The Topians, Examined

What do you call a perfectly reasonable idea worth fighting for nestled in a dystopian landscape?

“Too Utopian.”

I was told recently on a video call with a group of helpful experts with very sincere looks of pity in their eyes that my idea to process hygiene products with materials from the ocean was Too Utopian.

Let’s break this down a bit, because nobody likes it much when dyed-in-the-wool experts pin a label onto your ideas, however well-intentioned. Definitions: utopian is ‘perfect/idealistic’. Dystopian, on the other hand: a state where there is ‘great suffering and injustice.’ If my idea is “too utopian”, is the take-home message that I should strive for a lower rung on the utopian scale? Or try to edge my way in for a seat at the crowded dystopian table?

Words matter. If we had to choose from the above two options, I’d say ‘dystopian’ is pretty much where we are in 2023- but I’m not just going to, like, sit here in contentment about it. And, despite being pegged as such, I don’t think striving for the utopian holds much chance for success at this point. So, then, what’s the word for something where you insist on improvement - pushing the envelope, hopeful, but with an understanding that pragmatism and hard choices are seated at the table?

Protopian?

I swear, y’all- I did NOT look this up beforehand- I just 'searched up’ (as my Generation Alpha children say) ‘protopian’, and this came up.

So yeah. Protopian. The Goldilocks of the Topians.

We need to make hygiene products from the sea and stop using land resources- for all the reasons identified in previous blog posts. Our planet is 70% ocean. We are all absolutely zonked-out asleep, and the big guys are in control. The day we woke up and hygiene products quietly tipped into a cultural norm of being unaffordable and inaccessible without any fuss is the day we all failed each other.

We need to democratize processing & material availability. As a first, critical step, we need to insist for ourselves that this idea is worthwhile- that we and our neighbors are worthwhile. I don’t think we’re collectively convinced yet. We have gaslit ourselves into believing that participating in a system where corporations profit off of basic necessities is OK.

Diapers, adult diapers, and period products need to be conceptualized like drinking water. Sure, because it’s 2023 in the United States of America, you can buy 16oz of nano-hydro-bio-fused alkaline water for $9 if you really must, but there is water from the tap that (should be*) perfectly fine.* (Asterisks as acknowledgments of the systemic profusion of shameful exceptions in cities and towns everywhere.)

Let’s insist on thinking about hygiene products the same way we think about tap water. There’s probably a law prohibiting companies from cutting off access to public water mains and intentionally bottling and selling expensive+clean, or dirty+affordable, water to underserved zip codes in its place. Let’s insist on applying that same principle to hygiene products. We’ve made reasonable gains to call out lawmakers for their slow and insufficient action in ensuring towns across the country have access to clean water. Let’s do the same with hygiene products. If we don’t, there’s a word for what we get; it starts with d and ends with ystopian.

We need to hand these for-profit giants the (1) public insistence and (2) solutions on how to use these products at scale- we need to work toward cheaper production so that they don’t have a choice but to change their ways. They won’t do it themselves because they don’t have to unless we insist. I personally don’t see any other choice.