is utopia dead? is the ideal of utopia no longer possible, or was it even ever possible in the first place?
or, to perhaps be more precise and avoid confusion, do we even still consider the “utopian” ideals AT ALL? humanity seems to shrink its range of view, its historical memory smaller every generation, every day. without a real historical/philosophical context, how are we to understand the utopian ideals, and therefore strive constantly to overcome previous impossibilities, and usher in a new world of reason, freedom, self-actualization, perfection?
these concepts have always been considered “utopian”, but this is precisely why they persist in cultural memory. yet with the full-scale intellectual degeneration of modern society and mass culture, are even the utopian ideals themselves ceasing to exist, so that their negation becomes an unchallenged default?
without utopia, what do we have to strive for, to yearn and work towards? by destroying our most noble, far-reaching ideals, is modern society crippling our ability to actually attain perfection?
i would have to agree, to a certain extent. i do not think that human nature itself would necessarily ruin the realization of a new age of freedom and social perfection, but i think that the current social structures are so oppressive and entrenched that for them to change would take a very long time, and change would be dependent on the mass of people having an intellectual enlightenment. where this would come from, i have no idea; certainly there is no desire by most people to rethink any of their assumptions or beliefs.
i think the future does hold hope, but to use that worn-out and tired phrase, “it will get worse before it gets better”… however, i do not think that there will ever be NO hope; for that, at least, utopia will always persist in the minds of society’s persecuted and unknown minority.
i do not think this is necessarily true. of course, some people would have this image of an ideal man, but certainly not myself. in common works and understanding, utopia could manifest in the actualization of complete freedom and higher awareness, to the point where each person is able to pursue their goals and interests in a society free from want, need and harms. in this sense, man would not be a robot, but would be faced with a limitless existence, all possibilities open to him for him to pursue at his leisure. for the first time, man would be free.
believe me, brother, we’re better the way we are now
a society free from want, need and harms does not exist. This can only be conceived by a man who wants to take advantage of the naïveté of his fellows. Remember that what makes men wish their liberation from these things is their own existence: without such handicaps, human beings couldn’t stand their lifes for a single minute. Boredom would kill us all.
and more: utopians generally take their own personal wishes and goals as the ideals of everyone else. Common people aren’t asking to be ‘freed’ from their needs and problems, but the idealist wants to pretend that they want. He wants to control people by pointing out to them what they should want and strive for…
yes, that is certainly true that most people dont desire freedom… but that is my point: that utopia cannot exist now, but only in the future, when conditions have changed sufficiently. of course there is no such thing as freedom from wants and needs presently, but technology certainly at the very least allows for the possibility of this state of freedom from nature’s struggle for existence. mechanization, computer technologies etc provide for the possible state of existence where the average man does not need to work. in this case, he would be “freed” to pursue such things as any of the branches of science, literature, mathematics, philosophy, physical prowess, meditation, religious studies, etc etc… the list is endless.
everyone living in such a system would be able to interact with each other, seek knowledge and find out what they are passionate about and pursue it with no obstacles. this only seems “boring” to us because of our entrenched and repressive attitude that “life is toil”. we think that if i “did not work” then “what would i do with myself? surely i would be bored!” however, this attitude more attests to the scope of the false repression of our individual potential. in a truly free society, humanity could discover, for the first time in history, what it means to be truly SELF-ACTUALIZED and SELF-DETERMINISTICALLY HAPPY and FREE.
admittedly, such a system is very distant from today’s societies… but thats the point. we still have such a long way to go.
What utopia is wanted here? One in which all human conflicts are resolved and all illnesses cured? Eugenics might accomplish that. Nothing else can. Aldous Huxley noted that most of the inhumanity humans do to humanity comes from utopian thinkers, from those who want pie in the sky afterlives and those who want just one more revolution to establish even a modicum of human equality. Carrot in front of the horse? Maybe. Cause of the human inequities they are supposed to resolve? Certainly.
i understand that there is a historical precedent regarding supposed “utopians” who actually establish oppressive communist regimes, totalitarian states, etc. i am not arguing that fact. my point is that those people are not TRUE utopians; they care for personal power and nothing more. utopian ideals are just a means to those ends.
why judge the ideal itself based on falsehoods like those people? its like judging all of christianity from the televangelist you see on tv at 4 in the morning, preaching about hell and how you need to send $20 or else the devil will get you. if there is a necessary causal relation between false utopians who are liars and just use the goodwill and faith of the average man against himself, and true utopian ideals themselves, you need to explain what this connection is. otherwise, youre just making an attribution error.
certainly, this is true. my original question, however, is that is this truth being lost? with the progressive loss of the ability of the common man to think in terms of principles, to be objective, or to care at all about fundamental abstract issues to his survival (beyond his 9-5 job, 12-pack of beer and the superbowl), does utopia still have this essential role in modern political thought? or is the disintegration of the intellectual atmosphere in america, and abroad, destroying the utopian ideals themselves?
i do not feel that the fact of the average person’s intellectual vacuity is even up for debate; most modern authors in philosophy, psychology, politics, etc evidence this fact. i know the majority of the literature ive been exposed to points to this fact. historically, most people are not “great thinkers” by any stretch of the imagination…
if you doubt this fact, and perhaps want to argue that most people are intelligent, self-aware, ethical and reasonable people, then we could probably start a new thread for this aspect of the discussion. however, i feel that the anti-intellectualism which pervades common mass culture is apparent, and recognized by any objective, serious thinker these days. in order not to distract the discussion, we could start this discussion in a new thread, if you disagree. it could perhaps be an interesting discussion…
The only reason I brought it up was because you posited it as evidence of a “loss of utopian truth” within the contemporary consciousness. I don’t think this is necessarily true of our political philosophy, depending of course on how you interpret that word “utopian”. In truth, I think the focus on popular culture is misdirected, if anything, because I think the more serious undermining of utopian thinking has probably come from the collapse of grand ideologies like Marxism.
There are certainly lots of arguments I could make to suggest that contemporary popular (or mass, if you prefer) culture is not as you describe it, although I accept that there are rational reasons for seeing it as such.
i see your point; i would go a step further and postulate that the “collapse of grand ideologies” you refer to is an effect of a low cultural consciousness, a low intellectualism of the average individual. it certainly is true that grand ideologies, or fundamental sweeping views of life and truth no longer seem to have the power to shape the direction of society, and that this certainly has an effect on utopia; i would just contend that this “loss of philosophy” as i will call it is but an effect of an overall larger cause, the technological rationalization and collectivization (reduced individualism, i.e. conceptual ability) which society pushes into the minds of those citizens who are unable to sufficiently think for themselves.
yes, i would agree that it is not all bad. there are certainly indicators that modern society is more “humane”, “enlightened”, “good” than past barbaric (and even “representative”, i.e. the roman empire) societies. but these, in my opinion, do not upset the general trend toward anti-intellectualism, and the loss of the ideal (loss of grandiose ideologies). if anything, they are superficial tendencies, either outgrowths of society’s need to conceal its general decline, or reactionary (but simplistic/unthinking) tendencies of the average person’s unconscious realization of the anti-intellectualism of modern life, and the death of his volitive mind. in addition, modern humane or benevolent facts of society could also be suriviving aspects of past ideologies, persisting in cultural memory today only because they have not as-of-yet been fully eliminated; with the loss of the ideal, however, their eventual elimination is inevitable.
in either case, a low level of mental lucidity and rational abilities tends to destroy utopian ideals. i would argue that this is first and foremost accomplished by the abolition of grand ideological theories, as you call them; once this coherence of mind and idea is lost, the progressive decline of intellectualism will occur on its own, as there are no fundamental and non-contradictory paradigms or frameworks to restrict this increasing fragmentation.
inevitability has nothing to do with utopia. in truth nothing is inevitable about the evolution of society, because we as individuals determine its course and direction, and we are not inevitable; further, evolution only selects for the better survival traits at the present moment. in the case of society, if natural selection can be said to apply to social change, then those forms which ensure greater stability and control will be selected for.
since true utopia reflects a realization of social forms which embody freedom, and because evolution will likely continue to select for progressively more unfree societies, it is probably the case that utopia will never arise by natural processes. utopia simply presents too great an uncertainty in predictability, not to mention the tremendous difficulties with establishing utopia for the first time.
utopia would need to be established in spite of natural processes, which would select for less utopian states all the time. perhaps this is just a reflection of the idealistic and presently impossible nature of utopia itself.
TTG, it’s difficult to address your views here without getting drawn into a debate on your view of the contemporary “common man”, which I think as a historical generalisation leaves a fair amount to be desired. It’s not that I think that factor is insignificant with regard to the decline in utopian thinking, rather that it is a long way from providing a complete explanation of the situation as it exists today.
I would contend that during the ninenteenth and twentieth centuries utopianism became progressively divorced from its practical or procedural realisation - the ends, in effect, justified whatever means could be devised. This was most obviously the case in the Soviet Union, where a quite astounding level of bureaucratic ruthlessness became the norm. Nevertheless, this abstraction of the original utopian principles also impacted upon less radical models of social engineering, such as the variety of state socialisms which developed in Europe in the wake of the Second World War. The problem here was that the political ideology that had inspired these utopian visions was rooted in a philosophy developed at the end of the eighteenth century that no longer reflected the world around it - for example, in the United Kingdom the labour movement found itself defending outdated manufacturing systems that had little or no hope of survival and as a result found itself a political pariah for a generation. The problem lay in the hypostasising of the original utopian vision and its attendant political culture’s consequent lack of receptiveness to change - if technological rationalisation and collectivisation was the way of the world then utopianism needed to incorporate that into its thinking. Clearly any decline in intellectual engagement would have been an important factor, but it strikes me that this was rather more the symptom than the cause.
