Utopian societies are never achievable
Utopian-America is ultimately impossible to imagine or create. For someone to think of this imaginary place, what exactly would they consider altering the most from society we have today? More than likely, this one person would alter the government, religion, education, race, etc. This same person's ideal American society might even be that no one was homosexual or everyone was homosexual; it could be any kind of desire. One person or even a group of people would not achieve the ideal world for all of society, solely because everyone is incredibly different.
St. Thomas More, a lawyer, statesman, and philosopher, was a man involved in the Erasmian period of the English Renaissance in his emotional and intellectual attitudes -- search for simplicity, stress on ethics, return to Greek sources, and desire for reform: social, political, educational, religious, and philosophical. These traits appear in his imaginative and significant creation, Utopia. This book is about a fantasy island called Utopia, a prosperous republic without kings or aristocrats, where divorce is allowed, priests are free to marry, women can take holy orders and freedom of religion (even atheism) is permitted. More concludes with what is still radical today, "God made different people believe different things, because He wanted to be worshiped in many different ways," he declares. "[It's] stupid and arrogant to bully everyone else into adopting one's own particular creed."
If we fast-forward about 500 years, people in the 21st century are not allowing themselves to be harnessed by attempts of an Utopia from major social networks. Evan Williams, one of the founders of Twitter, told the New York Times in May 2017, "I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place. I was wrong about that." Mark Zuckerberg, chairman and CEO of Facebook, says at Harvard's commencement that same month his desire was to, "connect the whole world." Zuckerberg wanted to make an impact on society, and he certainly has, but not all in positive ways. In his opening address he states, "tens of millions of jobs replaced by automation," in other words, there is inequality, "there is something wrong with our system when I can leave here and make billions of dollars in ten years while millions of students can't afford to pay off their loans," and "the forces of authoritarianism, isolationism, and nationalism," which oppose, "the flow of knowledge, trade, and immigration."
Attempts to create an Utopian-America will create a dystopia. People are too different to come to happy conclusions of major decisions like how the systems of government, education, religion, or anything else should be. Nothing in this world is perfect and imperfections are okay in society. If there was, there would be no improvement. Instead of an Utopia, improvement is what each of us should ultimately strive for.
Speaking as someone raised in a religion (Catholicism) and not religious anymore (agnostic some days, atheist others), I can say with surety that altering one's religious perspective would be a path toward Utopia, and here's why. Not all believe in pushing their religious ideals on the rest of society, but when that happens, and those ideals don't align well with the community at large (think Iran in the 1970s or Puritans the 17th Century New England), then what is one's religious beliefs become another's persecution. And maybe this leads to your discussion of Zuckerberg and the idea that economic limitless will enable some to become billionaires and others to become worker bees in an unending cycle of poverty.
ReplyDeleteImprovement, yes!
I like your title, it lets me know what I'm going to be reading and sets the very 'down to earth' tone you've set.
ReplyDeleteIn your first paragraph you made an excellent point I hadn't thought about. You pointed out that Utopia can be a subjective term, while I hadn't even thought of taking the discussion in that direction.
I also appreciate you bringing up the current question of free speech on online spaces like Twitter and Facebook. Which, makes me wonder, would free speech exist in a Utopia? Whether the term is taken objectively or subjectively, free speech as we know it could very easily cease existing.
The only things I can suggest editing are adding in a few more citation links and maybe adding economic status into the "list" you have in the first paragraph. However, I'd like to point out that I am a very big fan of the tone of this blog post.