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A reader asks about my stance on utopia.

A reader caught a statement I made in my bio:

I believe that the "Road to Utopia" always leads to the ovens of dachau

Their statement to me was

" The one thing that struck me is that your bio lends its self to your own verison of utopia.

Really?

Let me clarify what I mean when I say that the "Road to Utopia" always leads to the ovens of dachau".

The expansion of Human Liberty is my goal. I talk a lot about that, I'm pretty passionate about that, Im very happy to live in a rather unique time in history of humanity where people can pierce their cheeks with safety pins, wave offensive slogans publically and tie up downtown traffic, sleep with whomever they choose to, whenever they choose to without fear of reprisal, condemn the president loudly with no fear of real repercussions, its great to alive today. That's freedom, more correctly its an expression of Liberty. Over the course of human history the conditions we live in today are quite unusual, and I'm very happy as hell to be living in a time where liberty is pretty wide open for almost everyone, It sure as hell wasn't like that for my ancestors. But I don't think I've ever said "if only we did x-y-z, everything would be heaven or that this itself is heaven. We all need to do alot of work, its a continous process that every generation has to add to for it to work at all.

It's not perfect today, far from it, and frankly I dont think we should ever try to make it "perfect". "perfection" gets people killed. It's just not achievable, and in our frustration of trying to achieve it , we begin to think out loud and to ourselves " If only we got rid of "those people". It's just a short step from that to rounding them up and feeding them into barb wired camps.

All humans are corrupt and corruptible. All humans are susceptible to excess and the desire for power. Their faith, creeds or politics cannot shield them from their basic human failures. By signing up for a religious doctrine or joining a political party, contributing to greenpeace or the sierra club or living in the right zip code, it doesnt excuse you from your basic humanity, it doesnt make you a better person than someone else. I know, we all hope that by doing things like this that it will result in a pass for all our other transgressions, but it just doesnt work that way.

All humans get frustrated when their plans are disrupted our their visions of reality are disturbed. The desire to establish a 'heaven on earth" is always destroyed by the fact that the "heaven on earth" is to be filled with flawed corrupted human beings. When you think you are building a "utopia for all mankind", you get really angry at those who keep you from accomplishing your goal. After awhile, you begin to rationalize their elimination by making them into subhuman creatures, who are working against the greater good and thus must be eliminated from the body politic 'for the greater good", and that makes it easy rationalize killing "those people" off.

And then, it's no time at all before you too have created ovens for which to burn their bodies. You started out wanting to feed all babies, clothe the hungry and feed the starving, but you end up feeding their parents to the lions, its a pattern repeated over and over again in history. No political dictrine is is immune, its something we all collectively own as humans. It's not the other guy who's the problem when we try to achieve utopia, its us.

I personally prefer American Representative democracy and American culture, but I hardly thinks its "Utopia". But thats freedom for you, you get to choose. When people choose differently than you would prefer, thats freedom too, More correctly its liberty. I like liberty. I like it alot. The tough part of being free is accepting other people and their vision of liberty. My vision of liberty is more about respect that domination. I want to live in a world where people of a wide variety of opinions feel free to express thier opinions and respect others for thiers. I dont want to live in a world where to express political thought that may not be popular will get your car vandalized or your person harmed or fired from your job. When I lived in Texas, the People there considered me an arch communist, when I worked in San Francisco,The people there said I was a hitlerite fascist. My views hadn't changed a bit in my moves to either place, but bigotry and bias belongs to all zip codes and what makes you a hero in some places will get you killed in others.

In every case that I've seen where someone sets up a government or a social structure to create a utopian vision of the world, it has lead to people being killed or subjugated. The only way for utopia to exist is to impose it on the people it is trying to serve with or without their consent.

For the record, I am not of the opinion that the American form of government was intended to be a utopian answer to the world. It recognizes only that human beings and their desire to be free as a natural state and provides a framework for the restraint of government, but thats all. Everything else are things that the citizenry has created through mutal accord.

I hope that helps clear that up.

Posted @ August 16, 2004 02:33 PM | Current Affairs

Comments

I think you hit it right on the head with the last paragraph.

The Founders realized that human beings are selfish, and the amazing thing is that they managed to produce a form of government that would allow each individual to work towards those selfish goals while at the same time providing benefits to others. It's really quite amazing (and unique) when you get right to the heart of the matter.

Good post.

Posted by: Tom at August 16, 2004 07:23 PM

Yep. The last paragraph sums it up best. We aren't THE IDEAL society, but we're as close as it gets. We offer a buffet of opportunity and it's up to the individual to determine what to put on his or her plate.

Posted by: Da Goddess at August 16, 2004 11:46 PM

By the way, this is one of my favorite parts of your bio: "I believe every generation has to work to improve the cause of Human Liberty by participating in the process of maintaining the concept of liberty. "

My only addendum to that would be that we must also participate in the maintaining of liberty itself.

Posted by: Da Goddess at August 16, 2004 11:50 PM

Excellent commentary.

I've always been amused at people who think we can achieve perfection, especially in dealings between countries. They want the governments of various countries to act in ways that they would never tolerate on an individual level.

As Joanie says - we aren't IDEAL, but we're the best thing going, at least in my view *grin*. (and no, I won't fire up the ovens to roast those who don't agree with me - although I might argue with them)

Posted by: Teresa at August 17, 2004 08:58 PM

I thought the Road to Utopia was a pretty good Hope and Crosby movie. :-)

Posted by: David Pinto at August 20, 2004 11:01 AM