Ecotopia

In his May 6th article, “Food, Sewage, and ‘Stable States,’” Weston meets with the Assistant Minister of Food to discuss Ecotopian agriculture and food production. Weston is unnerved to find this official to be just as informal as the average Ecotopian on the street, but also just as knowledgeable as one would expect. They discuss Ecotopia’s efforts to “put the country’s food cycle on a stable-state basis: all food wastes, sewage and garbage were to be turned into organic fertilizer and applied to the land” (17). Throughout the interview, Weston remains skeptical, eventually thinking he’s smelled a “totalitarian rat” (19) when it comes to enforcing these practices. However, the Assistant Minister explains they are not enforced, and instead, market forces of supply and demand end up self-regulating this stable-state agriculture. Weston ends the article still skeptical but disposes of the literature he received in the appropriate recycle bin in his hotel room.

In the May 7th journal entry that follows, Weston struggles to adapt to quotidian Ecotopian customs he encounters in his non-professional capacity. He witnesses a heated argument outside his room, which onlookers watch, apparently entertained, to keep things from getting out of hand, but otherwise do not intercede: “Nobody seemed to care what it had all been about, but they sure got a kick out of the expression of intense feeling!” (22). He also misses American food, and even his ex-wife and children, though he apparently does not spend much time with them usually.

Weston then files his fifth article, “Car-less Living in Ecotopia’s New Towns,” after visiting a “minicity” called Alviso, part of the “extreme urban vision of this decentralized society” (24), in which the ideal is small, tight-knit, and mostly self-sufficient communities, connected by clean, efficient rail lines, in which vehicle-use is radically minimized. When they are necessary, all vehicles are a simplified easy-to-produce-and-repair electric truck, which that caters to Ecotopia’s do-it-yourself nature. Weston tours a factory where the vehicles and components are produced and contrasts the extreme pragmatism with Americans’ “urge for speed and freedom” (27), and ends the article reminiscing on how Carthaginians must have felt after the destruction of Carthage.

Weston’s May 8th entry (the longest to-date) continues to express his discomfort, but also discusses a community of fellow journalists he has found at a “press commune” (29), including a man named Bert Luckman, who eventually becomes one of his closest friends. As the evening progresses, Weston gets the group’s take on what he’s been learning about stable states and Ecotopian gender norms, and progressively the conversation gets more personal. The entry ends with Weston feeling sexually frustrated and missing his lover, Francine.   

This section of the novel begins with Weston’s article, “The Unsporting Life of Ecotopia,” filed May 9th, in which he explores the differences between American ideas and practices of sport and fitness and those he has found in Ecotopia. Whereas American sports revolve around the spectator, in Ecotopia “the sports scene is set up purely for the benefit of the participants” (34) and are more often individual endeavors rather than team affairs, a few examples being hunting, camping, swimming, ping pong, and volleyball. Most involve nature, and the Ecotopians lead a more active, more animalistic lifestyle in general. Weston also ominously alludes to a practice known as “the war games” which, rumor has it, causes the deaths of many youths (36). In his journal entry for May 10, Weston discusses his failed attempts to meet with Ecotopia’s president, Vera Allwen, whom he saw recently on TV and who fascinates Weston, wielding authority without the typical American trappings of ceremony and rigid hierarchy, and who is “a force to be reckoned with” (38).

The next article, “Ecotopian Television and Its Wares” tackles the most pervasive modern technology remaining in an otherwise rustic Ecotopian society: video/television. Much of the programming reveals a radical transparency in political and commercial segments of society—debates, court proceedings, and executive and legislative meetings—though there are also “weird surrealistic films” (39). Advertisements revolve solely around facts and specifications rather than salespersonship. The May 11th entry that follows reveals an Ecotopian practice Weston witnesses called “cooperative criticism,” after a customer is unhappy with his meal in a diner, and the rest of the staff and patrons work together to explore the problem and reach a solution.

The final article in this section, “The Ecotopian Economy: Fruit of Crisis” delves into the history of how Ecotopia went through a “deliberately engineered” financial crisis in order to overthrow the, as they saw it, unfair and dehumanizing aspects of American capitalism and establish a new system, based around a twenty-hour work week, sustainable practices, and an end to poverty. After filing this report, Weston writes in his May 13th journal entry about being contacted by “the Opposition,” a right-wing Ecotopian group intent on overthrowing Ecotopian society in order to return it to the American way of life. Weston ultimately is unimpressed by them.