New Website Announcement!!
AGE OF UTOPIA IS MOVING!!!
I’ve spent the past year or so working on quite a large project. At the moment, it consists of a short book and a brand new podcast, both of which focus on—you guessed it—Utopianism.
Now that this project is about ready to launch, I have built an entirely new website to host it (though readers of this site will certainly see some similarities).
The new website is: storyofnowhere.com
On this new site, you will find the eBook, Audiobook, and Paperback versions of my book, The Story of Nowhere, an introduction to historical Utopianism. You will also find my new podcast (releasing Oct. 10, 2020)—a deep-dive into a whole array of topics related to Utopianism. “In Pursuit of Utopia,” my show with Brett Veinotte and Kevin Cole, will also be made available there, though I will be re-releasing them periodically and the show catalog will no longer be accessible as it is now.
Thank you all for reading my articles on this site, few and far between as they were. With the podcast, I will be producing content monthly, and everything I have written about on ageofutopia.info will be expounded on in that medium. Age of Utopia was the very necessary stepping-stone to this larger, more comprehensive project, and I am very excited for this development. I hope that you will follow me to storyofnowhere.com.
I will leave ageofutopia.info active until the New Year, for anyone who would like to read my posts and listen freely to “In Pursuit of Utopia” while they are still available as they are now. After that point, they will be incorporated into The Story of Nowhere Project.
FROM THE “ABOUT” PAGE ON MY NEW SITE, “STORY OF NOWHERE”:
Utopia: From the Greek words ou (“no”) and topos (“place”), meaning “no place” or “nowhere.”
“The Story of Nowhere” is an educational multimedia project beginning in the year 2020. It includes a book and a podcast, both of the same name, each exploring problems and solutions associated with Utopian thinking.
“Utopianism” is defined by this project as:
The inherently and internally contradictory belief that a theoretical vision of an ideal society, based on ideological assumptions about human nature, can justifiably be implemented by way of deception and/or violence.
This project contends that Utopianism, defined this way, lay at the root of history’s most destructive and tyrannical man-made catastrophes. Operating under the assumption that the ends justify the means, the Utopian thinker concludes that a better society can and should be attained at all costs. Unfortunately for the vast majority of people, such contradictory acts only ensure that the stated ideal will not be achieved, and thus, wherever we find Utopian projects in history, we find a trail of devastation leading to and from them.
One of the most important ways in which Utopian thinkers maintain power and are able to leverage the masses is by making the masses dependent. If the majority of a population must rely on a set of central institutions for food, wealth, education, and information, that population becomes clay in the hands of those who control the centralized institutions.
Therefore, the ultimate solution proposed by this project to the long-standing problem of Utopianism is, quite simply, independence; independence when it comes to food, wealth, education, and information. It is by holding these basic human needs hostage that cunning criminals and irrational Utopians are able to so easily steer the masses time and time again. Producing our own food, creating our own wealth, educating ourselves and our own children, thinking critically, and scrutinizing information for ourselves—in other words, independence—is the best way to break the pattern of abuse.
Exploring the root of our problems—Utopianism—and the root of our solutions—independence—is the mission of this multifaceted project.
Your first step in engaging with The Story of Nowhere Project is to read the book—before beginning the podcast. Because people vary in how they consume information, and because it is recommended that the book be consumed before the podcast, it is available in three different formats: as an eBook, an audiobook (both free for everybody), and is available for purchase as a paperback (this option comes with some added bonus material).
“The Story of Nowhere” is authored and hosted by Daniel McCarthy, an independent researcher from Cleveland, Ohio.
