I often see people use the word “utopia” to describe what they consider to be an unrealistic or extremely unlikely society. In conversations about how the world could be, once someone characterizes another’s viewpoint as utopian, the exchange usually devolves into an altercation and no further progress is made. Some people consider it dangerous to even attempt to create a utopia and thus view those who want to actually create one with suspicion and mistrust. In this post, I’ll share some of my own thoughts on this subject as I’ve thought about it a lot for most of my life.
Is it dangerous to try creating a utopia? I think the answer requires more information, particularly around what someone means by “utopia”. My idea of a utopia is a world in which everyone is at peace within themselves and can therefore live at peace with those around them. There may still be problems or struggles but they can be solved peacefully rather than violently. Some think of a utopia as a perfect society but I don’t think it has to be that way. I simply think of it as the best that humans can do once they get out of their own way. It’s as close to perfect a society as possible even if it never quite reaches the level of perfection (although it might get there, so why rule out that possibility?).
The way I see it, a utopia has to be built on peaceful grounds if it has any hope of remaining peaceful. A utopia built on violent grounds, such as by killing everyone who is considered to be “the enemy”, won’t last long at all. Violence breeds more violence so a utopia that arrives by bloodshed will soon leave the same way. This is where some people consider utopian thinking to be dangerous. They argue that because a utopia is the best of all possible worlds, those who think in a utopian manner consider that any means necessary to get to a utopia would be acceptable, including any number of horrific acts. By focusing on using peaceful means to arrive at peaceful ends, this problem could be avoided altogether. If done via peaceful means, then I don’t think that creating a utopia would be dangerous at all.
What about the possibility of utopia being at odds with human nature? This question is based on a few assumptions, the first one being that human nature is inherently wicked. I disagree with this as humans have the ability to make decisions that are intended to produce joy as well as decisions that are intended to produce pain. If humans were inherently bad, then we could only make the latter decisions. Another assumption underneath the above question is that human behavior can’t be changed, only nudged in certain directions. In modern societies, incentives act as a way to nudge people toward certain behaviors and away from others. Incentives are not intended to change human nature; they are intended to work within human nature as it currently is to arrive at good outcomes. This works to a point but it’s far from ideal. Before continuing, I’ll say that incentives act to create and reinforce habits, so I don’t see why it’d be impossible to develop the right incentives to change habits sufficiently to create and sustain a utopia. Ultimately, though, I think the best way to go is to find the source of why some people at times make decisions intended to cause pain to themselves or to others and solve the problem at that level. This doesn’t mean that those wishing to live in a utopia have to change who they are. What they can do is examine their lives and work on removing the blocks to being their true selves. That will make any effort to create or sustain a utopia much more likely to succeed as the many problems that stem from unprocessed pain and trauma will no longer be an issue.
Another thing to consider is the importance of testing out ideas. It’s nice to think about how certain ideas may work out but reality doesn’t always match such visions. Ideas that sound good on paper may turn out to be sub-optimal or even catastrophic when actually carried out. This is why it’s good to test out radically different ideas on the small scale first (plus I think any society, utopian or otherwise, has the best chance of succeeding if it’s kept small). If the ideas succeed on the small level, they can be tried out on increasingly larger levels to see if they continue to hold up. If they fail on the small level, then any harm done by them is minimized and something else can be tried instead. That is a crucial point: replacing ideas that don’t work with ideas that do work. For my idea of utopia, my ultimate end is peace, and although I have many ideas on how to bring about and create a peaceful society, I’m willing to come up with new ideas if the ones I’ve thought of thus far prove to be nonfunctional. I wouldn’t have such a willingness to adapt if I were committed to the ideas themselves and didn’t care about the outcomes they created.
Although I hope to see utopian societies become the norm rather than the exception within my lifetime, I don’t know if I will. This doesn’t deter me as I value any progress toward that goal, taking continual steps in that direction will mean that everyone benefits as we get closer, and plenty of my role models planted trees whose shade they never enjoyed. The improvements I’ve seen in my own life over the past seven months have reignited my certainty that I can help us all get closer to a peaceful world even if it doesn’t fully arrive until after I die. That’s what I’m here to do and I’m having lots of fun doing it. Take care and I’ll see you in the next post.