Introduction
Part 1

Part 2. Utopia and the Collective Imagination

Cabet caught the attention of such influential people as Marx and Engels who branded him as a utopian and since then this qualification has remained unquestioned. Indeed, the two leaders have largely contributed to create Cabet as a cultural hero of the Left, albeit a hero in the pigeonhole of utopia.
As early as 1842, Marx felt uneasy with the utopian form of communism, which he saw as narrowing the debate on private property to a humanistic principle of fraternity. «Communism and the abolition of private property are not identical,» wrote the young philosopher. One has to deal with all aspects of the theoretical existence of man, including religion, politics and science. [1]
Marx also clamed that Cabet invalidly used atypical historical events to justify his positions: he argued that the fact that they were atypical showed that history was moving in a contradictory direction and disproved any assertion that some past form of communism could offer itself as a solution to the future of humanity:

«the other communism, which is not yet fully developed, seeks in isolated historical forms opposed to private property a historical proof for itself, a proof drawn from what already exists, by wrenching isolated moments from their proper places in the process of development (a hobbyhorse Cabet, Villegardelle, etc., particularly like to ride) and advancing them as proofs of its historical pedigree. But all it succeeds in showing is that by far the greater part of this development contradicts its assertions and that if it did not once exist, then the very fact that it existed in the past refutes its claim to essential being [Wesen].» [2]

It was Engels who labelled Cabet’s ideas as «utopian communism», in his 1888 preface of the English edition of the Communist Manifesto. [3]He had earlier noticed, with admiration, that Cabet had won over «the great bulk of the French working classes»; he estimated that there were about half a million Icarians in France, without counting their wives and children, thus constituting a rather respectable phalanx. [4] In consequence, Cabet was ranked with Babeuf and Buonarroti as one of the three great French reformers. [5]
It appears that the word «utopia» is a floating signifier. Some people define it as an impossible ideal, and therefore an illusion; others see a Promethean struggle to change a people’s destiny. It is either a weapon or a flag, according to who is using it. And if, rejecting an empiricist view, we wish to link so-called utopian discourse or experience to some theoretical tradition, we must look at its connections with class and ideological struggles.
These points of view, however, are not as cogent as they might seem. For example, Engels’ reliance on a scientific theory of history rightly points to the fact that any viewpoint must be examined in its ideological setting; however, he relies on a paradigm which, itself, has many limitations and which sets out from a theoretical background which eliminates a priori the utopian vision: it is an imperialist critique which tends to exterminate any thought which does not start from the same premises and is therefore theoretically sterile, even if it may be good propaganda.
Cabet, indeed, was a prominent figure of the social movements in France. A demonstration he organized in Paris on March 17, 1848, brought together two hundred thousand people. His book on Icaria was a best seller and inspired probably the largest French emigration ever to the United States. If his communist settlements have been well studied, as we have previously noted, the individual histories of his American disciples within the social movements of that country remain to be told.
Cabet can be considered to be a utopian on many grounds. He presented an ideal society. It was to be a revolution from above, based on the supremacy of a single conscience, that of the great man, a dictator, Icar, whose boots Cabet chose to put on. It broke many ties with what was currently happening in France and tended to become a sect. Finally, as Engels would have said, it was unscientific, because it was unrelated to a theory of history linked with the working class. After all, Cabet was a lawyer, a bourgeois who had been a member of parliament and was even named as a prosecutor.
He also believed that the kingdom of God must occur on earth; for him, that was neither an ideal nor a utopia, but a fact, since Jesus had said so. [6] Communism was a system, a science, designed to find the most perfect social organization, and its key word was «the divine principle of Fraternity». [7]Looking for a foundation for his communist conceptions, he examined the Bible, and copied all the verses that seemed to back his views.
There is a certain paradox in all this reference to religion. This return to primitive Christianity is in strong contrast with the prevailing unbelief in France. Engels also considered the author of True Christianity with a certain irony: he was not a good Christian, because if he had properly read the Bible, he would have found out that the essence of its doctrine is opposed to communism as well as to any rational undertaking. Rejecting the brotherhood of all men, Marx and Engels advocated the union of all proletarians in a class war; communism was not communion. [8]
However accurate this critique was, it may be argued that it does not qualify Cabet as a utopian. Reference to the authority of religion connotes the attitude of the believer in myths. The myth refers to a certain past, an act of separation between the «essential» and the «superficial», and repeats it through ritual. It has its culture heroes, it may be messianic, apocalyptical and even authoritarian because it is not based on rationality but on the authority of tradition. What characterizes the myth is that it is a narrative linked with a ritual, as Mircea Eliade has shown, and that it can therefore be perpetually renewed: purification by water occurs every day in our bathrooms. In the same way, the dream of paradise is a myth, even if it may haunt certain utopias. Utopian thought does contain myths, but if it is reduced to that type of discourse, there is no point in talking about utopias.
Marx’s and Engel’s critique that utopians are seeking an elsewhere which is unrelated to history and that they have recourse to artificial means such as authoritarian leadership rather than historical processes does not apply to Cabet any more than the argument that a form of communism which is unrelated to the working class is therefore utopian. Etienne Cabet may have many defects. He certainly was authoritarian and even behaved at times as a dictator, and he could ignore embarrassing problems whenever he could not lay the blame on other people, but he was a realist. How many of us could mobilize such huge demonstrations, be elected to parliament, create a political party within the working class, write best sellers, or raise from poor people large amounts of money?
It is likely that the fact of leaving France, looking for a refuge in a virgin land, and dreaming of some new paradise reveals the influence of myth on the collective imagination of a nation of supposed unbelievers. It is also possible that the Icarians behaved more like a sect than like an avant-garde, although one should note that if historians have been quite prolific in writing about the internecine quarrels, they have hardly looked at how Cabet’s disciples participated in the American and French social movements of their times, both during and after their living in the various communities.
A close analysis of the Icarian experience in Texas does not reveal a conflict between utopia and reality, but rather shows something about the manifold play of collective imagination. When the Icarians arrived near Dallas, in April, in the setting where they hope to build their ideal society, their views were idyllic: it is possible that they naively believed some of the Texan tall tales when they were in Shreveport. But there was hardly any exaggeration: who has not enjoyed eating alligator or experiencing a beautiful day in the Texan spring? But when summer came along with the mosquitoes, then diseases and death appeared. A lack of knowledge about the climate, the assistance of a doctor who turns into a madman, fraudulent land deals in which one is cheated by the realtor, all these unpleasant events do not occur only to utopians.
These mistakes refer more to problems of acculturation than to utopian illusions. However, a certain collective obstinacy, in spite of everything, may point to some particular frame of mind. This world vision is best described as ideological rather than utopian, and such a distinction requires some short theoretical explanation.
It is often claimed, after Max Weber, that ideology proceeds from dominant groups, whereas utopia expresses the desires of the dominated. There is some validity in that statement since the lower strata of society, pace Foucault, are by definition deprived of the means to achieve their ideal society. In that sense, utopia refers to some inadequate strategy, to a dream that may never become real, as Thomas More would have perhaps said.
However, if ideology refers to a view of the world which may be defined as wishful thinking, blindness to real issues, collective justification of a group’s culture, ant not solely of a society’s status quo, then ideology is not limited to the upper strata but may appear in any group.
On the other hand, utopia cannot simply be just any alternative view of the world. Contemporary research, and particularly the writings of Cornelius Castoriadis, have made it evident that there is a collective imaginary, I would say beyond our collective imagination and fantasies, an imaginary structured by our undisputed paradigms. Even though some portions of the world have inherited from the Age of Enlightenment the skills to question those paradigms, there exist certain levels of certainty which appear so “natural” that they’re hardly disputed. For instance, hierarchical views of the world are so pervasive that they even affect our perception of space.
If utopia is not simply a protoplasmic definition, the shape of which changes according to our needs, but a useful concept, it should refer first and foremost to those visions that shake up a society’s collective imaginary.
What, then, was Cabet’s mistake? It was perhaps Jacques Rancière who explained it best. [9]He preached a gospel of fraternity, and he even reversed the famous trilogy and changed it into «Fraternity, Equality, Liberty». Unfortunately, American society is certainly not based on brotherhood, and the rampant individualism of the capitalist society had its effect even within the Icarian community.
In fact, the idea of universal brotherhood relies more on the contrast between the daily experience of social injustice and the paternalistic discourses about humanity considered as a big family. It refers to ideology even more than to utopia. Cabet took an ideological position, not a utopian one.
And there was another gap in such a position: the absence of a real knowledge of economic mechanisms and structures. But that, again, was not utopian.
If we therefore have to look for some utopia, we should find it elsewhere, but not in Cabet. He may have acted as a Messiah, he may have believed in myths, he may have been a visionary, he was not a utopian. After all, radical social change requires more than a radical imagination. It demands creativity.
Ronald Creagh