*inspired by a couple of lines of dialogue in an early episode of Mad Men. Except I’m pretty sure that the show is wrong, because this is what I learned. But the show happens in 1960 so maybe that’s what they taught in the 1950s. I dunno for sure.
“It was thought at one time that there were two meanings for Utopia; eu-topos meaning ‘good place’ and ou-topos meaning ‘no place’. The place that cannot be. That was wrong. There’s no such etymology of Utopia as a good place. Utopia is no place. So many people think that Utopia is a good place because Dystopia is a bad place. But it’s not. It’s a place that is literally nowhere. People have idealized Utopian visions of the 1950s and they are right. It was a Utopia because it never existed.”