Legend of Atlantis

I wrote recently about Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy man.  This led me to become interested in his works, so I began reading about it.  One of Donovan's big hits was "Atlantis", which recounts the legend of Atlantis as told by the Greek philosopher Plato.

Francis Bacon is believed by some to be William Shakespeare, wrote the novel "New Atlantis".  This in turn was the inspiration for B.F. Skinner's Walden Two.  The legend of Atlantis attracts those who want to recreate the utopian dream of a perfect society.

The Space Shuttle Atlantis is named after the sail powered ship RV Atlantis, which performed oceanographic research.  Atlantean culture was according to legend to be quite advanced scientifically.  This may lead to the belief in the perfectibility of man or society, the basis for Utopianism.

This legendary enlightened society continues to live on in the collective imagination of popular culture.  Can this culture be recreated in modern times?  Attempts to create utopias seem to result in the opposite, though.  It can be a really bad trip when it results in Nazism and Communism.  Those who don't conform to the ideal are not treated very nicely.

Rather than to claim that all Utopians are Marxist, it should be noted that Ayn Rand portrayed a type of Atlantis in her book Atlas Shrugged.  It seems that Utopia is a place where everyone wants to go, but also a place where no one lives.