Environmentalist and doomsday-believer Dylan Evans believed he could actually make himself a better life departing the comforts of modern age and getting back to the natural beauty of raw survival with other like-minded persons. Strangely, he and his followers chose the raw climate of northern Scotland of all places (more on this later). (1)
Evans described his idea as an experiment to try to understand how humans would react in a situation where civilized society had completely broken down. It was intended to be time limited, and after 18 months he would be able to return to his normal life and write about his experience. (2)
Roger Lewis reports that by the time Evans came to write his book, The Utopia Experiment, he realized he had been delusional at the start of the project.. He had no difficulty recruiting like-minded eccentrics to join him in his experimental community; a former Royal Marine who had ambitions to be a cobbler; a computer-programmer passionate about vegetables; a teacher who'd once met an Inuit; a graffiti artist from Belfast; a Cambridge student keen on the recorder. (2)
These folks were idealists and disaffected romantics when what was needed were people with practical skills, like plumbers, carpenters and engineers. Soon the militant vegetarians were squabbling with the meat-eaters, and the small group began to disintegrate.
Lewis adds, “What Evans calls 'preparing for the end of the world' was in actuality deadly boring—getting fires going, keeping dry, trying to prevent small cuts from becoming infected and eating nothing save thick lentil soup. It soon became apparent that 'the whole experiment had been a huge mistake.' Jittery, with a permanently wide-eyed expression and wanting only to kill himself, Evans was eventually detained under the Mental Health Act in a maximum security psychiatric hospital.” (1)
Evans and his followers weren't the first to try remote areas of Scotland for their 'experiment.' The remotest occupied island in the British Isles, the Outer Hebridean outlier Hirta in the St. Kilda archipelago off the west coast of mainland Scotland was described by many nineteenth and twentieth century chroniclers as a Utopia. However, it wasn't really so.
Andrew Meharg reports, “The Hirta community is now an iconic image for devolved Scotland with a strong socialist tradition. But this Utopia is a myth. The St. Kildans' bird culture had severe effects on European seabird populations. Most notable, the islanders beat to death the last observed great auk in Britain, which they held to be a witch in 1840, just before the global extinction of the species.” (3)
Meharg's research revealed that agronomic practices led to severe pollution of the arable land. The St. Kildans recycled all their wastes—feces, peat, ash, and bird guts and bones and used them as fertilizer. This eventually resulted in soils highly contaminated with lead and zinc, reaching 500 mg per kg., comparable with the soils of Britain's most polluted industrial cities. (4)
Besides studying the Hirta community before making his move, Evans should also have watched some episodes of the TV show Survival. In this show the contestants are isolated in the wilderness and compete for cash and other prizes. The contestants (castaways) must survive the elements, construct shelter, build fire, look for water, and scrounge for food and other necessities for the entire filming period, around 39 days.
Many who have been on the show claim it was the most difficult experience of their lives; building shelter finding food, keeping warm and dry and so on, akin to what the folks experienced in the Scottish Highlands.
So, Evans could have learned from the Hirtans or easier yet from watching Survivor on television., After his experiment, Evans was detained in the psychiatric hospital for a month, but it took another year before he was back to almost normal. He found it hard to get a job, eventually ending up at a computer research lab. It was seven years before he could write his book. (2)
In researching this report, I found a comment from one reviewer that is quite fitting: “I am sure caveman was happy with his lot; no pollution from cars and factories, pure river water with no chemicals, no fertilizers, only organic food, no health service—and everyone dying before they are 30.” (1)
References
- Roger Lewis, “They sought paradise in a Scottish field—and found hunger, boredom and mosquitioes,” spectator.co.uk/books. February 14, 2015
- Frank O'Shea, “Book review: The Utopia Experiment by Dylan Evans,” smh.com.au.entertainment, February 6, 2015
- Andrew Meharg, “Polluting Utopia,” Nature, 434, 959, April 2005
- Andrew Meharg & Kenneth Killham, “A pre-industrial source of dioxins and furans,” Nature, 421, 909, February 27, 2003
