Utopian engineering reduces people to decorative elements rather than actors.

Evidence

In the void left by politics, the emphasis in Walden Two lies on the aesthetic. Giving Burris a tour of the grounds, Frazier extols the advantages of their better designed and more efficient tea glasses. Even the members are reduced to elements of decor. At one point Burris observes that all of the women are beautiful, and one female passerby—with a hairstyle and outfit that he apparently finds pleasing—reminds him of “a piece of modern sculpture done in a shining dark wood.” — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 179

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing work on worldbuilding/trees-as-infrastructure where static control of living systems is likewise critiqued. — connects to: Industrial society reduces individuals to interchangeable species beings through conformist working conditions