Imagine the worst future possible. Visualize if you will for a second the things we dread. The collapse of civilization, totalitarian big brother, financial morass, war. Throughout human history there have been examples where human life was lived under the boot of ruthless dictators and even deemed undesirable enough to march to their death. When these examples are paraded before the public consciousness they are generally decried as terrible. I say generally because in some cases there are those in media, academia and government who cannot bring themselves to condemn even the most flagrant offenses to human decency because those offenses were done under the guise of the utopian ideology of the observer.
Utopia is of course a wonderful concept of a world filled with perfection and absent any unpleasant struggle. Utopia may also be an afterlife filled with delights. Whatever the case utopia is always a destination for idealists of conjured perfection. As such there could not be anything more insidious in practice and harmful to the course of humanity. Certainly nothing has caused more untimely deaths as utopia has claimed hundreds of millions of lives. I am going to tell you why in no uncertain terms that when someone comes to you extolling utopia you should put garlic around your neck, hold up a cross, throw holy water on them and run for the hills.
Before I explain why every utopia is born under a moon of blood from a father with hoofs and a mother with scales I want to explode the myth of perfection they each hold. A world without strife is a world without challenge. Humans realize fulfillment through overcoming challenge. Without difficulty their is no overcoming and without the possibility of failure there can be no celebration of victory. If you have heard success is a journey not a destination it is because we become listless without challenge and utopia is by definition the ultimate destination. Utopias are born in the selfishness of the singular satisfaction of the recipient of the utopia and without regard to any fabric of civilization. A perfect example is the jihadi idea of being rewarded in the afterlife with a gaggle of virgins for killing unbelievers. Not only does it have no regard for those being killed but it has no regard for the young innocent women who would be subjected to the jihadist’s whims… Then again that could be a poor example as Muslims emulate their prophet who had a predilection for marrying prepubescent girls.
Of course understanding why utopia is hell really requires starting at conception. As utopia is always an alternative to reality we should start by examining social reality. For all the flaws of our civilization it functions as a collection of ideas and practices learned throughout history. I have been told a problem is a deviation from an established standard. Standard practices are established through experience. Human beings are naturally curious and experimentation as a means of learning is fraught with failure. Thus patterns and practices that yield good results are established and for better or worse we codify our societal workings. Then as human beings we progress and learn. Over time we developed more sophistication and now can apply the scientific method which means we have an effective and rational way to measure new ideas and practices. Our society can advance in this way by absorbing and adopting practical ideas.
Utopia is spawned differently. Utopia breaks from the past, ignores the collective experience of thousands of generations and is born of a deviation in response to a challenge. Utopia seeks to rewrite human nature along with human history by erasing the challenge of the frustrated utopian. Clearly this will leave anyone entering said utopia unfulfilled and devoid of victory in their life. Most importantly by pulling up civilization by it’s roots and replanting it there is turmoil and the resulting attempt at perfection begins life as a horribly imbalanced paradigm suffering the repeated failures of generations that the established protocols of civilization had learned to avoid.
Let’s look at where the utopian ideals have led us over the years. Perhaps the most audacious and common utopia is that of the commune. When I asked my parents about it they got me a book on communes in America over the last 200 years. It delivered the amazing failure rate of 100% for hundreds of communes. Of course the benefit is that if you wish to start your own utopia you are not bound by history so the past is no indicator. Actually that tongue in cheek comment illustrates perfectly the most arrogant aspect of utopian idealists, that all others who failed before them did so because they lacked their wisdom and dedication to the cause. Communes fail because they subvert the individual and in the end the expression and fulfillment of our selfish nature is the heart of excellence and accomplishment. Altruism can only flourish where we can fulfill the desires of self first.
Of course the absurd ideas of the commune led to a couple men who had done nothing in their pampered lives, including hold down a job, to write the Communist Manifesto and somehow take on a concern of a workers paradise. Of course it sought revolution, the overthrow of the established social hierarchy for an entirely new experiment. Actually Solomon said wisely there is nothing new under the sun and what was in fact being advocated was the reapplication of a great number of mistakes made by past generations. While the incremental pursuit of perfection may by definition preclude ever achieving utopia the revolutionary pursuit of utopia invariably leads to the morass of dystopia.
The ultimate problem for today’s citizens of exploding dystopian governments is that we tend to think as a society in the incremental mode. The inherent flaw in this is thinking that what we have now was actually subjected to any rational scientific method to prove it’s merit. The fact is for the last half century seemingly all governments have been infected with the utopian thinking that had been killing over a hundred million people in a few countries earlier in the twentieth century. So today when we talk about a massive overhaul of health care it is in fact pursuit of utopia, and while I can go point by point on the inherent flaws there mere fact it chases utopia should be all you need to know. However when you look at all our social programs you will see utopia written all over them. End all suffering and make a perfect world. Foolishness.
You should not assume I like suffering, even though in fact I believe challenges and failure are essential to shaping our lives. What I happen to believe though is that a faceless gargantuan bureaucracy assisting us is quintessential dystopia. Charitable organizations can help people more effectively and more cost effectively. Every place where we have pursued utopia we have created irrational and unsustainable messes. Social security is an example. It may have sounded good, but consider how much good all that money would have done in the investment community to grow our economy instead of yanked out. Everyone today would be millionaires if they had invested wisely. Of course millions of people plan retirement around this pittance because it’s there. What if it weren’t? I’m betting they could do better.
When someone says to you “wouldn’t it be nice if…” just remember that likely as not it is the opening to a longing for utopia. Knowing that utopia is fatally flawed is liberating. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to pay our bills?” If nobody paid their bills there would be nothing to buy because everyone would be out of business. Is it an absolute certainty that any attempt at utopia will fail? I’ve been told by physicists that it is theoretically possible for an event to happen which could have a cascade effect of changing the laws of physics in our universe. As a rule we plan on the laws of physics working. An attempt at utopia could work… and the bonds of all matter could dissolve. The success rate for utopia so far is 0% out of who knows how many thousands of tries. The methodology for arriving at utopia is clearly broken.
Utopia is at the heart of the looming financial meltdown of Western civilization. I say we root it all out. A society of compassionate individuals is vastly preferable to the pursuit of utopia which invariably is pursued through growing gargantuan faceless bureaucracy into dystopia.
This entry was posted
on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 2:26 PM and is filed under social commentary.
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Both comments and pings are currently closed.
I Hate Utopia
Imagine the worst future possible. Visualize if you will for a second the things we dread. The collapse of civilization, totalitarian big brother, financial morass, war. Throughout human history there have been examples where human life was lived under the boot of ruthless dictators and even deemed undesirable enough to march to their death. When these examples are paraded before the public consciousness they are generally decried as terrible. I say generally because in some cases there are those in media, academia and government who cannot bring themselves to condemn even the most flagrant offenses to human decency because those offenses were done under the guise of the utopian ideology of the observer.
Utopia is of course a wonderful concept of a world filled with perfection and absent any unpleasant struggle. Utopia may also be an afterlife filled with delights. Whatever the case utopia is always a destination for idealists of conjured perfection. As such there could not be anything more insidious in practice and harmful to the course of humanity. Certainly nothing has caused more untimely deaths as utopia has claimed hundreds of millions of lives. I am going to tell you why in no uncertain terms that when someone comes to you extolling utopia you should put garlic around your neck, hold up a cross, throw holy water on them and run for the hills.
Before I explain why every utopia is born under a moon of blood from a father with hoofs and a mother with scales I want to explode the myth of perfection they each hold. A world without strife is a world without challenge. Humans realize fulfillment through overcoming challenge. Without difficulty their is no overcoming and without the possibility of failure there can be no celebration of victory. If you have heard success is a journey not a destination it is because we become listless without challenge and utopia is by definition the ultimate destination. Utopias are born in the selfishness of the singular satisfaction of the recipient of the utopia and without regard to any fabric of civilization. A perfect example is the jihadi idea of being rewarded in the afterlife with a gaggle of virgins for killing unbelievers. Not only does it have no regard for those being killed but it has no regard for the young innocent women who would be subjected to the jihadist’s whims… Then again that could be a poor example as Muslims emulate their prophet who had a predilection for marrying prepubescent girls.
Of course understanding why utopia is hell really requires starting at conception. As utopia is always an alternative to reality we should start by examining social reality. For all the flaws of our civilization it functions as a collection of ideas and practices learned throughout history. I have been told a problem is a deviation from an established standard. Standard practices are established through experience. Human beings are naturally curious and experimentation as a means of learning is fraught with failure. Thus patterns and practices that yield good results are established and for better or worse we codify our societal workings. Then as human beings we progress and learn. Over time we developed more sophistication and now can apply the scientific method which means we have an effective and rational way to measure new ideas and practices. Our society can advance in this way by absorbing and adopting practical ideas.
Utopia is spawned differently. Utopia breaks from the past, ignores the collective experience of thousands of generations and is born of a deviation in response to a challenge. Utopia seeks to rewrite human nature along with human history by erasing the challenge of the frustrated utopian. Clearly this will leave anyone entering said utopia unfulfilled and devoid of victory in their life. Most importantly by pulling up civilization by it’s roots and replanting it there is turmoil and the resulting attempt at perfection begins life as a horribly imbalanced paradigm suffering the repeated failures of generations that the established protocols of civilization had learned to avoid.
Let’s look at where the utopian ideals have led us over the years. Perhaps the most audacious and common utopia is that of the commune. When I asked my parents about it they got me a book on communes in America over the last 200 years. It delivered the amazing failure rate of 100% for hundreds of communes. Of course the benefit is that if you wish to start your own utopia you are not bound by history so the past is no indicator. Actually that tongue in cheek comment illustrates perfectly the most arrogant aspect of utopian idealists, that all others who failed before them did so because they lacked their wisdom and dedication to the cause. Communes fail because they subvert the individual and in the end the expression and fulfillment of our selfish nature is the heart of excellence and accomplishment. Altruism can only flourish where we can fulfill the desires of self first.
Of course the absurd ideas of the commune led to a couple men who had done nothing in their pampered lives, including hold down a job, to write the Communist Manifesto and somehow take on a concern of a workers paradise. Of course it sought revolution, the overthrow of the established social hierarchy for an entirely new experiment. Actually Solomon said wisely there is nothing new under the sun and what was in fact being advocated was the reapplication of a great number of mistakes made by past generations. While the incremental pursuit of perfection may by definition preclude ever achieving utopia the revolutionary pursuit of utopia invariably leads to the morass of dystopia.
The ultimate problem for today’s citizens of exploding dystopian governments is that we tend to think as a society in the incremental mode. The inherent flaw in this is thinking that what we have now was actually subjected to any rational scientific method to prove it’s merit. The fact is for the last half century seemingly all governments have been infected with the utopian thinking that had been killing over a hundred million people in a few countries earlier in the twentieth century. So today when we talk about a massive overhaul of health care it is in fact pursuit of utopia, and while I can go point by point on the inherent flaws there mere fact it chases utopia should be all you need to know. However when you look at all our social programs you will see utopia written all over them. End all suffering and make a perfect world. Foolishness.
You should not assume I like suffering, even though in fact I believe challenges and failure are essential to shaping our lives. What I happen to believe though is that a faceless gargantuan bureaucracy assisting us is quintessential dystopia. Charitable organizations can help people more effectively and more cost effectively. Every place where we have pursued utopia we have created irrational and unsustainable messes. Social security is an example. It may have sounded good, but consider how much good all that money would have done in the investment community to grow our economy instead of yanked out. Everyone today would be millionaires if they had invested wisely. Of course millions of people plan retirement around this pittance because it’s there. What if it weren’t? I’m betting they could do better.
When someone says to you “wouldn’t it be nice if…” just remember that likely as not it is the opening to a longing for utopia. Knowing that utopia is fatally flawed is liberating. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to pay our bills?” If nobody paid their bills there would be nothing to buy because everyone would be out of business. Is it an absolute certainty that any attempt at utopia will fail? I’ve been told by physicists that it is theoretically possible for an event to happen which could have a cascade effect of changing the laws of physics in our universe. As a rule we plan on the laws of physics working. An attempt at utopia could work… and the bonds of all matter could dissolve. The success rate for utopia so far is 0% out of who knows how many thousands of tries. The methodology for arriving at utopia is clearly broken.
Utopia is at the heart of the looming financial meltdown of Western civilization. I say we root it all out. A society of compassionate individuals is vastly preferable to the pursuit of utopia which invariably is pursued through growing gargantuan faceless bureaucracy into dystopia.
This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 2:26 PM and is filed under social commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.