Those who seek utopia will encounter nothing but despair.
The idea of utopia has existed for as long as humans could think. Utopia is considered to be the pinnacle of human civilization. A civilization where all are equal, there are no wars or fighting and no one person suffers. On face value, the utopian idea seems like a just ideal to strive towards. Who wouldn't want to live in a perfect society? Who wouldn't want to live in a world where nobody has to suffer and especially one where nobody has to suffer for the actions of someone else.
Well, to be quite honest, the utopian ideal is very, very wrong. There are a couple reasons why.
You'll notice that my definition of a utopia is vague. This is intentional. The first use of the word Utopia was by Sir Thomas More in the book Utopia (1516). This is a huge issue with the idea. It's vague and interpretable. Because everyone has a different utopia, it is almost impossible to reach a consensus on the issue. Someone's utopia could be that everyone gets the same treatment and the same outcome. This is referred to as equality of outcome. Communism is the ideology that comes to mind that so forcefully strives for equal outcome and the 20th century has given us more than enough reason to completely disavow the entire idea. Especially given the deaths that amount to over 100 million people by some estimations. However, the sentiment of communism is undoubtedly appealing to a lot of people with some academics in universities and social justice activists being the foremost proponents of the ideology in recent times. The idea is to bring everyone out of poverty, for everyone to have enough to eat, shelter and a job. While this sentiment is on the surface a compassionate idea, the practice is very far from the theory. Communism serves to make everyone equal, but rather than lift everyone out of poverty, it throws everyone into poverty except of course for the elite and often the top military officials. In a communist society, while yes, everyone is equal, they're not equal in the right ways. In communist regimes, the individual no longer exists. The masses are just the masses and no one person, no individual can rise above the ocean of numbers. The road to the things we all strive for, productivity, wealth, and art is blocked by the hand of the state. Individualism no longer matters. You are just a number.
Communism is only one side of the coin when it comes to tyranny through equality. The other way that a society can be made completely equal is the Nazi method. This method demands that all individuals that do not fit the required mold will be eliminated. Equality through the elimination of diversity. The idea of the ubermensch, the super or over man is by my estimation the anthropomorphization of utopia which was a bastardization of the Nietzschean idea. In this method, rather than going through the bother of taking everyone under the arm of the state, the Nazi's decided arbitrarily what it takes to be a German citizen and then extrapolated to what it takes to be a human being. Hitler often equated the groups of people he wanted to rid the world of parasites and disease. The jews, gypsies, handicaps, homosexuals etc. were vermin and deserved to be eradicated because they do not fit the Arian ideal of what the human being should be. Again, this is a way of slaughtering individuality. No one can be different. No one may stray away from the perfect being. If it were possible I'm sure the Nazi's would have 3D printed blonde-haired, blue-eyed men by the millions, cloning their way into the new age of a single race.
Both communism and Naziism were attempts at equality or utopia from two very different sides of the spectrum of application. However, both seek to eradicate individuality and are both interpretations of utopianism.
Utopias also seem to be unsustainable purely through the complexities of human nature. No matter how perfect the system, people will always smash it purely to have something different happen. People are dynamic and novel. This is exactly why equality of opportunity is more fruitful than equality of outcome. Not only is it fruitful, it's the birthplace of innovation. Opportunity breeds innovation, and competition sharpens people to a fine point of production and creativity. Take away competition by giving everyone the same thing no matter what they do and you'll see a stagnation in people. Few people are willing to give 100% for the state if they are not individually rewarded. Sure, they'll give the bare minimum so that they're not lashed, but are they going to figure out a way to boost production? Are they going to produce art that drills to the core of being? Are they going to develop a revolutionary technology that will save millions of lives? The answer is probably not. Because they're not incentivized to do so. Even if they stumble upon something that could help the masses, help the country or society, the state will take it. The state will take their ideas and markets them as their own feeding into the propaganda machine we've seen far too often over the course of human history. Given the state's ownership of the population and the individual is just a tool of the state and just a number, what value does the individual have? The answer is none because there are a million or other people like him or her and this same train of thought has allowed utopianist regimes to starve and murder tens of millions.
The difficult truth is that not everyone is the same. Not everyone is born with amazing intellect or incredible physical ability or born into seemingly unending wealth. Everyone is different. Everyone has different ideas and perspectives and that type of diversity is good. The group is not what matters. The individual is paramount. The individual is what pushes society forward. Not the group and not the state. This isn't to say of course that those that do not possess above average ability in any sector do not have value and it shouldn't stop us from operating in a compassionate manner. It should not stop us from giving opportunities to those that are let's say, less fortunate. However, in the process, we must also be careful to let that compassion to devolve into tyranny. That's the crucial aspect that utopianism never got right.
In conclusion by my estimation, utopianism is a road of thought that only leads to despair for those that are willing to review the idea with scrutiny. Once you peel back the layers, dig deep beneath the surface level sentiment, a utopia is not only impossible but immoral. When we think about how to better the world, we're often conceptualizing our own version of utopia. However, a crucial fact we often glance over is human nature and disparities in both potential and ability. The true despair I find in utopianism is that I want to live in a utopia, I want to live in a perfect world where nobody has to suffer, no one has to starve or suffer the anxiety of hopelessness. I would love to live in a world where everything is perfect but this is exactly where my emotional connection to this ideal is trumped by my own rational mind and the mounds of bodies that have stacked upon each other in the so-called utopias of the 20th century. As much as I want the perfect world, I understand that my own chasing of this dream will leave behind even more bodies.
The idea of utopia has existed for as long as humans could think. Utopia is considered to be the pinnacle of human civilization. A civilization where all are equal, there are no wars or fighting and no one person suffers. On face value, the utopian idea seems like a just ideal to strive towards. Who wouldn't want to live in a perfect society? Who wouldn't want to live in a world where nobody has to suffer and especially one where nobody has to suffer for the actions of someone else.
Well, to be quite honest, the utopian ideal is very, very wrong. There are a couple reasons why.
You'll notice that my definition of a utopia is vague. This is intentional. The first use of the word Utopia was by Sir Thomas More in the book Utopia (1516). This is a huge issue with the idea. It's vague and interpretable. Because everyone has a different utopia, it is almost impossible to reach a consensus on the issue. Someone's utopia could be that everyone gets the same treatment and the same outcome. This is referred to as equality of outcome. Communism is the ideology that comes to mind that so forcefully strives for equal outcome and the 20th century has given us more than enough reason to completely disavow the entire idea. Especially given the deaths that amount to over 100 million people by some estimations. However, the sentiment of communism is undoubtedly appealing to a lot of people with some academics in universities and social justice activists being the foremost proponents of the ideology in recent times. The idea is to bring everyone out of poverty, for everyone to have enough to eat, shelter and a job. While this sentiment is on the surface a compassionate idea, the practice is very far from the theory. Communism serves to make everyone equal, but rather than lift everyone out of poverty, it throws everyone into poverty except of course for the elite and often the top military officials. In a communist society, while yes, everyone is equal, they're not equal in the right ways. In communist regimes, the individual no longer exists. The masses are just the masses and no one person, no individual can rise above the ocean of numbers. The road to the things we all strive for, productivity, wealth, and art is blocked by the hand of the state. Individualism no longer matters. You are just a number.
Communism is only one side of the coin when it comes to tyranny through equality. The other way that a society can be made completely equal is the Nazi method. This method demands that all individuals that do not fit the required mold will be eliminated. Equality through the elimination of diversity. The idea of the ubermensch, the super or over man is by my estimation the anthropomorphization of utopia which was a bastardization of the Nietzschean idea. In this method, rather than going through the bother of taking everyone under the arm of the state, the Nazi's decided arbitrarily what it takes to be a German citizen and then extrapolated to what it takes to be a human being. Hitler often equated the groups of people he wanted to rid the world of parasites and disease. The jews, gypsies, handicaps, homosexuals etc. were vermin and deserved to be eradicated because they do not fit the Arian ideal of what the human being should be. Again, this is a way of slaughtering individuality. No one can be different. No one may stray away from the perfect being. If it were possible I'm sure the Nazi's would have 3D printed blonde-haired, blue-eyed men by the millions, cloning their way into the new age of a single race.
Both communism and Naziism were attempts at equality or utopia from two very different sides of the spectrum of application. However, both seek to eradicate individuality and are both interpretations of utopianism.
Utopias also seem to be unsustainable purely through the complexities of human nature. No matter how perfect the system, people will always smash it purely to have something different happen. People are dynamic and novel. This is exactly why equality of opportunity is more fruitful than equality of outcome. Not only is it fruitful, it's the birthplace of innovation. Opportunity breeds innovation, and competition sharpens people to a fine point of production and creativity. Take away competition by giving everyone the same thing no matter what they do and you'll see a stagnation in people. Few people are willing to give 100% for the state if they are not individually rewarded. Sure, they'll give the bare minimum so that they're not lashed, but are they going to figure out a way to boost production? Are they going to produce art that drills to the core of being? Are they going to develop a revolutionary technology that will save millions of lives? The answer is probably not. Because they're not incentivized to do so. Even if they stumble upon something that could help the masses, help the country or society, the state will take it. The state will take their ideas and markets them as their own feeding into the propaganda machine we've seen far too often over the course of human history. Given the state's ownership of the population and the individual is just a tool of the state and just a number, what value does the individual have? The answer is none because there are a million or other people like him or her and this same train of thought has allowed utopianist regimes to starve and murder tens of millions.
The difficult truth is that not everyone is the same. Not everyone is born with amazing intellect or incredible physical ability or born into seemingly unending wealth. Everyone is different. Everyone has different ideas and perspectives and that type of diversity is good. The group is not what matters. The individual is paramount. The individual is what pushes society forward. Not the group and not the state. This isn't to say of course that those that do not possess above average ability in any sector do not have value and it shouldn't stop us from operating in a compassionate manner. It should not stop us from giving opportunities to those that are let's say, less fortunate. However, in the process, we must also be careful to let that compassion to devolve into tyranny. That's the crucial aspect that utopianism never got right.
In conclusion by my estimation, utopianism is a road of thought that only leads to despair for those that are willing to review the idea with scrutiny. Once you peel back the layers, dig deep beneath the surface level sentiment, a utopia is not only impossible but immoral. When we think about how to better the world, we're often conceptualizing our own version of utopia. However, a crucial fact we often glance over is human nature and disparities in both potential and ability. The true despair I find in utopianism is that I want to live in a utopia, I want to live in a perfect world where nobody has to suffer, no one has to starve or suffer the anxiety of hopelessness. I would love to live in a world where everything is perfect but this is exactly where my emotional connection to this ideal is trumped by my own rational mind and the mounds of bodies that have stacked upon each other in the so-called utopias of the 20th century. As much as I want the perfect world, I understand that my own chasing of this dream will leave behind even more bodies.
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