We live in a world where billion-dollar budgets are lavished on sci-fi fantasies—flying cars, conscious AI, off-world colonies. Yet the idea of redesigning something as simple as the school day or the work week still feels wildly unrealistic. Somehow, it's easier to imagine life on Mars than a better Monday here on Earth.
This strange discrepancy is what we have come to think of as the Utopia Glitch—a cultural bug that allows our imaginations to soar when it comes to technology but flatline the moment we think about daily life. We can envision robot companions but not communities where people feel safe, seen, and rested. We pour immense creativity into apps and gadgets, while our institutions—education, health, governance, even business—shuffle along as if change were too risky to even consider. And yet, most of us feel it: the old ways are no longer working. We are moving too fast and solving too little. We scroll, we hustle, we optimize, but for what? For whom?
What is holding us back is not simply a lack of knowledge. It is a lack of shared, compelling alternatives. Not just an awareness of what is broken, but a vivid sense of what could be whole. We are not short on warnings—we are short on vision. And if we do not start imagining a better world before change is forced upon us, the old powers will offer their usual answers: safe, simple, and utterly insufficient. So the real question is: Why are we still so stuck?
The gravity of the present is powerful. Change sounds exciting in theory, but in practice it threatens the narratives we “inhabit”—the ones that tell us who we are, how things work, what is possible. Even imagining a different life can feel dangerous, like tugging on a thread that might unravel the whole sweater. So the idea of making change happen involves a pervasive sense of repercussion, the feeling that the positives come with unknown negatives or uncertainties.
At the individual level, this fear is deeply human. Our brains are wired for safety and certainty. We gravitate toward routines, even harmful ones, simply because they are familiar. We may want change, but we do not want disruption.
Businesses, meanwhile, are caught in their own traps. Most operate under the tyranny of the quarterly report, where long-term innovation is sacrificed for short-term survival. There is little room to explore radically new models when the boardroom rewards what is already been proven. And so “innovation” becomes a buzzword attached to product updates, not to fundamental reinvention.
On the societal level, dysfunction has become normalized. Bureaucracies, political gridlock, and systemic inequalities persist not because we lack solutions, but because we lack shared will. As long as things “sort of” function, we treat them as immutable—even when they are clearly fraying at the seams.
The European Union’s Draghi Report on Competitiveness makes this tension plain. It warns that Europe is falling behind not because of ignorance or laziness, but because it has lost the will to imagine and act boldly. Economic strength, the report suggests, now depends as much on our capacity to reimagine as it does on our ability to optimize. We do not just need to do better. We need to dream better.
To move forward, we must first reclaim a word that has fallen out of fashion: utopia.
When Sir Thomas More coined the term in 1516, he offered a clever pun: ou-topos, meaning “no place,” and eu-topos, meaning “good place.” His book Utopia described a fictional island with radically different norms—equal parts satire and vision. It was not meant to predict the future, but to question the present. Over time, the word came to mean perfection, impossibility, even delusion. “Utopian” became an insult—naïve, out of touch, impractical.
But perhaps this is exactly the trap. If we discard utopia because it feels unrealistic, we resign ourselves to a future shaped by those who profit most from realism—a future of managed decline, acceptable inequality, and mild dystopias with good Wi-Fi. What if we treated utopia not as a destination, but as a practice? A method of collective design. A challenge to imagine the good place, so we can begin building it—now, not later.
From this angle, the pursuit of utopia naturally connects with the idea of emergent innovation. Unlike traditional models of innovation that chase incremental improvements, emergent innovation begins in the unknown. It invites us to ask deeper questions, to explore new meanings, to create knowledge we did not even know we lacked. It does not seek quick solutions—it seeks transformation, often born from curiosity, connection, and context. And this kind of innovation does not happen by accident. It must be invited, protected, and most of all—imagined into existence.
So how do we start? It begins with a story. With making the future feel close enough to touch—not (primarily) through data, but through feeling. We cannot only tell people what is broken—we must give them something to long for. This longing must be cultivated:
Examples already exist: the European Union’s push for strategic autonomy, the US's resurgence of bold industrial policy, the growing experimentation in African cities building post-colonial urban futures. These are not utopias—but they are signals. They show us what it looks like when imagination is taken seriously.
And maybe, just maybe, we have been starting in the wrong place all along. Rather than starting with problems, what if we started with beauty?
Not in the superficial sense, but in the deep, human one: What would it feel like to live in a place where dignity was the norm, not the exception? What would a world look like where work nourished us, where cities were built for joy, where children learned to wonder before they learned to obey?
If that sounds sentimental, good. We have had more than enough cynicism. Utopia is not a blueprint. It is a provocation. A compass. A way to say: We could live differently. And the act of imagining that life (together) is itself an act of defiance.
Because here is the real risk: If we do not write the future, someone else will. And those who do may not have our best interests at heart. In times of upheaval, the future does not go to the best idea—it goes to the one that is ready. If we meet disruption with critique and lack of creation, then the existing powers—the ones with the most to lose—will flood the void with simple answers and familiar comforts. And history shows us how that ends.
So we need to dream boldly now—not in resistance, but in preparation. Not because it is easy, but because it is essential. We have everything we need to begin. So let us build the good place—not because it is real yet, but because it could be. And the act of imagining it might just be the thing that makes it so.
If this stirred something in you—an ache, a spark, a quiet “yes”—do not let it fade. Take ten minutes today. Not to solve anything. Just to dream. Sketch a scene, a city, a school, a system. What might your life look like if it were designed for flourishing?
Then share it. With a colleague. With your team. With a neighbor. Post it. Speak it. Build it. Because the future is not a forecast. It is a canvas. And the act of imagining it—together—may be the most strategic move we have left.
What are your thoughts on utopia? Talk to us, write to us. We are curious and love to engage in conversations!
Register and receive special insights into the latest developments.