I'm not holding TOS up as perfect, but when was it Utopian? One of my biggest objections to retconning TOS is that I don't think it ever was. A Private Little War (for example) is anything but.
TOS seemed to have suggested a few things too. It said "humans no longer fear words" so therefore are not bothered by slurs or insults. So you imagine a society where everyone walks around with smiles and have no concept of being insulted. It's a small thing, but it does create a utopian picture.
Later on we see people like Picard do exactly that-- get insulted by name calling.
Other small things are the futuristic food cubes they sometimes showed people eating. It was like it a 60's utopian idea of a future food that kept people nourished--it just had a utopian vibe to it.
But the bigger thing is even if TOS simply just claimed social progress, it was too limited by its time to ever really show it in its entirety. It was never going to show same sex relationships, interracial couples, alternative lifestyles etc. It was even still flirting with some pretty hard core sexism on the show.
At best it could say 'we solve a lot of problems' and be pretty vague about it, but never show truly show it.
No, why should that be required? Wouldn't just enjoying the shows for entertainment (without having to actually 'believe in the Rodenberry vision')be enough to call oneself a fan?
Some fans have said that Trek was always futuristic action adventure space show and that it was later blown up to be a social justice, sci fi show with a message.
If that's true, the commentaries in all those documentaries, books and blogs may have been responsible for spreading this idea.
