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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 don’t see how limited ability prevents a utopia. Perhaps it depends on the definition of a utopia. Many people might argue that some indigenous tribe in the amazon is a near utopia. People are happy though there may be a lack of “progress.” Some might argue that monks, Christian and Buddhist, reach a near utopia. A number of posts have mentioned this limited ability and I don’t see it. It sounds like a self-imposed definition from a modernist point of view. Can you expand?
We have had this distinction frequently. Arguing whether it’s best to put the restrictions on a local level rather than on the federal level is to argue on the best form of government, not libertarinism. I probably agree than on the whole it is best to put it locally, except in instances where the local cannot manage it. But it really isn’t addressing the nature of Libertarianism as a philosophy. It doesn’t sound like you’re a Libertarian if you advocate restrictions at the local level. ;)
The most local level is within the individual himself, his family, and his voluntary associations. And libertarians can and do advocate for plenty of restrictions there.
I won’t claim that I perfectly live up to the restrictions I impose upon myself, or that I live up to all my family, work, religious, and social obligations. I don’t, and I’m acutely aware of the fact that I don’t. But the reason I’m acutely aware is because I do sense the moral gravity behind these restriction, even while imperfectly fulfilling them.
I take it you don’t have much experience with the kind of suffering that isn’t a result of moral failure, then?
Suppose you have an incurable disease. Two treatments for its symptoms exist, A and B. Because of the limits on human knowledge, what no human knows is that, while A will mitigate your symptoms, B will kill you – or perhaps worse, maim you terribly, then let you live. But no human knows this: given the incomplete state of human knowledge, the best evidence we have is that B is as equally likely to work as A.
Which is the more moral treatment, A or B? That’s a trick question: they’re both equally moral, since it’s impossible to make a moral distinction between the two based on the available information available to us. You could get lucky and choose A. But if you choose B, you suffer innocently. Does innocent suffering sound like utopia to you?
But God has ordered such experiences as part of human nature. We do what we can to relieve the suffering but we accept God’s will. Catholics repeatedly stipulate there is meaning in suffering, both for the sufferer and for the family. That should not be a limitation to utopia. In my post #57, I said man seeks things not ordered under God. Suffering is part of God’s ordered plan.
I guess we are arguing over the definition of utopia.
I would interpret “God has ordered such experiences” as “God has made utopia impossible”. Which is fine with me, since it’s what I already believe.
The English usage of “utopia” is said to come from “A book by Sir Thomas More that describes an imaginary ideal society free of poverty and suffering. The expression utopia is coined from Greek words and means ‘no place.'”
Free of suffering. At the very least, free of innocent suffering. I would consider a state of affairs where people only suffered culpably – suffered because they did something wicked or really should have known better – pretty utopian, actually. But a society where people suffer absent culpability is not a utopia.
Suffering can be made meaningful and redemptive. That is ineradicably embedded in the Christian message, I agree.
However, suffering does not appear to be intrinsically meaningful or redemptive, for then any suffering would ensure some degree of moral betterment, and it does not (I have tried it – turns out it’s very easy to suffer pointlessly and even degrade yourself morally while doing so).
Yes, I guess we are.
Thus, why Utopia cannot exist. For me, utopia would mean I get to place restrictions on others. Lots of them. And the evil (wink) libertarians won’t let me do that.
It is instructive to go back to the source of the word: Sir Thomas More’s 1512 book Utopia. I won’t say it’s a good read, but while More intended it, I believe, as a serious proposal for a better way of life, to my sensibilities it was a horror story worse, even, than ‘The Walking Dead’.
In brief it describes a proto-communist society in which the folk are utterly regimented, and utterly content about it.
And that’s indicative of the problem with Utopias. Every one of them makes assumptions about the character of people which are simply false. Their proponents simultaneously demonstrate their cluelessness with regard to the diversity of character of real people, and their arrogance in thinking they can design a superior system to accommodate such people.
On a lighter note, who has watched ‘Utopia‘, the UK TV series. It’s an incredible claustrophobic, dense and rather fantastical conspiracy thriller. Well, Season One, principally.
Where is Jessica Hyde?
I compliment you on your awareness of this original, but I deplore your sensibility. What’s the point of knowing there is a past merely to be horrified by that which is different to one’s sensibility?
It is rather a reprisal of the communism one learns of in Plato’s Republic.
They do have criminals, which they chain in gold. They also make their toilets in gold.
You make two terrible mistakes here. First, real people are unhappy people, so that they constantly go looking for something that promises them in one way or another that’s persuasive to them–happiness. Utopia then is built into human beings & writers of utopias are particularly aware of that fact of life.
Secondly, the point of utopia is to show mankind what men believe they want in wanting justice. It is the attempt to think through fully our basic experiences with justice & our educated awareness of the problem of justice. Of course, it could only speak in a persuasive manner to one who is concerned with justice immediately…
Titus, it has been many years. Perhaps I misunderstood. I shall have to look into it.
More is much misunderstood–but that is no reason for me speak so exactingly. I’m sorry for being brusque. The book is important, but must that mean it will speak to everyone who could benefit by it? That is unlikely, to say the least. The book is full of lies which it advertises; it is an ironic book. It is not obvious why an ironic man should speak so seriously about justice. That More also learned from Plato’s Republic, which is narrated by Socrates, than whom no one is more famous for irony.
Maybe you will be spurred to look at it again & will find something of merit.
Not true. Libertarians believe in extended order. That it is only through free people acting freely that we can discover what is truly right for an ordered society. No one is possessed of the intelligence and knowledge necessary to order society for the good.
Libertarians have the not very remarkable view of human nature that what foolish and corrupt politicians impose is not necessarily good for man and for society.
Manny’s criticism of libertarianism is much like Bernie Sanders’ criticism of capitalism – i.e., it is not perfect. No, it is not perfect. Neither system is perfect. But they are both soooooo much better than the alternatives.
Everything God made was good. The highest beings He made, He made free. That freedom was the freedom to love and serve Him, or not. The decision not to serve Him, acting on the freedom He gave them, brought about the fall.
Our friend, CS Lewis, notes that even Satan has two good things, existence and intelligence. That he has perverted those things to the wrong ends does not undo the fact of existence and intelligence being good.
Suffering for its own sake is wrong, yet we all suffer anyway. However suffering can be offered up (an old Catholic phrase) to be joined to His suffering, at which point it gains meaning. We have a share in His suffering and a bit of recognition of what He went through for us.
God says some things are good, but not all. Explaining away what is supposed to be an authoritative judgment strikes me as the funniest thing about pious people-
I will stick to what you admit, that freedom is not intrinsically good. At any rate, the freedom of which you speak, may be part of Genesis 2, but not Genesis 1, which is only concerned with motion & predictability of motion. Even in Genesis 2, the story insists that God knew better than man what man needed, & that God gave only a limited freedom to man, along with a first command. That is the first divine speech that neither describes something created nor brings something into creation. It is also a resounding failure.
Now you’ve figured us out. Our arguments have fallen on deaf ears, yours. I don’t find your position funny however, so we are moving in different directions.
Mr. Todd, of the two of us, you are the one ignoring the evidence. I fully agree that God concludes creation with the judgment that it is very good. You, however, refuse to look at the evidence any care in reading would furnish to you: Two things, though created by God, one of them man, are not said to be good. Every other one is. If this is meaningless to you, then you are the one ignoring the subtle contradiction.
I will say this, in addition: The contradiction I notice is only made possible by the pattern in the writing. Had every other created thing not been called good, leaving only two aside, there would have been nothing strange about calling the whole very good. I am trying to show respect for the pattern the story establishes. I am not sure that you can say the same–will you say, there is no thought there, calling so many creatures good & refusing to do so for two? Will you say, the thoughts does not matter, in light of the conclusion? Maybe you believe it is a mistake?
TT: but at the end of the sixth day, God looked over all of creation, which included man at that point, and said it was “very good.”
True, & that would seem to imply, every part is good or even very good! That’s the simplest assumption, I suppose. But God creates other things than man in the sixth day even: They are said to be good. I do not see any way of getting around the contradiction between what is implied by the pattern of the story & what is implied by the concluding judgment.
The notion that only the last time a judgment is made should count implies, all the previous judgments were worthless or not serious or even mistaken. Which means, when one reads the story & takes those judgments as serious, one is being deceived by the text!
I think it far more reasonable to figure out in what way these two parts of creation are not simple good–unlike the others–& how that might lead to a very good creation.
I must not understand, because I don’t see a contradiction and I don’t think my reading leads to being deceived. :/
Ok, explain that to me. Why do you think God does not call two created things good, but all others instead? Do you think the text is written with such carelessness that no one ever noticed most things created are called good, but two are not? Do you think that even if it’s not careless, the writing that produces this result–most created things are called good, but two are not–that it’s meaningless?
I don’t agree with this formulation, because He called “all” of creation “very good” in verse 31.
“… no one…” is too narrow. For example, Catholics, and Orthodox I believe, read that verse as I am indicating here.
Again, verse 31 refers to “all” of creation.
Let’s focus on this particular point, if you don’t mind: explain to me why you exclude man from “all” in verse 31.
It is not only simple, it is logical.
That said, logical interpretation and literary interpretation are not always the same thing, and from a literary standpoint, I’m willing to believe that not calling man specifically good matters.
That the logical and the literary interpretation should be different perhaps shouldn’t be a problem. In fact, perhaps they are meant to be different. Man, as part of creation, is very good, and the image of God is in us, etc, etc. But man also, through freedom, has the unique ability to sin (do reptiles, birds, and rocks sin? no), and in that sense, we are not very good.
I do not exclude it at all & have already said so. My arguments is that there is a contradiction there: There would be no contradiction if I did not admit that your argument is good, as far as it goes. But my argument is as good, because it rests on the same text. That you do not seem at all willing to admit.
But as you can see, you yourself act as though the only verse that matters for the judgment of creation is 31. Nothing else. Why are all the other judgments there then? What thoughts do you think about all those other verses?
I think you should think that the text is written in a certain literary style, with certain patterns, by someone whose grasp of logic is no less impressive than your own, such that subtle contradictions are intelligent, or intended.
Of course, you are wrong about the logic in this case. To know whether the whole of creation is very good requires more than that every part be good or very good even: It requires to know the purpose of creation, whose goodness is relative to its end.
It is not that I don’t want to admit anything, it is that I genuinely don’t understand your argument.
Fair question. Let me verify that we are discussing the same thing. I think we are trying to answer this question: “What is the antecedent of ‘it’ when the text days ‘it was good’?”Take a look at this chart that I just threw together:
Let me know if you agree with my formulation of our problem.
Yes, & I applaud you for taking the time to count things. You seem finally to agree with me that there are many judgments on goodness.
Do you also agree that there is a serious difference between judging one single created thing or a number of them & judging creation as a whole?
I would differentiate between the physical creation He made which includes man, and the spiritual creation which preceded it. That spiritual creation, normally called angels, was also made with free will, hence the ability to love and serve God, or to fail in those two things.
The highest of His creation is able to love or not, hence able to sin. But no one can accuse Adam or Eve of sinning before either of them sinned. Merely knowing a train of events does not mean that they were at fault before making the decision to eat that fruit.