How will the field of sociology benefit from more focus on utopian thought?
For openers, the field will usefully reconnect with neglected aspects of its origins, as such early contributors as Comte, Saint-Simon, Simmel, Weber, and others, including Harriet Martineau and the forgotten early Mothers of Sociology all had something of value to say about utopian matters (ideals, vision, etc.), albeit not always of a flattering vein. Second, more focus on utopian thought will enrich our many Intro textbooks. Third, the field will have its range of concerns usefully stretched by going beyond the here-and-now to also explore systematically all kinds of possibilities (a world without paid work, or poverty, or sloth, or disease, etc.). (Theorist Charles Lemert reminds usSociology does most well when it accepts its necessary nature: that what sociology talks about is unavoidably the lost worlds we imagine.) Fourth, the field will be enriched by inputs from actors, artists, dreamers, poets, visionaries, and others around the world who artfully explore the improbable and i
