Utopia, like beauty, rests in the eye of the beholder. Those of us who study utopian ideas can easily recall imaginary societies regarded by their authors and by others of their time and place as eutopias, but which we readers of another time, place or temperament regard with amusement or even horror. Similarly, apparent dystopias can occasionally, with time, change into something much more desirable. Changing definitions of race, for example, can transform the monstrous…
