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Why Is Utopia Impossible?
“I prefer clarity over agreement.” — Dennis Prager
I think it’s safe to assume that all of us here agree that Utopia is impossible. Yet each of the two major caucuses here — call them “traditionally conservative” and “libertarian” as a rough shorthand — often view the other as having a suspiciously Utopian intent.
BDB’s recent thread gave me an idea. I thought it would be really helpful if each caucus explained why Utopia is impossible. Accusations of Utopianism seem to be based on misinformed views. So instead of accusing the other of Utopianism, we could explain why we hold that Utopia is not possible. It occurred to me that this could go a long way to helping us understand each other. To my knowledge, we have never discussed this subject, and this may account for why we continue to misunderstand and mistrust each other. Clarity helps to avoid misunderstandings and it also fosters trust. I want to foster trust, and since you are all my compatriots who are acting in good faith, I must do better to be more clear, more trustworthy, and more patient. Actually, I need to do those things anyway, but you’ve helped to provide a motive. :)
It occurs to me that attempting to speak for one’s entire caucus is too big a task, and therefore not a very reasonable one. I would like us to end up with a few guiding principles so that members of one caucus easily understand why the other caucus holds that Utopia is impossible and Utopianism a folly. Toward this end, I think it would be helpful if disagreements are limited to intra-caucus disagreements. For example, if you are a libertarian and you disagree with me about why I say that Utopia is impossible, I’d prefer it if you didn’t voice that here on this thread. On the other hand, if you’re a libertarian and you ask me for clarification because you don’t understand something, or if you’re a Catholic and you disagree with me about how I’ve characterized man’s sinful nature, then these kinds of exchanges are entirely within the realm of what I hope to achieve here. Those are just examples, but I hope they convey my intent. I realize that the comments will proceed however they proceed, but that is my preference.
I will go first.
As many of you know, I am an orthodox Catholic. The Catholic teachings about the fall of man and man’s inclination to evil inform my views.
Catholics make quite a few truth claims about human beings, why they were created, their structure and composition, and their nature. Catholics claim that every human being inherits original sin, which was passed down to us from Adam as the result of his disobedience to God. Original sin is the loss of sanctifying grace; it is not the same as personal guilt. This loss of sanctifying grace results in the darkening of the mind and the weakening of the will.
By definition, human beings who have a darkened mind and a weakened will can never create a Utopia, but, admittedly, this won’t stop some from trying. In fact, if they don’t understand their condition, it may mean they will try all the harder, not realizing their weaknesses. Certain nations in the 20th century provide horrifying examples of what can happen when sinners try to create a “worker’s paradise.” It should be noted that even Catholic saints, who surely have stopped sinning to an exceedingly large degree, still commit some sin in some small ways (we call it “venial sin”) and still struggle with the sinful nature they acquired at their conception.
In short, since every human person is a sinner, Utopia is always an impossibility. That’s my extremely brief explanation of the impossibility of Utopia. I am happy to elaborate or clarify. Regardless of your caucus, I hope you will consider joining this discussion so that we can all understand each other better.
Why is Utopia impossible?
Published in General, Religion & Philosophy
I’m asking a serious question. If say open borders were voted on democratically by the nation – how would that be a tyranny?
I think he means that open borders are against the will of the majority, as with the admittance of Syrian refugees. I think Bryan is missing the fact that in a Republic, leaders sometimes go against the will of the majority, at least in the short term. That’s what distinguishes a Republic from a “Pure Democracy.” It’s a feature, not a bug. And it’s not “tyranny.”
You mis-attributed your words to me. Please fix that.
I just get the impression that by tyranny he means “things I disagree with but have no power to change”.
Like Jamie, I would say that the libertarians around here agree that a healthy family life is part of a flourishing human life. The disagreements between libertarians and SoCons tend to be about what kind of political framework best supports robust family formation.
I tend to favor, for example, the state taking a really hands-off approach to the family, to the point where parental decisions are hardly ever called into question by the state. I favor this because I believe it supports robust family formation.
I prefer clarity in the form: Utopia is not desirable.
The tyrannic character of Utopia is derived from its philosophic design: According to the philosophers, the simply best regime is the tyranny of the wise. That & that only can lead to peace. This More learned from Plato–to oppose it on the ground that it is ‘more menacing than it may appear’ not only does not say what it menaces, but completely misses the point of a concern with justice. Is Hitchens really possessed of knowledge of what kind of pain–as opposed to analgesics–& kind of conflict is good or necessary for man?
Um no. The evidence for that is not nil. As previously stated, from the 1980s till now Africa and Latin America have become much more democratic. The more solidly democratic countries become the more peaceful they are with other democracies. Steven Pinker data-crunching has shown, the number of humans who have died from violence is shrinking every decade.
Liberalism has saved from Europe from World Wars and Japan from Samurai and it’s wars of imperialism. It is perhaps unimaginable in our lifetimes but why would it be beyond the capacity of humanity to look like Western Europe? It’s a given that the Islamic World will be mostly a cesspool for decades but is it permanently a cesspool?
We need to remember how new liberalism is. It was mostly theoretical until the American election of 1800.
Two hundred and fifteen years isn’t that long a time in terms of changing the way governments have been operating since Hammurabi.
So what? That’s thirty years. Unless you already believe democracy is historically irreversible, this does not really prove anything. & that’s leaving aside the practicing of deceptions by phrases like ‘much more democratic.’ The comparative there allows for the possibility, it’s all meaningless.
Being that there never has been a world where the leading powers are democracies, this is a meaningless phrase.
Every decade since when? The man always says: This is no prediction of the future–so how is this good evidence?
Liberalism also allowed the world wars out of weakness–also, the samurai, before liberalism came to Japan, were not imperialists bent on genocide, but isolationists. S0 with every other horribly modern tyranny.
I know Jaffa’s works. He did not see world peace coming. Liberalism like any other regime creates enemies & it is no more guaranteed to last forever, but may be uniquely blind to its effects-
Well, you dive in deeper than I intend. My point was only that tyranny is to be avoided and that discussions about the possibility of creating the perfect tyranny are not about “clarity” in my book. (Not that this isn’t an interesting exercise, Ms. Johnson, I was just tossing my 2 cents worth into the conversation.)
I won’t presume to speak for the late Mr. Hitches but I did not read that passage as him declaring a precise knowledge of the “kind of pain…& kind of conflict” that “is good or necessary for man” but that pain and conflict are necessary (and should be welcomed) in order to live in a world free of the tyranny required to prevent them.
As for not saying “what it menaces” and “miss[ing] the point of a concern with justice”, I imagine that a proper understanding of tyranny and knowledge of historic examples were assumed and that further explanation was not really necessary.*
But that’s just me…and I’m not really that smart.
*For the record, it was just supposed to be a fun little quote to end my comment.
Mr. Philo, I’m sorry to have ruined your desired effect–my annoyance is entirely with Hitchens, whom you defend rather well as a reasonable partisan of political freedom. I cannot say whether he deserves it, but it is regardless gracious of you.
Hitchens once said that the characteristic of tyranny is its arbitrary character. The characteristic of tyranny is an unmitigated desire for perfection, however. This is a typically lefty / democratic misunderstanding, necessary to all who believe in the doctrine of progress.
Evening Titus,
VDH often suggests that in the classical world life was viewed as inevitably tragic, and that war was the natural state among nations. Is this how you would describe the classical understanding of man and the world.
From my evangelical view, this seems close to the theology of the religious world of many fundamentalists. We are told that we are the worst sinner that we know, and that we are our biggest problem, and that we should pray for loving brothers and sisters to point out our blinds spots, in other words rebuke us, because we will always lack enough insight to see our broken nature, objectively. I see this as similar to VDH’s description of the tragic view of life, do you?
Hello, Mr Beck.
The theoretical statement of this view, always needed nowadays, in summary: Men wish to rule themselves & each other; but man’s capacity to rule is limited in a way mankind is not limited in numbers; men therefore form of necessity many political associations, of whatever kind; in being many, they are different, & are inevitably led to war. The alternative: Global empire.
There is a similarity between the classic view of man & the Christian view: All conservatism originates in the belief that man is naturally evil. Genesis 1 alludes to this: Man is not said by God to be good; Genesis 6-8 says it openly & recalls Genesis 1 by repealing the condition of life–the separation of water & land.
No I didn’t. I said very clearly that I was quoting myself.
No need for the “Mr.” and, certainly, no need to apologize.
I’m not sure I completely understand this passage. I certainly wouldn’t ever be confused for a lefty (unless you mean left handed) but I do not disagree with the phrasing you attribute to Mr. Hitchens*. (Did he say that was the only characteristic of tyranny?) I’m not even sure I see a misunderstanding between you and him here. I presume, in practice, the tyrants working definition of perfection at any given point easily fits with the term “arbitrary”. I’m sure there is more to it than that…feel free to enlighten.
* My cumulative knowledge of Mr. Hitchens comes from reading No One Left to Lie To, Why Orwell Matters, Letters to a Young Contrarian, and Arguably so I do not wish to (and am certainly not qualified to debate) on his behalf. While there is much to disagree with on one or two very big matters, I guess I am not familiar enough with him to have the sharp reactions that he brings out in you. I’m comfortable with him being wrong on those things yet a very intelligent, diverse/contrarian thinker on many others.
When we look at Genesis 1, and God’s pronouncement at the end of day six, we see that he “looked at everything he had made, and found it very good.”
If you read also the preceding verses, you see, some things are said to be good, others God keeps silent about–I have been given to understand recently that that might just mean nothing & can be ignored. I of course disagree with that kind of thinking about the story in Genesis. To my mind, the question is how to reconcile the earlier statements & their sometime absence, with the concluding statement.
Even if man were perfect he’d still face the knowledge problem. Most information he’d need to work toward perfection isn’t knowable. On the other hand through iterative trial and error he tends to move toward better outcomes through his flawed self serving groping than well meaning, smarter people can give him. There must be something biblical in that no?
Titus, you have read your Calvinism into “the Christian view.” However “the Christian view” is not limited to Calvin’s perception of humankind after the fall. You might want to add those scriptures which Calvin used to justify his theology, but those scriptures are not all encompassing. The goodness created in us at the beginning is not completely obscured, and it is that goodness in us that He came to redeem and leads Him to redeem us in the process.
I am not sure why you believe I might be a Cavlinist; I am not; I studied Calvin some years back, but rather cursorily.
I think you may have misread my statement–I do not say that man is & is only evil. But, as per the story of the Flood, that man is by nature evil. The possibility of redemption is not natural, of course, but divine.
Agree. Utopia is not meant for this world.
Yep. One could argue that a perfect being should be omniscient as well as perfectly virtuous. But when we envision perfect humans, very few of us envision them as being omniscient as well.
I speculated a bit on what might be the relationship between knowledge costs and theology in this comment.
Christians are told that “now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known,” and Christianity’s apocalyptic vision includes not only a restoration of humanity, but a restoration of the rest of Creation, too. “Creation itself will be set free” from its constraints and there will be not just “a new heaven” but also “a new earth”. Apocalyptic speculation is always weird, and ridiculous if taken too literally – how else could an apocalypse be described except through metaphor?
But what the above metaphors tell me is that we recognize that our current universe is innately constrained. The knowledge problem is baked right into Creation, and will remain insoluble unless and until Creation itself is transformed.
Morning Titus,
In “The Beginning of Wisdom” by Leon Kass based on his teaching of Genesis at the University of Chicago, Leon observes the same omissions as you have noted. He said, “After nearly every act of creation, God looked at the creature and ‘saw that it was good.’ There are two striking exceptions: neither the firmament (or heavens), on Day Two, nor man, on Day Six, is said to be good.” He goes on to say, “What if it were very good that the creation contain a creature that is himself not—or not yet—good?”
I have another question for you concerning classical understanding of man’s nature. Was it thought that man naturally drifted to pride and the consequence of pride was nemesis? Did Plato and other philosophers think that by reason a man could avoid drifting into pride? Why did they think reason could shield one from pride, wouldn’t they have seen pride in other philosophers?
Hell, Mr. Beck.
Mr. Kass seems to me a learned & careful man, so I would like to read that book, if I can find it. I know some of his other works & I cannot recommend them enough. I believe I know where he learned to pay attention to the more subtle elements of the story–at any rate, this is where I learned it–Leo Strauss once wrote a kind of lecture on the interpretation of Genesis. It is as thoughtful as one would expect & has persuaded many of us of the wisdom of the writing.
Greek philosophers did not think of pride as a problem–only unreasonable pride. Philosophic pride–the opinion that man can guide his life by his reasoning about his situation–seemed natural to them. The opinion that men are punished for their pride seemed moralistic & foolish to philosophers. The proud also seemed moralistic.
My argument for No-Utopia is economic. Because resources at any given moment are finite, people will always be arguing about how they should be allocated. Even though resources are scarce people’s wants are not limited.
As an example, no matter how good a car I have, or my neighbor has, I want to have one that is the same or better than his/hers. And to make this one better, my choice is partly or largely irrational. Once you settle the car issue to my liking, I will start on my house and what is in it, eventually landing on how my calve muscles look. And after that I want to talk about my car again, since I have changed my mind from before.
The easy way to fix my problems above is not to hire an army of folks to cater to my whims but to regulate what everyone gets. While it solves the wants issue, it does not create a Utopia for anyone.
I agree on your definition of the traditional conservative view. Man is morally flawed, not just limited in ability. He will seek things that are not ordered under God, and therefore the only utopia is heaven.
Libertarians as I see it have this remarkable view of human nature that what man seeks and wants is good for him and for society. Or to be more precise, it is better to let all men to have what they seek and want than to put restrictions. The greater good is achieved by not having those restrictions.
Personally I find that foolish. The greater good is not served by letting all desires to be realized. Because man is morally flawed, then all desires are not good, either for him or for the greater good. Restrictions are necessary to curb morally suspect human desires.
And don’t forget the democracies that “colonized” the third world, even a wonderfully democratic country like the USA took over the continent from the Native-Americans.
I subscribe to the view that European peace has more to do with the total destruction of modern weapons being a deterrent rather than democracies being peaceful.
Man is also limited in ability, not just morally flawed. I think the crucial realization is that both are true. Just as unlimited ability would not guarantee moral perfection, neither would moral perfection cure our innately limited ability.
No, I don’t think so. Whether restrictions are dispersed or centralized, restrictions will exist. You say,
and I will not quarrel with that. What I will observe, though, is that it is impossible for all desires to be realized under any state of affairs, even the most libertarian.
A world of incomplete knowledge, transaction costs, and finite resources simply doesn’t allow for realizing all desires. Those libertarians who refuse to acknowledge that this is the world we live in are also being poor libertarians.
Man is born to be miserable if he doesn’t learn to prioritize his wants in a satisfying way, inevitably leaving the least-priority wants unsatisfied. There is nothing un-libertarian about acknowledging this truth.
But if people were morally good then people would be happy and get along with what is “allocated” or better put, earned, satisfying the basic needs of everyone, which are currently possible. The root cause for the lack of a utopia is not finite resources but human selfishness.