective pseudo think,
trying to come to conclusions at any cost. . . . But have just about decided
to cut and run, hack to NY. I 1] probably come down with pneumonia
if I stay here. Can t stand talking to Bert or the others, though they
keep after me, and the attention does sometimes feel good, but I can t
afford to give in to it or I ll lose my bearings entirely. So I stick in
my room, try to sleep, without much success. Alternate between desperate
desire to see Marissa and horror at the thought. Nothing further to
do here really. Could tidy up a few further columnsAamusing details,
a little expansion here and there. But I know everything I basically
need to know.
Marissa said she wants to come to the Cove and cheer me up. Don t
know if I could bear that, and then leaving . Got out my suitcase
and tossed a few things in it. Thought about the evening train to the
Sierras and Reno. Or could drop down via Los Angeles and return
that way. No goodbyes are the best goodbyes.
Last night, hardly slept at all. Disjotnted ashes of interview with
AllwenJ bits of experiences keep oating through my mind. Times with
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Marissa when there is nothing particular to be said and we just look
at each other, touching lightly. Walking through San Francisco in my
snugserape in thefog. Receptorplates at the solarpower station soaking
up the sun, patiently, silently; no movement, just a lark singing. And
the way people here look at each other and then in my fantasies they
turn and look at me, expectantly, and I can t meet their eyes. Except
Marissa s. Hope I m not cracking up. Have got to get out of here.
(June 21) Notebook may be taken away from me, but I 11 write this
entry anyway. I ve been kidnapped! Yesterday as I was packing, three
men and a woman came into my room and told me to come along
with them. What the hell for? I asked. I knew two of them one,
with huge bushy eyebrows that give him a demonic look, was a iend
0f Marissa s brother. (My rst thought was that this must be the
Ecotopian Ma a.) But he smiled as he came in, put his hand on my
shoulder for a moment. The other I recognized from parties and had
also seen him around the Cove, talking to Bert. Some kind of scientist,
and I remembered conversations as a little creepy, something about
vibrations. (You never know whether some of these people are creeps
or geniuses.) The other two I hadn t seen before as far as I know.
Girl is attractive but in a frizzy blonde way. They all appear to be good
friends.
Come on. They began to edge me toward the door, and one threw
the rest of my clothes in the suitcase. Suddenly I was sure they must
be secret police. I waited until we were downstairs in the hall, then
shouted for help. Bert and seven or eight other Cove people appeared,
and gathered round. I felt much relieved. My captors, however, didn t
seem at all abashed. I began to think I d have to ask somebody to
call Washington. One of the group took several of my friends aside
and spoke to them out of my hearing. There was some argument, with
glances in my direction, but then apparently agreement. Will, said
Bert, ve think it s all right for you to go with them.
What do you mean, all right? I shouted. I don t want to go. Is
this a free country or is it not? Somebody please get on the phone.
This is going to mean a big diplomatic mess, do you all understand?
I want to get hold of the State Department, or the White House if
necessary. This is ridiculous!
Bert came over and took me aside. Look, Will, he said, we know
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you ve been through a bad time since you saw Vera Allwen. Sitting
up there in that room is not doing you any good at all. You could
use a change for a few days. These people are friends, really. They
want to take you to a really extraordinarily lovely place near here for
a few days. I ve been there myself when I ve been in a di icult situation,
and we all think it s a good idea. I d go with you now if] could, but
tomorrow s impossible. They ve promised you can phone the Cove
anytime you like, and I 11 come down tomorrow evening and see you.
What I could use right now is to get out of this fucking country!
I burst out. And right now! Take me to the train station!
That s where they re taking you, said Bert. But it would be a
5 defeat ifyou left Ecotopz a in your present state of mind. These people
Eknow that too. Go on, Will, take our word for it. They re not police,
517" that s what you re worried about. Somebody from the Cove could
come with you ifyou feel that s essential.
This somehow relieved my mind. I was probably a lunatic to go,
but I have learned to trust Bert, even about unusual things. Washington
is a long way o , and I would feel bad about just retreating. Besides,
my captors had begun to seem less forbidding as they talked with
the people at the Cove. The thought hit me that even If they weren t
Ecotopian police, they might be from our C.I.A..' if our President really
attaches importance to my mission, he might have made arrangements
to ensure I stay here as long as needed to carry it out! God knows
it was no secret at the Cove how depressed my Allwen visit had left
me; and several people saw me get my suitcase from the hall closet. . . .
They took me to the train and we sped o southward, but got o
at the third stop. Then transferred to a minibus that headed east into
the mountains. Soon it began winding along a small river, through
country halfforest and half grassland. We got out at the end of the
routeiin a spot that, as the sun sank lower, looked more like a resort
than a community. A large low building wtth relaxed people strolling
on its verandas lay to the right. Cabins with little porches were scattered
all about, 0/" a rough-board design.
We ll eat after a bit, they told me, but rst we ll go down to
the baths. Turns out this is a famous hot Springs resort that has been
rehabilitated by a Japanese commune. My captors seem to half-believe
in its alleged restorative powers. We put our luggage in one of the
cabins and headed down the hill. Nobody had said much all along a
154
ECOTOPIA
resentful silence on my side, and who knows what on theirs. I looked
around to study escape possibilities. It was all open country around
the resort. Once out of sight I d have a good chance of making it.
The problems would be in getting away to start with, and making the
six or eight miles back to the station through open farmland, hard
to hide in. I d have to do it at night.
Baths housed in beautiful but simple buildings. Each has a changing
and sweating room. You leave your clothes and go in, naked, to the
bath room, which has a tub about 12 feet square and maybe four feet
deep. You wash with soap under a shower, then lower yoursel inch
by inch, into the steaming hot water. It doesn t smell foul, to my relie
though it does have a slightly unusual odor and a silky feel. We all
sank into it gratefully, my captors smiling at me and making loud happy
groans in the water. The tension dropped a bit. The tank is big enough
that you can move around in it; has scratchy walls to rub your back
against, and an underwater bench to sit on.
Besides us, there were a young couple, who sat in one corner with
eyes closed, oblivious to us, and one old Japanese man, who ducked
his head occasionally and then, coming up slowly, said Aaaaaahh.
We stayed in about 15 minutes, then went out, wrapped ourselves in
huge towels, and lay down to sweat. Sweating room has large windows
through which I could see the dimming sky and trees moving gently.
Made me doze a little. Even thought I might be able to sleep tonight.
The nonconversational behavior of my captors was still annoying,
but I held to my resolve to let them start whatever they were going
to start. My only request was to call the Cove, and this I was allowed
to do right after supper. Bert, it turned out, couldn t come until the
second day, but it was reassuring to talk to him anyway, and he said
he had already let Marissa know where I was. Then we settled down
in big chairs in the main lounge. It had gotten fairly cool, so there
was a re, which felt good. Somebody produced a bottle of brandy in
another corner of the room . Glasses were sent for, and we all lifted
our drinks to the giver. Chess and domino and go games were in progress.
This was all pleasant enough for a while, but I found my nervousness
returning. My companions just seemed to be patiently waiting for
something~0r someone? They are the most silent Ecotopians I ve yet
met in this nation of blabbermouths.
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Finally went back on my resolve. All right, I said, let s get on
with it. What do you want from me? What s this little game all about?
I We don t want anything from you, said the devilish one who knew
Ben. (His name is Ron.) We re just giving you the chance for a few
'days ofchange. You can do with it what you will. By whose authority?
:7 said. Who are you, anyway? We can t tell you that right now.
But we re friends. We will do you no harm. We wish you would treat
fus as friends. You remember that s Marie, and this is Vince, and he s
Allan.
It s not harm to keep me here against my will? Nobody answered
this; they just sat there and looked at me, a little uncomfortable perhaps,
but unmoved. Look, I said, I don t know who you re working for,
but this caper is going to cause somebody a lot of trouble.
Why do you assume we re working for somebody? asked Marie.
It s obvious, I replied. You re committing an illegal act, for one'
thing. You re dealing with a quasi-o icial visitor to the country, for
another, whose welfare can t be a matter of indi erence to your
government.
That s true enough, she said. Well, how about telling us the current
state ofyour welfare? I am sick ofbeing held against my will That s
the only part ofmy welfare that concerns you. No, said Ron, you re
wrong about thatwit all concerns us. He sounded almost hurt; the
others nodded. I folded my arms staunchly, and would say no more.
In a few minutes we all Went of to the cabin. Ron and Marie went
to sleep; Vince and Allan are sitting up, watching me write this diary
entry.
(June 22) Hardly slept at all again last night. Being watched by them
adds to the strain. About three o clock they woke Ron and Marie up,
to change shifts I guess, seeing I wasn t going to sleep. By this time
I was pretty jittery, so asked if I could go outside and walk around.
Marie volunteered to accompany me. We ll stay in shouting distance,
she said.
We walked around a while. She seemed to be in a friendly mood,
put her arm through mine. Surprisingly sexual feeling ooded over me
at this, but I resisted the temptation to make some kind ofpass. Then
156
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she spoiled it by beginning to pry, like some miserable amateurpsycholo-
gist: Why don t you open up and tell us what you re thinking? It s
not human to try to keep it all inside!
Ipulled away. Why should I talk toyou? Give me one earthly reason.
Well, we re here with you. I was aware of that. Now give me some
good news.
We walked on in silence around the courtyard of the resort. She
took my hand, and I suddenly realized this girl is probably only 20
or so. A ll right, I said, I ll tell you something. I want 10 go home,
to get away from this country. Everything here upsets me. It isn t real,
it just isn t real.
It s real for us~you re not letting it be real for you. Well, I ve
done my job here, as well as anybody could, but now it s time to go.
Why do you think about it just as a job? she asked. It s also
been an adventure, if that s what you mean. It s still an adventure.
Even if we re the ones who re keeping it going. She grinned. We went
back to the cabin. Ron greeted us with some curiosity, but I wouldn t
respond and Marie wouldn t say much either. I must have dazed a couple
of hours; it s six am. now. I ll get through the day somehow. Quiveryw
don t dare drink any more co ee.
(June 22, evening) We took the baths morning and afternoon, and did
some walking. I don t know what they re up to. Seem genuinely interested
and curious about what I think ofEcotopia, what happened to me here,
what I m going to do next. After we sweated out the morning bath
I felt like talking to them about it a little. It s very hard, I nd, to
get my ideas and my feelings within range of each other and I keep
ying into a kind of at blind rage at the whole situation.1 ve gathered ;
a lot offacts many of them hard to accept rationally I ve gone through;E
remarkable personal experiences. Does it all add up to good or evil?§
I honestly don t know.
Some aspects of the country strike me ax downright entrancing the
beauty of it, even the cities, which make such a contrast with the hellish
way we live. Some aspects of life here reach me emotionally in ways
I wouldn t have believed just a few weeks ago everything connected
with Marissa, the horror of the ritual war games, the security of the
hospital and the Cave. Other things are just mystifying, like their
157
ECOTOPIA
economic system. Over it all hangs a kind offeathery curtain ofdisbelie
which I keep wishing I could tear aside, or maybe duck under.
They listened to me talk, but don t seem to nd much to respond
to. At one point Ron interjected impatiently, Well, you ve told us all
this stu about what you think. It s interesting, but we really pretty
much knew how you think. What are you feeling? And what are you
going to do?
What do you mean? Go back to New York, ofcourse. But precisely
as I said that a great twinge ofpain throbbed through my head. My
God, I said, I have this awful headache. I staggered over to the
bed and lay down. Vince brought a cold cloth for my forehead. Paranoid
fantasies: the baths must have screwed up my circulation or something!
Never had anything like this happen before. They seemedpretty worried.
Vince went to the o ce and found a doctor who was staying at the
resort. She came in, checked me over, gave me the names of some tests
I should have made when I get back to the city, but said the chances
were 99 to one that it was psychological. Certainly not due to the baths.
By that time it was midafternoon. The headache subsided. We went
down to the baths again. Ron, as if thinking it might make me feel
better, suggested I le by phone, at their expense, one of the briefer
stories I ve got stockpiled. So I polished one up a little. Not one of
my favorites; but it felt good to be working again. Toyed with the idea
of tacking on a message to Max about my kidnapping. But decided
it might risk some kind of international con ontation, and I don t after
all seem to be in any personal danger.
WORK AND PLAY AMONG THE
ECOTOPIANS
Gilroy Hot Springs, June 22. The more I have discovered about
Ecotopian work habits, the more amazed I am that their system
functions at all. It is not only that they have adopted a 20 hour week;
you can t even tell when an Ecotopian is working, and when he is
at leisure. During an important discussion in a government o ice,
suddenly everybody will decide to go to the sauna bath. It is true
158
ECOTOPIA
they have worked out informal arrangements whereby, as their phrase
has it, they cover for each other somebody stays behind to answer
phones and handle Visitors. And it is also true that even in the sauna
our discussion continued, on a more personal level, which turned out
to be quite delightful. But Ecotopian society offers so many opportu~
nities for pleasures and distractions that it is hard to see how people
maintain even their present levels of efficiency.
Things happen in their factories, warehouses, and stores which
would be quite incredible to our managers and supervisors. I have
seen a whole section close down without notice; somebody will bring
out beer or marijuana, and a party will ensue, right there amid the
crates and machines. Workers in Ecotopian enterprises do not have
a normal worker s attitude at all. Perhaps because of their part
ownership of them, they seem to regard the plants as home, or at
least as their own terrain. They must be intolerable to supervise: the
slightest change in work plans is the occasion for a group discussion
in which the supervisors (who are elected and thus in a weak position
anyway) are given a good deal of sarcastic questioning, and in which
their original plans are seldom accepted without change. The supervi
sors try to take this with good grace, of course, even claiming that
the workers often come up with better ideas than they do; and they
believe that Ecotopian output per person hour is remarkably high.
It 'may be.
Incidentally, many rather intellectual people seem to be members
of the ordinary factory and farm work force. Partly this seems to 1
be due to the relative lack of opportunity for class differentiation f
in Ecotopia; partly it is due to a deliberate policy which requires
students to alternate a year of work with each year of study. This
is perhaps one of the most startling arrangements in the whole
Eootopian economy for not only is the students education prolonged,
but their ideological in uence is responsible for many of the new
policies that prevail in Ecotopian enterprises. (I was told, for example,
that it was students who were originally behind the whole movement
toward workers control.)
Ecotopians are adept at turning practically any situation toward
pleasure, amusement, and often intimacy. At rst I was surprised
by the ease with which they strike up very personal conversations
with casual strangers. I have now gotten used to this, indeed I usually
159
ECOTOPIA
enjoy it, especially where the lovely Ecotopian women are concerned.
But I am stiJI disconcerted when, after speaking with someone on
the street in a loose and utterly unpressured way for perhaps ten
minutes, he mentions that he is working and trots off. The distinction
between work and non-work seems to be eroding away in Ecotopia,
along with our whole concept of jobs as something separate from
real life. Ecotopians, incredibly enough, enjoy their work.
Unemployment does not seem to worry Ecotopians in the slightest.
There were many unemployed just before Independence, but the
switch to a 20-hour week almost doubled the number ofjobs although
some were eliminated because of ecological shut downs and simpli
cations, and ofcourse the average real income ofmost families dropped
somewhat. Apparently in the transition period when an entirely new
concept of living standards was evolving, the country s money policy
had to be managed With great exibility to balance sudden in ationary
or de ationary tendencies. But the result now seems to be that, while
enterprises are not seriously short of member-workers, there is also
no signi cant number of people involuntarily unemployed. In any
case, because of the minimal-guaranteed income system and the core
stores, periods of unemployment are not considered disasters or threats
by individuais; they are usually put to use, and sometimes deliberately
extended, for some kind of creative, educationai or recreational
purposes. Thus in Ecotopia friends who are unemployed (usually
thIOugh the collapse of their previous enterprise) often band together
and undertake studies that lead them into another enterprise of their
own.
If it is sometimes hard to tell whether Ecotopians are working or
playing, they are surprisingly generous with their time. I was told,
for instance, that many workers in factories put in extra hours to
x machines that have broken down. They evidently regard the
20-hour week quota as applying to productive time only, and take
the repair of machinery almost as a sideline responsibility. Or perhaps
it is just that they enjoy tinkering: despite the de-emphasis of goods
in Ecotopia, people seem to iove xing things. If a bicycle loses a
chain or has a at tire, its rider is soon surrounded by ve people
volunteering to help x it. As they do during many casual social
encounters, someone will bring out a marijuana cigarette and pass
160
ECOTOPIA
it around; people joke, touch each other, and take turns heiping with
the work.
The propensity of Ecotopians to touch one another is remarkable.
To most Americans, it is offensive to be touched familiarly by a
stranger, except under special circumstances, and even friends do not
have 43 great deal of physical contact, which is reserved for lovers
and children. The Ecotopians seem to have abandoned such proprie-
ties, and are virtually indiscriminate in their contacts. Adults will pat
children approvingly as they go by. Acquaintances routinely shake
hands whenever they meet, even if they have seen each other a few
hours before, with a novel arm to-arm clasp. When people sit down
to talk, they snuggle up to each other or interlace arms or legs quite
intimately. And I have even seen a man in the street walk up to
an attractive woman, say something to her With a smile, give her
a hug or a stroke on the shoulder, and walk on; the woman continued
on her way, with a friendly glance back.
To us, such behavior is a forbidden fantasy. The Ecotopians act
out such fantasies all the time. They bathe and take steam baths
together freely. Both men and women, not to mention children, stroll
public streets arm in arm. Old friends who have not seen each other
for some time customarily give each other a warm and extended
embrace, and occasionally they even excuse themselves and go off
to a private place, evidently for sexual purposes. Naked massage is
a common group amusement.
Such looseness in personal contact may be a result of widespread
marijuana usage; certainly it is associated with it. One of the riskiest
experiments of the new government was to deliberately make mari-
juana a common weed. Not only were legal prohibitions ended, but
free top quality seeds were distributed, in a campaign aimed at
providing do it-yourself highs. The result is that every house and
apartment can have its own garden or windowbox where the hemp
is grown. It is as if, among us, we had a third tap in the kitchen
Which provided free beer. But most Ecotopians seem to smoke mari
juana with considerable discretion, and it is likely that the worst
feature of the policy is that it deprives the government of a large
source of tax revenue.
raj
ECOTOPIA
(June 23) Last night I made my move. Nerves must have woken me
about two o clock; suddenly felt overwhelmingly anxious to get out of
here. Looked around cautiously, surprised they would all be asleep at
once; they ve grown lax about watching me. Marie, I noticed with a
tie ofenvy, had crawled in with Ron: damn, I felt around for my clothes,
wormed into them under the covers. Picked up my shoes, slid softly
t0 the door, and got out. Quiet outside, no wind stirring. Went barefoot
for a while; itfelt good. Headed awayfrom the concentration ofbuildings,
uphill once over the brow of the hill I d be in the clear. There was
a half moon, so I could pick my way all right.
Coming to a clearing on top of a rise, found a small square structure
raised on posts, a kind ofpavilion with a roof but no walls. Fascinated
for some reason, I crept up the ladder for a quick look around. It
appeared my route was well chosen. In the moonlight the scene had
an unearthly beauty. Saw a huge owl coasting along silently, and realized
I could hear the creek, even though it was 50 yards away.
Suddenly there was a rustle and thump directly below the oor of
the pavilion, and then a heartstopping scream. I froze utterly, against
one oftheposts that supported the roofmnot daring to look down through
the ladder hole. Dogs instantly began barking in the resort, and in
a moment I saw a large tan shape [oping o toward the woods a
mountain lion, carrying the rabbit it had seized under the pavilion!
By the time I grasped what had happened, and my blood had unfrozen
a little, it was too late two large dogs appeared, barking and Sni/ ng,
and a few yards behind them was Vince. I wasn t sure if he had spotted
me, but clearly my absence had been noticed; the game was up. I crawled
down, rather shakily. Lion killed a rabbit right under the platform,
I said. That set the dogs barking.
Scary, isn t it? Vince said. Nice night though. How do you like
the moon-viewing porch? So that s what it is. Actually I was sitting
on it, viewing the moon, when that damned monster struck.
He eyed me quietly. Out for a little walk, huh? Nasty scare number
two. For me, anyway, I said.
For all of us. We walked back to the cabin. Evidently the others
were out searching for me too, but after a bit they came back. Nobody
accused me of anything, but a kind of disappointment hung in the air.
I felt depressed and confused. For the rest of the night somebody sat
162
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ECOTOPIA
guard, reading a paperback in the corner. Marie went back to her own
bed.
After breakfast, nally decided I must face thefact I will stay depressed
for a while, and could use some company so I phoned Marissa. She
isn t at all worried my captors are up to anything sinister; didn t exactly
make light of my anxieties, but seemed to imply they were pretty
excessive. She is doing heavy tree-cutting today, but will come down
late tonight or tomorrow. I must get myself together a little, somehow.
(June 25) Dream: I am at home in New York, in my apartment. It
must be night, and I am working on a column. I get a tremendous
urge to talk to Marissa. I pick up the phone. I give the international
operator the instructions, and there is a pause. I m sorry, sir, but we
cannot complete that call. Why not? We are not allowed to carry
tra ic to San Francisco at this time. We argue about a possible
Vancouver routing, me feeling increasingly frustrated and desperate,
the operator driving me crazy with her mindless I m sorry you feel
that way, sir. Is something wrong? Has war broken out? All she will
say is that she is doing her job. I wake up, furious, thinking of that
maniac Jerry in the San Francisco wire o ce, who used to piss me
o r because he d never just do his job. Jerry would have given me a
hard time, maybe, but he would have worked out some clever way to
get my call through, even if it had to go via Timbuctu, because he
could tell it mattered.
After that dream, lay awake for a while. Looked around the cabin;
my captors were, surprisingly, all asleep again. Maybe they no longer
cared. In my imagination I saw myselfgetting up, sneaking of, hiking
to the train, probably making it across the border near Los Angeles by
the time they woke up. Could be back in New York by dinner time!
Max would still be at the o ce. I could get hold ofFrancine, we could
hit the town, celebrate my safe return.
Why didn t it sound more inviting? I goaded my imagination on a
little, toward the end of the evening with Francine, and the delicious
new tricks she was always coming up with. Nothing. All I felt was
the warmth of my blankets, the slight chill of country air on my face,
and an enormous inclination to just lie there, snug, waiting for dawn,
waiting for whatever would happen next.
163
ECOTOPIA
Marie s eyes opened and she looked over and saw I was awake. You
look better, she whispered. Go back to sleep! Then the Silly kid
blew me a kiss. Next thing I knew it was morning.
Everyone else went down to the baths early, but I didn t feel like
z't afraid of my u coming back or something. Ron stayed with me,
sitting in the corner, reading some poetry. I decided to kill a little time
by putting my clothes in order. Shook out my New York clothes, laid
evetythtng out neatly. Then, just fooling around, thought I d put on
my regular shirt, see how I look it s been seven weeks since I last wore
it, and I had the feeling I ve lost some weight out here. It felt sort
of comfortable slipping into my cool drip-dry shirt, and I tucked it
into the snug pants rst time in weeks that I have had a shirt tucked
in. Belt a little loose, but not too bad one extra notch. Figured what
the hell, might as well put on a tie too, just to see what it looks like.
I walked over to the mirror, putting the me around my neck and absently
beginning to tie it.
Suddenly I caught sight of myself in the mirror. The hair stood up
on the back of my neck. I looked awful, I didn t look human! My
image was tight, sti . I sat down, stunned. Then, curious, I nished
tying the tie, and put on the jacket besides, and went over to the mirror
again. This time the ugly American me was almost sickeningml really
thought I might have to throw up. I was lled with the desire to get
into the hot water of the baths. My body longed to get out of those
terrible clothes and sink into the lovely supporting water, and just oat
there. I pulled the clothes o i threw an a robe, and told Ron (who
had watched my clothes experiment without comment) that I wanted
to go down to the baths now.
We took the baths for a long time I couldn t bear to get out, and
sat neck-deep, staring at the water splashing from the pipe, listening
to the complicated sounds it made. My body oated weightlessly in
the warm, comforting water, feeling only the slightest of sensations.
I closed my eyes and sank deeper, with practically nothing but my nose
above the water. I lost all sense of horizon, of place all sense of
everything except the steady gurgling 0f the water coming to me from
deep inside the warm earth. I have no idea how long I remained in
that state, but suddenly I heard my own voice saying, I am going
to Stay in Ecotopial startlingly loud and clear. All at once my head
felt light again and I realized I must have been ghting of saying
164
-e_-Tt.
...«_y_
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:1
t
i
ECOTOPIA
that for weeks. I stood, rising up out of the water, dripping and smiling
and quivering. The quiet of the room was split by shrieks of joy from
Marie, and we all staggered up the steps, everybody patting me on the
back and hugging me: ve grown people, naked, prancing around and
laughing and yelling.
We went out into the sweating room, getting curious smiles from
people dozing there. Then Vince threw on his big towel like a poncho
and dashed out, returning in a minute with Marissa it seems she had
come down late the day before, but they had told her they thought
I was about to break through, as they put it, and she had decided
she didn t want to in uence the process by her presence, no matter how
badly she wanted to see me. She looked splendidly radiant. We hugged
and cried a lot, the tears feeling liberating and warming, and the others
held onto us, obviously very pleased with themselves. Then we got up,
threw on our clothes, and went outside. There was a spot nearby with
an accumulation ofsoft dry pine needles, and we began dancing around,
kicking them in the air and sliding on them and leaping, Marissa and
I doing a sort of courtship dance in the middle, and then walking o
together past the moonwiewing porch, up the hill to the foot of a large
oak tree, where the spring grass had remained thick and green. We
made love slowly, solemnly, feeling the earth heavy and solid beneath
us, resting our beings on it, smelling its richness and fertility. When
I am with Marissa I feel like all the lusts 0f the universe are focused
through me and onto her; it is supremely intimate and yet almost
impersonal at the same time. Afterward she smiled lazily. Good place
to conceive a child, she said, glancing around at the oak. But she
wouldn t tell me whether she was in her fertile period, or whether she
still had her loop in. It s my body, was all she would say. Knowing
the kind of commitment she feels to family and the continuity of
generations, the idea was profoundly scary yet I seem to be ready for
it.
After a while we went down the hill, found the others, and went into
the baths for a last quick time. Then we headed back to the city, and
went to the Cove. Somehow a great party had already been prepared.
(Ecotopians are good at impromptu celebrations!) Much to my surprise,
Marissa s brother Ben was in the forefront of everything, and played
cht'efhost with enthusiasm as great as his earlier bz tterness: huge bearhugs
and backslappt'ng.
165
ECOTOPIA
When I decided to publicly thank my mysterious captors for taking
me to the hot springs when I was in such bad shape, they insisted Ben
share in the honors. Well, he said, I will now divulge a state secret.
You know, Will, I got so mad I went to Vera Allwen to try and get
you thrown out of the country. She wouldn t have any of that. But
she thought the hot springs might do you some good, help you get
through it al.
I was dumbfounded: that weird old woman must have seen what was
going on in my mind when I didn t know it myself. After all, Ron
whispered to me, Ben did manage to protect his sister! It was too
much. I began crying openly, happily, amid those shining faces.
As I write this all down, it is early the next morning. Marissa is
still sleeping, black hair a tangle on the pillow. I begin to see that
I have fallen in love with her country as much as with Marissa. A
new self has been coming to life within me here, thanks to both her
and her people. This new me is a stranger, an Ecotopian, and his advent
lls me with terror, excitement, and strength. . . . But I am ready for
it at last. I don t know what it will all mean, how we will live, or
even where. But all the possibilities seem natural and inviting. I want
to stay at the forest camp for a while have never lived in such close
touch with natural surroundings, and would like to know what it s like
to work with my hands. There are painful breaks ahead with Francine
and Pat. I have decided, though, to ask Pat to send the kids out for
the summer. If it takes a diplomatic passport, well, the President owes
me a favor! And I want to try out some di erent kinds of writing.
There are a lot more things about Ecotopia that the rest of the world
needs badly to know. Maybe I can help in that.
t
ECOTOPIA
EDITORS EPILOGUE
The foregoing text has been printed from the notebook and
news stories wn'tten by William Weston during his trip to
Ecotopia. Despite the questionable or controversial nature of
some of the notebook entries, we have respected Weston s wishes
in keeping the text just as he wrote it. Readers may also be
interested in the foliowing note, which was enclosed with the
notebook when it arrived at the Times-Post of ces, addressed
to the editor-in-chief:
Dear Max
You told me to go ahead and write the whole story, but I realized,
once I had gotten into it, that I couldn t really do that. So I
am sending you my notebook, even though I m not sure what,
if anything, you can do with it. As far as I m concerned, you
can pass it around the o ice, put it in the archives, or print it.
(Intact or not at all, please) I ve decided not to come back, Max.
You ll understand why from the notebook. But thank you for
sending me on this assignment, when neither you nor I knew where
it might lead. It led me home.
WILL
167
JACKET CALLIGRAPHY: Patty King
TYPE: 10/12 Times Roman
TECHNOLOGY GUIDE: Sallie Wells
KEYSTROKING: Ernest Callenbach
SCANNING & TYPESETTING: Times Litho
PRINTING & BINDING: Publishers Press
BOLSTERING: Grant Barnes , Jackson Burgess, Eleanore
Callenbach, August Frugé, Robert Greensfelder, Barbara
Ingic, Paul Kaufman, Philip Lilienthai, Jerry Mander,
Nick and Lynn Margulis, William J. McClung, Joan
Mellen, Conrad Mollath, Lucy Shapiro, Michael Singer,
Henry Swan wand many others, aiive and dead, writers and
thinkers and friends, who participated knowingly or
unknowingly in the genesis of this book.
s
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