I wrote this while reading Ayn Rand, and it probably shows.
Today’s world is filled with many people who call themselves
‘realists’. They consider idealists as not being pragmatic and accuse them of dreaming
of a world of utopia that can never be achieved. They argue that it is far
better to live in the real world mentally and not just physically, stop
dreaming and work to improve the world that is.
What is utopia? What is an ideal? The very definition of
Utopia includes the word ‘impossible’. It is supposed to be a society so ideal
that it cannot exist. The word idealism, fortunately, implies an achievable
quality. It refers to the ultimate, the best in an area or a field. It is a
superlative, but not necessarily an absolute.
But what is overlooked sometimes is that Utopia HAS been
achieved, again and again, in history.
Let’s take a historical viewpoint; Starting from the French revolution.
For the French peasants and lower-classes, Utopia meant the abolition of absolute
monarchy. Yes, it was achieved after prolonged struggle, and brought about the
system of constitutional monarchy. But that stage itself brought about some
problems that weren’t foreseen by the people, and so it could not be called
utopia as it wasn’t perfect and did not bring about perfect happiness. When
those problems were solved [struggles for equal allowance to vote] the system
of governance became a constitutional republic, which had problems of its own.
And so we have struggled through the ages fighting for utopia and here we are
with democracy. This is just an example of governance patterns. The same
repeats with everything in history. When Utopia is achieved, it becomes
non-Utopia, because of the inherent characteristic of human beings of not being
happy with what they have and always wanting more.
Now the connection with idealism; pursuing the ideal
inevitably leads to the utopian, if the seeker is the perfectionist [not if the
seeker is simply happy with the known
best and does not look to what has not been, but can be, achieved]. And anyway,
the known best never would have existed if there had not been such a seeker.
All this implies that if you want a [new and better] superlative standard of
comparison, you need to be an idealist looking for utopia.
The argument with realists; if you are a realist, how will
you dream? If you do not dream, how will you conceive daring new ideas? And if
you do not have any daring new ideas then how will new things be created? A
realist says that it is wrong to dream and believe in Utopia. But if you do
not, how will you move forward and develop and create new things?
To make and to create, you must dream and think both [and of
course translate it to action]. To dream you must believe that utopia can be
achieved.
And even realists do not deny that they want development and
growth.
Another [sub] justification for believing in Utopia is that
it sets you free of the world that is. The real world is a cage of horrors for
many; their escape is dreaming of a world where they are happy, of Utopia.
Thinking of and believing in utopia lets them experience utopia for real,
temporarily.
That argument ends here. Now to speculate a little further
on Utopia and its predecessor society. To achieve Utopia, you need a definite idea
of what it is for you. If you are a government, a nation, what is Utopia for
you? How will you decide what constitutes Utopia for the millions under you?
Indeed who are you to make that decision? Looking at it from a global
perspective makes the question unimaginably vast. The epiphany is that there IS
no collective Utopia, and indeed there is not even an IDEA of what a collective
Utopia is. It simply cannot exist. This is because the individual Utopian
ideals of billions of people 1. Cannot merge together to form one giant Utopian
idea and 2. will keep on changing; never to remain stable.
After all, Utopia is an individual thing. And individuals
never remain the same. Some part of them is always changing, and [quoting Ayn
Rand (without her disapproval of the idea)] they call this growth.
A slightly related question here is the general conception
of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. The query that rises here is how do you decide which is
which? How can you label something as right or wrong absolutely? Is that a decision
based on the popular conception of the public? It seems to be so. People have
all the power. This mantra is always used to justify democracy. Does this mean
that if the people all want a common thing it becomes right? If the people are
in favour of murder and assassination does that then become a virtue? Or are
there some timeless values and vices that remain so always? Today’s world seems
to favour the former situation. And coming to Utopia, it is based on what each
person believes is right for him and thus gives him happiness. The whole thing
looks like a senseless paradox and taken this way it might seem as though
realists have a point- that if you cannot pinpoint what Utopia is how can you
believe in it? Then again this isn’t their major argument. It is that you shouldn’t believe in it, not whether it
is possible or not. We are walking very fine lines here.
So the solution is finding utopia with what you have. This
means first, reconciling yourself with everything around you [including the
people] and getting over your negativity. The next step is finding peace within
you, being happy with what you have and are. This does not at all mean that you
are resisting change or that you have no potential to grow and develop. Quite
the contrary; Self and surrounding based introspection will clear your mind and
show you what you are. You will find your flaws and mend them. You will try and
develop into your image of perfection [and since most people’s perception of
perfection is never a constant, you will always have goals to realize] and at
the same time contribute to your surroundings.
And taking the importance that the plebiscite opinion
garners today, into account, the best thing we can hope for that a collective
conscience arises and that all the individual conceptions of Utopia are
harmonious to peace and sustainability, not growing into a tumour of
obscenities, as it seems now.
interesting stuff. I agree that a collective utopia hinges on the opinions of perfection of all involved, but I do believe it is possible given at least two generations to influence a culture, so that both the parents and children share ideals.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that while individuals have found Utopia, no working Utopia for any masses of people has yet been suggested that I know of.
But imo its totally possible. The difficulty is that it involves designing a culture completely. Language must be completely remade so every letter functions as both a letter, and a symbol signifying a seperate law of nature, so that both hemispheres may participate and language may be variable.
new language itself can be implemented while teaching the young and the old language will eventually fall out of use as years pass.
But even larger problems lurk in the way.
A big one is that right now we view Culture, Country, and Religion as either two or three distinct social groups. In a real utopia this would be problematic, as the brain automatically categorizes and will seperate people if there are categories to seperate them into. So all these must be one, but at this age it at first appears odd and backwards to have a government that is ALSO a religion and meddles in the affairs of its citizens.
o time to go to school. but yeah Utopia is an interesting concept.
But for utopia to happen, every individual in the collective mass should have the exact same idea of what a perfect society should be. Which is impossible, because no two people think identically.
ReplyDeleteSo even sharing ideals would not be enough, because there certainly would differences too.
I don't think I understood the language idea. What hemispheres do you mean and what makes a language variable? Also how would this help in making utopia possible?
Yes, that's true. But these social distinctions are the basis of defining an individual. If you remove all of them, society becomes homogeneous, and that is not a good thing. The government need not play such a large role in this process.
Personally, I think that a viable solution would be to have different societal groups in the same region living separately from each other yet interlinked for trade and communication. Each society has its own rules and ideals and individuals are free to enter the one they want, or leave it to join another if their ideals and principles change towards those of the other society. So you essentially have little pockets of Utopis coexisting. It might be the closest we can get.
yeah all the individuals would need to have the same opinion, which is the tricky part. Some is personality, but alot is shaped as a baby and in childhood and even adulthood. I know that having huge rolls of paper and drawing and writing for fun in very early childhood still shows in college as no one else seems to enjoy writing for fun anymore. Im sure there are many more benefits that could be had with good childraising, like the japanese kids that are tought to play instruments as babies and are ridiculously good at music as a young child.
ReplyDeletebut then comes that social distinction issue if all are raised to value the same things. for changing how children are raised, it would have to be set up as a 'Way of Life' instead of just a government. and that does seem to risk erasing previous culture and distinction, altho might be solvable in the smaller details of how the 'way of life' is set up.
For language over90% of people use the left hemisphere. Right hemisphere is interested in the overall system and amount of variability and prefers tone and spatial things. Left hemisphere cares about specific details and uses sequence.
IMO (and i might be wrong, but seems logical) English seems to favor the left hemisphere quite a bit more than the right hemisphere. Language evolved for a long time, but were it to be revamped some of these things might be improved. example is if every letter could still spell complex words, but every letter could also function as a term common across the world if seperated. almost like mixing heiroglyphs or indus valley language visual symbolism with sequencial language.
example: if W was to mean 'water'. could say "i drank water" or "i drank W"
this changes W from being only categorized as a component of sequential language to form words, to being categorized as both a factor of language AND something known and experienced by both brain hemispheres. Would this change language from being almost always in the left hemisphere? idk
by the language thing i mean almost all aspects of human society as it is have some imperfections that are problematic. so a utopia would have to be redesigned completely from how humans live now. but then again comes that issue of 'if everyone is raised the same, where is the individuality?"
your viable solution is a great idea. I actually experienced this in school. I went to one school with wide open spaces and all the students sort of massed together and it felt like being an ant in an anthill. Many times schools have gridlike class layouts and teachers have the same students for a year and then get new ones. Comparing this to Online Games, this is equivilent to being thrown into a random group of people for a while that you will probably never see again. in games this leads to bad behavior and a lack of responsibility.
But my elementary school was set up in the style of Pods. These are exactly those small societal groups in the same region living seperately yet interlinking. The school branched out from a main area and at the end of each of the branches was a large meeting/eating/hangingout/project area with 6 classrooms grades 1 through 6 around it. I actually felt a sense of community there and multiple teachers and classes in the pod would do projects and things together many times, with 6 years to know the same teachers and students. Multiple pods and sometimes the whole school were together during recess, PE, and other large activities.
definitely the most beneficial society style I've encountered yet