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utopia and murder

Swordfishtrombone
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Posted 12/16/07 - 10:01 PM: Subject: utopia and murder	#1
One of the most important and interesting areas of philosophy to me concerns the great human catastrophes of the 20th century, and how these change our view of ourselves. A major aspect of the 20th century was the abysmal, self-destructive failure of probably every large scale utopian movement. The most significant utopian attempts that I can think of are fascist Italy and Spain, Nazi Germany, Bolshevik Russia, Communist China, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, Afghanistan under the Taliban, and probably more. Both in the bloody struggle of their establishment, and the nearly inconceivable scale of their human atrocities, these experiments with utopianism seem in retrospect to be the exact opposite -- they embody the worst of humanity and the worst kind of human society. Why is it that reality is so divergent from the philosophical ideal? My idea is that the whole concept of a utopia, when conceived philosophically, seems inevitable to the philosopher because as a utopia humanity should just figure it out and it should fall into place. But in reality these things don't happen -- societies seem to stratify themselves in a way that never resembles a utopian vision. And because of this, the real politicians have seen a utopia as the end point of a great struggle that requires purgation. The 20th century has taught us that the premise of a real utopia is deeply flawed. Putting them in practice somehow creates a culture of death, it corrupts, and the putative utopia is never fully realized in the end. A society of dissent, repression, and suffering is not compatible with the idea of a utopia, and yet that's all that seems to come of them. Clearly Plato's Republic describes a society that could never come into being without self-destructing. So in the end I think this shows the huge gap between philosophical idealism and the real, organic world of humans. As Camus said "Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil."
Paul - http://www.pbase.com/drpablo74 "Everything you can think of is true..." -Tom Waits

oligopolist
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Posted 12/18/07 - 09:54 AM:	#2
Very true. Utopia seems like the poor man's ambition. It seems like the common thread with the evil part was wanting to exterminate anything that could render the Utopia unreal. It may also be that the ideal of Utopia is just a tool used by the powers that be to fuel the masses to oppose a logical course that demands more reality, suffering or pain. People tend to be willing to believe just about anything to avoid responsibility if you provide the chance. Utopias are useful in learning about someone or some goups beliefs though as a form of translation. Edited by oligopolist on 12/19/07 - 02:19 AM

Kreius
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Posted 12/18/07 - 07:31 PM:	#3
Some of those movements could've done better, but striving for Utopia is a wasted effort. All Utopias are Dystopias, in order to have a Utopia it must be united by an ideal; if a free-thinker goes against this, the state has to retaliate. I think we can all relate to this in 1984. Even in Brave New World the situation comes again, the protagonist's friend goes against the Utopia and is sent to a far off island.
"Challenge your professors, even when you agree with them." -Herr Iosity

oligopolist
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Posted 12/19/07 - 02:23 AM:	#4
I will say though, that the inspiration that an ideal creates within a society can be tremendous. Gene Roddenbery's utopia in Star Trek had a huge impact on our views and motivations to develop technologies. Maybe the indirect benefit is it's value.

acumensch
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Posted 12/19/07 - 01:09 PM:	#5
What about New Lanark? Nobody was murdered there...
Man is something to be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? http://utopiaorbust.wordpress.com

Swordfishtrombone
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Posted 12/20/07 - 04:35 AM:	#6
Note that I had said "large scale utopian movement" in my post. I hadn't heard of New Lanark before you mentioned it, but looking it up it's only got a population of 200 people. There are probably lots of small communities throughout the world that are able to accomplish something similar. Whether these are designed as utopias (i.e. there is a utopian ideal) versus just being extremely complementary societies is a subtle question that I think is important. But on a national level, especially with the modern "nation-state", I cannot think of a single example of where a utopian political movement that gained power was not violent and self-destructive.
Paul - http://www.pbase.com/drpablo74 "Everything you can think of is true..." -Tom Waits

EthanLeeVita
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Posted 12/20/07 - 09:54 PM:	#7
While I believe that you are misdiagnosing the problem and that it is not an idealistic utopia that is the problem, but each of the ideologies and the collectivist ideas of a utopia, I am too busy to begin an argument on it tonight. However, I would like to point out that the maximum optimal community size is approximately 150 because that is some inherent amount we cooperate best within. That would likely be one explanation for why the smaller utopias have succeeded while the larger attempts have failed – the personal knowledge of people in the smaller communities as opposed to the statistical knowledge of people in the larger nations. For further information: 1. http://www.commonsenseadvice.com/human_cortex_dun... 2. http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/OldArchive/bbs... 3. http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/03/the_dunba...
Ethan Lee Vita, Philosopher and Writer http://ethanleevita.blogspot.com http://feeds.feedburner.com/EthanLeeVita

SisyphusInAgony
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Posted 01/31/08 - 10:49 AM:	#8
One has to be amazed that in every superb moral effort violence has to be uphold in order to support it.

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