Any purpose in seeking utopia?
I've been questioning what I want to do with my life and I ended up coming to the conclusion that working towards my view of utopia is the best thing I can do, career wise that is. Does anyone here think that its possible for humanity to reach a point where there is a unified view of what is best for us?
Comments (28)
I am curious, though, as to the details of your particular utopia? Even if only in broad outlines. Maybe there's some hypothetically perfect society that most people would agree upon, at least in principle. Again, that seems extremely unlikely - people are so varied in temperament, outlook, and other essential things that creating a shared set of values and guiding assumptions which everyone could agree upon seems an impossibility.
How much exactly is anyone's guess at this point, but it would be a self-organizing process that, according to annual surveys of scientists around the world, will require another 400 years before the current progress of the sciences slows to a crawl and several millennia for humanity to put all that data to productive use. However, other data suggests we may see significant improvement within seven generations as the worst of the truly dysfunctional crap is sorted out.
I think that's the destiny of human achievement. We're always striving for perfection, because we get a glimpse of what it's like when we experience the beautiful. But the desire for perfection is the desire to implement the beautiful, which is inherently short-lived, over a long-term period. And that just doesn't work.
It's a strange day
No colours or shapes
No sound in my head
I forget who I am
When I'm with you
There's no reason
There's no sense
I'm not supposed to feel
I forget who I am
I forget
Fascist baby
Utopia, utopia
My dog needs new ears
Make his eyes see forever
Make him live like me
Again and again
Fascist baby
Utopia, utopia
I'm wired to the world
That's how I know everything
I'm super brain
That's how they made me
Fascist baby
Goldfrapp
Seems like a thoroughly sound assumption to me. Given the human beings can start an argument in an empty room 1000 miles from any other soul the idea that they could ever be satisfied with any state of things, no matter how perfect it may seem initially, is frankly preposterous. That's one of the reasons C S Lewis postulated that there would be work for us still in heaven and pictures it in the Narnia books as an infinite process of moving further up and further in.
By all means travel hopefully but do not wish to arrive.
To discuss its possibility under the assumption that it would be impossible is circular nonsense. Moreover, utopia is a place, not a state of mind. The possibility that one may argue or feel dissatisfied, in any place, has little to do with the possibility to find or construct a desirable place.
A desirable place does not have to be desirable for everyone at the same time. It might take some experience, effort, some knowledge etc. to get to understand that it is desirable. A place which is desirable for most people who know and understand something about human nature and societies might qualify as utopia. A place in which no-one argues and everyone is perpetually satisfied is indeed no place, it does not exist. But utopia is a place, and possible as such to find or construct.
"A just machine to make big decisions
Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision
We'll be clean when their work is done
We'll be eternally free and eternally young."
Donald Fagen, I.G.Y. (The Nightly, 1983)
Quoting Wosret
I doubt that it is possible, but I also hope that it never happens. The "perfect society" must, of necessity, be a dead end, and a likely rigid, oppressive one. There can be no further change in a perfect society, no individuality, no novelty, no innovation. It would be a static hell, all watched over by machines of loving grace.
Still, it might be very fruitful to think and read about utopia, as long as we don't make "perfection" the enemy of "the best we can do at the time".
It's wrong foundationally, which is why most everyone is wrong about literally everything. They have no idea what anything at all is.
In this case, it is always wrong because it's a sky hook. Utopia always means you swooping in to save the day, and telling everyone what's best. It's always just the wish to populate your own little fantasy world with real people. We should definitely do the best we can, individually, but we can't make anyone else do that. We can't force freedom, or command happiness.
Sorry about the tone of that, of course people known what plenty of things are, I was in a bad mood. Blah blah blah "I have sole access to the truth" blah blah blah "strongest in the world" blah blah blah.
No need to apologise at all. I think there is a very real sense in which everyone is wrong about literally everything! At the very least it should be in our minds as a possibility as a corrective to hubris!
There's a self referential paradox there... personally I solve those by being two people. I get to be the one that's always wrong, but keeps forgetting about that part.
We're all better now. All cases closed. All death sentences commuted. All imaginary executions reversed. All the dungeons in my mind emptied (I converted them to luxury condos). I took my place on the great Mandala as it moves through my brief moment of time.
There have been some utopian efforts that worked out pretty well, at least for a while --10, 20, 100, even 200 years. 1600 years if you count monasteries. However, the vast majority of utopian experiments are neither nasty nor brutish, but they are very short.
The utopian socialist community at New Lanark in Scotland, SE of Glasgow, was established by Robert Owens, the 'founder' of utopian socialism. New Lenark lasted from 1788 to 1968. It was a better place to live than most towns dominated by the industrial revolution, but a communist utopia (self liberated and self governing it was not. (New Lanark is now a World Heritage Site.)
Shaker communities were religiously inspired utopian communities and there were a number of them that existed for 100-200 years in the United States. Shakers were inventive, as well as communitarian (but celibate) and among their inventions are The flat broom, the circular saw blade, the spring clothespin, a rocking chair, buttons, and the paper seed envelope. Their design innovations in construction of domestic spaces are numerous and very significant (think cabinets built into walls).
Benedictine communities, religiously inspired, have existed since the 7th century. Benedictines are a voluntary community, sort of communitarian, but very much governed by rules of the Church. If I remember correctly, Benedictines elect their abbots (CEOs). Monasteries are, for the most part, spiritual enterprises, are utopian in a sense, but Benedictines have long been involved in the world, operating universities, for instance.
What these institutions reveal is that is possible for a select group of volunteers to come together and fulfill ideals in long-enduring communities. New Lanark, and other utopian socialist communities, self-sustained their populations by the usual biological method. The religious utopian communities are usually celibate, so need to operate outreach efforts to continue--sort of like The Philosophy Forum -- it isn't expected that your children will replace you as a poster when you finally(!) drop dead.