Thanks Mike for your very thought provoking question.
Length constraints prevented me from fully fleshing the concept out, but I also want the idea to be as opened ended as possible- Utopia as a kind of Swiss Army Knife.
Here's just one way it might work:
One of the benefits of Utopia is also one of its greatest weaknesses- it gives you a sort of Tabla Rosa by which you can redesign society at will. This is dangerous in the larger society because you have to level the existing order to start afresh, which is why I think Utopias should be used as a "proof of concept" with which you can tweak the overall society.
Imagine being able to design an energy system, employment system, justice system
all from "scratch" without legacy distortions and institutional interests based on the best knowledge we have? People would be given real life examples of what a society would look like if we, just as examples, built modern communities with almost zero carbon footprint, went to a 35 hour work week, replaced most incarceration with community imprisonment and re-conciliatory justice, broke down walls between subjects such as art and science during elementary education.
We could then argue around these real world examples rather than our respective ideologies- is this the type of world we want.
That's just one version of how a revived concept of Utopia might work. There are many many others.
Off to read your essay. Please give me a grade if you have not done so already.
Best of luck!
Rick Searle