Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Imagine…
Since a number of us have hijacked @drbastiat‘s Grand Unifying Theory thread, I thought I’d begin a new one with this proposition:
The desire to improve human life can (and has) become a determination to perfect it. Utopianism pits the real against the ideal, and insists it is possible for the former to become the latter.
When Utopians take power, the end result of their effort appears virtually guaranteed to be unfathomable cruelty and pointless destruction.
On a small-ish scale, a reasonably effective, earnestly equitable, fair and decent college (Evergreen, for example) in which students and faculty are encouraged to think that a perfectly equitable, perfectly fair, perfectly painless educational experience is possible is a college that will devolve into mayhem, violence, the expulsion of its best and brightest minds, the abandonment of its educational mission.
On the larger scale of a nation — Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union — the same thing happens, only more spectacularly. In the end, the survivors/liberators stand around amidst the rubble and the heaps of corpses asking one another, “how on earth did we allow this to happen?”
The answer to that may lie in the seductive power of utopianism as an intellectual and imaginative, not to mention emotional, orientation. That human beings can imagine, analyze, and desire what doesn’t actually exist: This is the source of the incredible creativity that allows human beings to bring extraordinary things into being. In this, we are Godlike — God-like. And so we imagine ourselves God. Capable, that is, not merely of creating within reality but of creating reality — better reality, reality as it ought to be. Reality as perfected by us.
Once one has been persuaded that perfection is humanly possible, or even easy (natural!) and so close we can taste it, anything short of perfection is vexing, and anyone who stands in the way of progress towards it, whether by disagreeing with the definition of “perfect” or by pointing to the obstacles reality presents, will inevitably be seen as the enemy. And, really, when the end is perfection, what means of achieving it can possibly be too extreme?
Published in Religion & Philosophy
This is why political violence is a tactic of the left.
Conservatives don’t need to hold a gun to your head to encourage you to do whatever you want.
But if you’re trying to make humans perfect, and control their behavior, that will involve the use of force, at some point.
I think that’s true.
In theory, it wouldn’t have to be Marxists. The Handmaid’s Tale’s Gilead is usually presented as the conservative-conflated-with-Christian version in which utopia, forcibly imposed, becomes dystopia. The most recent real-life example is probably that of the Taliban’s Afghanistan before our invasion, now resurrecting (“real Islamism has never been tried!”) since our departure.
So —again, in theory—it wouldn’t have to be leftism. But leftism does seem to be peculiarly prone to this.
This sounds to me like a re-statement of the Genesis 3 story – particularly 3:5:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
That’s exactly what it is, @JoelB!
When I say leftists, I basically mean those who believe in using centralized control systems to control human behavior. Marxists do this, but others do too. Modern American Democrats aren’t really Marxists, exactly, they just want control.
Anybody who wants to control others will need to use force occasionally.
Those who believe in individual liberty and individual responsibility rarely need to use force – just to protect themselves.
You’re gonna make me repeat everything? :)
American conservatism seeks to conserve a system in which human talents/tendencies are held in tension. The imaginative (“Imagine there are no countries…”) are held in check by the pragmatists (‘there are countries, and some of them suck”), the compassionate are balanced by the dispassionate, the idealists challenged by the realists. It isn’t just a left/right question either.
As you’ll recall, in your thread, @dr Bastiat, there were suggestions that if handicaps and defects can be detected prenatally and cured, they ought to be. Included in this category was homosexuality. It is not true that all homosexuals are happy being so: I know this from dear friends who confess to wishing they were straight at one or another point in their lives, and not merely because “society” was unkind. Still, my experience is also that homosexuals don’t (for the most part) seem to consider themselves in need of curing, or their condition one they would, in general, wish to spare future generations.
Is this the same phenomenon as that of a Deaf Culture whose adherents do not wish to hear? Surely we can still say that deafness is a handicap to be avoided rather than an identity to be celebrated? But however irrational it may seem, the existence of Deaf Culture is a reminder that all our human experiences are complex, including our sufferings.
I would say, from the evidence, that leftists or marxists are more likely to attempt to create centralized control systems to control human behavior. I’m open to refutation. I think it is possible that a non-Marxist system (or non-socialist system) would attempt the same thing, but it’s a little difficult to imagine a classical liberal seeking to create a centralized system in which Americans would be forced to freely worship, or forced to freely speak. it just doesn’t work.
Well, ok.
But I don’t agree with viewing homosexuality as a disease in need of treatment. There are a lot of things about myself that I wish were different, but it’s probably a good thing that I can’t change them – I’d mess things up worse than they already are.
Likewise, I think that we should exercise some humility when we start labeling things diseases. Homosexuality is not heart disease or blindness or something.
I’m sure that reasonable people can disagree on this. But I don’t see it that way.
Even what is considered a leftist concept of the Right’s version of totalitarianism, the Handmaid’s Tale, is far more likely to come about by the current left’s ideological blindness.
When human beings try to create heaven on earth, they end up doing the opposite. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
Some may believe there is no God and will try to remove God from the world. They do believe if He exists, He sits upon a throne, and they all want to take a turn on sitting on that throne.
I agree, very much.
I think we should also be careful about assuming everyone gets to point B via the same route and that some may actually want to get back to point A without being coerced into that.
There is a lot of sexual abuse in the past of homosexuals. It may not be 100%, but it is high. That shouldn’t be as taboo as it currently is.
I think the notion of homosexuality as a disease came up because of the notion that it could, perhaps, be explained not merely by genetic predisposition but by features of the uterine environment.
This is at least mildly interesting not because it necessarily suggests a “cure” but merely because, as a phenomenon, homosexuality seems to demands an explanation, at least for anyone interested in evolution. To say that something happens via nurture vs. nature always seems to imply that one can (and often should) do something about it, and people really do like to Do Stuff About Stuff. Hence the practice of trying to pipe Mozart into the womb to make your kid a genius, something that always seems intrusive, even presumptuous and suggests that here are parents likely to read their kids’ diaries and search their underwear drawers.
I wrote, once, about an elderly woman I met who had grown up in Nazi Germany. She told me that she’d gone to University in Potsdam (Germany), graduating in 1941 (I think). I pictured her parents, posing proudly for a picture with this so-successful daughter …around the same time that young Jewish women were being slaughtered, but also around the same time that another young German woman was participating in the underground White Rose resistance movement. Sophie Scholl would eventually be beheaded, at the age of 18, by the Nazis for these activities.
If you’re a pregnant woman offered the chance to choose the characteristics of your fetus, which of these young women would you prefer your kid to grow to be?
Zafar asked, quite rightly, why we don’t seem all that interested in deliberately selecting for kindness, compassion, self-sacrifice, or whatever combination of moral clarity and lunatic courage makes for a Sophie Scholl? Maybe Sophie’s fate answers that question a little too well?
I agree that the words “disease” and “illness” are subject to interpretation, but they are also terms of medical art that carry a medical endorsement and perceived authority. But this is the result of a century of medical research that codified diseases into categories with slightly blurry edges, but that also eventually took control of what constituted a disease. For example, if it doesn’t appear classified in the DSM or ICD it can be, and is, argued that it is not a real disease.
My understanding (which was from long ago and subject to a poor memory) is that in the 60s, before genetics was determined to be a co-determinant of everything, homosexuality was considered a (mental) illness. Then someone who both had control of editing the DSM and who happened to be a homosexual removed it from the DSM and viola, it was no longer a disease — but it still was a condition of life for those who had it, just not a medical or psychiatric condition. So, whether it’s a disease or an illness or not, it is a condition. The question remains (like psychosomatic-originated but physically-diagnosable illnesses) is it a medical or a psychological illness? And like early morning stiffness. should it be treated, and like gout, how aggressively should it be treated? After all you can live with and have a reasonably good life with both.
But more importantly, does the individual ever have the right to refuse treatment for a “disease” that he doesn’t find to be disabling or on balance bad?
This is where I got into it with another member: just because we can and should cure spina bifida for a baby in the womb, do we have the right, do we have the ability, and do we rightly need the consent of the unborn baby to make his life better?
It can be argued that unborn babies are like minors whose medical care should rightly be left to adult parents or guardians. But this is already legally busted by the prescription of birth control Pills and hormones and surgeries for children and adolescents who — in the view of teachers and judges who are at least partially in authority over the children, and who are not parents or guardians. In these cases, the children’s wishes prevail over their parents. That is, the child’s wishes are honored.
SO… why do we not wish to wait a few years and see if a baby wants to surrender its life so as to avoid a future of pain or despair, and why not wait a decade or two to see if a baby ultimately wants to be “cured” of homosexuality.
This is not to say that I approve of homosexuality as a whole. I don’t. But what good is forced compliance instituted in (pardon the wording) potential proto-homosexuals, by either abortion or presumably genetic manipulation?
(over)
(continued)
Assuming that it could even ever be done, and done leaving a healthy mind and not some lobotomized sufferer in a worse condition, what we are doing is killing, or attempting to kill, or to alter significantly the personality of someone who is (or would have been) distinct and individual and autonomous, with his or her own likes, dislikes, gifts, dreams, and goals, and replacing it with an authorized, “disease”-free, socially acceptable, clone of what whatever powers that be decide is appropriate. And this is messing with thousands of years of qualified success as a species.
But a second concern of mine is “What is man, and what is his purpose, and what is the measure of success in life?” And harkening to the old question, “Who’s watching the watchers?” In other words, who’s good enough — as a person, with ethics and morals, and with a loving concern for others — to set forth the reshaping of any and all human minds? Cutting out propensity to phobias, inducing lifelong happiness, enhancing the propensities of the mind for art or science or mothering or for enjoying manual labor? And who are good enough, knowledgeable enough, and wise enough to rise to the top of the social and scientific and governing establishments and to set parameters for acceptable social thinking and yet still humble enough to avoid molding minds that are compliant and docile and hard-working. In short — automatons.
I try to speak materialistically here because materialists seem to be indisposed or incapable of giving serious credence to things godly, but when we start feeling free to genetically shape, or biochemically shape, or technologically shape the minds of all others, it really is playing God with God’s highest creation.
I mean listen to Uval Harari.
C. S. Lewis wrote of this in The Abolition of Man and Aldous Huxley wrote of this in Brave New World. I was intrigued and troubled by both these authors while attending college in the late 1950s. The point was what human is intelligent enough and good enough to make these choices for as long as there are humans around. The answer is no one.
From what I’ve seen, the promise of a utopian paradise is always an excuse to take power, control the populace, and with a ton of opportunity for graft.
And this scales down to incremental changes. The promise of an “Affordable Health Care” system, for instance, ends up with the government controlling a large fraction of a (sort of) free market, and tripling the cost of health care in the process. Of course, it does.
Utopians never take power. Utopians are used by thugs as a tool to take power.
I love these discussions you people keep inspiring. Thank you.
My particular obsession with this stuff has to do with human nature. I find it easier to imagine awful things happening as a result of the expression of some relatively innocent quirk than as something deliberate and premeditated: I just don’t think there are enough deeply broken and perverse people in the world to achieve all the mischief the left seems bent on achieving.
I think there are people who are concerned about the process, the means by which things are done. These are, again, the traditionalists, the conservative, the people who consider what is appropriate behavior and who are reluctant to transgress — even in pursuit of what they think is a good cause.
Then there are people who don’t care about process, traditions, the way people are expected to behave. They’re the radicals, free to pursue their vision of a wonderful future with little restraint.
It doesn’t mean that only the radicals want things to be better. A great many decent people want things to be better. But the ends justify the means only when you aren’t attached to what most of us consider to be acceptable means, and when you’re comfortable living outside of the rules. Conservatives are generally more comfortable coloring inside the lines. That’s why we don’t get to run Hollywood, and why we’re bad at organizing chants and protests.
We can all imagine a better world. Radicals are the ones who are willing to trash this one on the way to trying to achieve it.
Very good comment. And today’s virtuous, tolerant, and oh so totally loving Utopians, whose Diversity allegiance allowed them to support the AntiFa and BLM rampages during the summer of 2020 have a big surprise coming.
Once they are no longer needed as the tools they are, they will face the same fate the Trotsky supporters faced in the early day of the Soviet Union.
The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they seemed to become with it, and with themselves as well. They made a garden of pleasure, and became progressively more miserable with it as it grew in richness and power and beauty; for then, perhaps, it was easier for them to see that something was missing in the garden, some tree or shrub that would not grow. When the world was in darkness and wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it. But when the world became bright with reason and riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle’s eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn.
Well, they were going to destroy it again, were they—this garden Earth, civilized and knowing, to be torn apart again that Man might hope again in wretched darkness
–Walter Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz
Congress. I cannot exaggerate how fired up I am about watching those guys argue about what rate of homosexuality we want. lol
Gotta say, I suspect they would be unhappy heterosexuals if given the chance. Honest thoughts?
Because being gay is awesome. That’s the lived experience that (some) Conservatives keep ignoring. I truly would not want to be straight. I like being gay.
We all know utopia means ‘ no where ‘, except the utopian ideologues. It takes self awareness to see ones path clearly. If you’re not aware of your limitations, and they are legion, then how can you possibly be so sanguine in knowing that only your ideology is ‘ the one true path’?
When I speak of ideology, I’m not necessarily referring to an ideology or a belief in God. Whether you are Christian or agnostic or even atheist, the the teachings of Christ, and the Bible can still be used as guidelines to a better and more righteous path for all to try to adhere to.
Throughout history, tyrants never seem to have problems finding thugs to carry out their brutal tactics.
I think it is certainly arguable that my friends would be unhappy heterosexuals—unhappiness being a chronic human condition most of us fall prey to at one time or another. Of all people, Milo Yiannapoulous once said, with characteristic no-filters frankness, that he would’ve preferred to be straight if only because he’d quite like to have children. By which I suppose he meant that he wished his life permitted the harnessing of sexual and romantic love to creating a child. Not an unreasonable longing.
Being gay may indeed be awesome, but presumably only in the context of a world that is mostly straight: Heterosexuality is kind of a requirement for a world (a human one, anyway) existing at all. That’s what makes this more interesting.
I think we discussed (once? Long ago?) my thoughts on why the gene(s) for homosexuality survive what would seem strong Darwinian logic?
Every human characteristic we can think of exists, and ranges from heroic, puritanical, creative, etc. to cruel and destructive, from what we call normal to what we call severe and sick. Our attitudes change through time but some simply can’t be permitted because of specific harm they do. We’e reaching a point where we want to turn some of this stuff on its head. Power does that. Some of the perverse destructive, harmful characteristics seek power and some are more determined to accumulate and use it. Bottom up works to keep such perverse and destructive people from gaining too much power. There are no solutions that eliminate these matters and every subgroup has to deal with them. Bottom up provides ways to deal with these things less destructively but individuals have to be free to move and find like minded folks. There is no solution other than freedom and some basic rules. We did that in the US and it worked well. Now we’re losing it, or purposely throwing it away and its already beginning to destroy us.
It’s not surprising that people fall in love with abstract things. The idea of perfecting mankind does have a certain appeal. However, the reality is that it can never happen. Indivdual humans are imperfect beings (with yours truly being an exception), and to force an individual to conform to any idea of perfection robs the person of his individuality.
The lemmings on the left think their utopia will consist of watching TikTok videos all day and partying all night. The reality is all their life decisions will be made for them, and they’ll be put to work so that the leftist elites can live the lives they promised the masses . . .
I sort of reject the whole thing. Who I have sex with isn’t really a recipe for happiness. My husband “does it” for me. I’m not dissatisfied in that department. But it doesn’t speak much for the rest of my life. And having sex exclusively with my husband does not preclude me having meaningful friendships with other women. Why is sex necessary to have a meaningful relationship?
Drugs and sex and alcohol all have some benefit in masking pain. And the nymphomania and addiction of the homosexual community doesn’t speak well for their actual happiness. Just that they are having fun. Heterosexual monogamy and responsible parenthood would force them to confront some underlying unhappiness without the masking of Fun Timez. Heterosexual men can do the same, but I’m betting that the sterile nature of the homosexual relationship and the absence of the cloying female desiring stability and commitment makes the gay licentious lifestyle less fraught than the heterosexual counterpart.
Bottom line: Fun =\= happiness.