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Is Utopia Possible?

Reaching utopia is like saying we want everything, ourselves, or nature for example, to be "balanced". There is no such thing. Only tension. Things may appear to be balanced but they are always moving towards or away from a polarity, nothing is ever static. Utopia is some fantasy ideal end point where everything is perfect, balanced, no conflict. No tension. For that reason it is not possible.

It's silly anyway because we do have the potential to make life much more enjoyable for everyone on this planet but we're held back by greed, power, and fear. That's the saddest part of the utopian dream.. we literally have what we need, right now, to make this world a kind of paradise. We always have done. And the more technology we invent the more enslaved we are becoming and less thinking we are doing. Quite the tragedy.
 
-=SS=- said:
Reaching utopia is like saying we want everything, ourselves, or nature for example, to be "balanced". There is no such thing. Only tension. Things may appear to be balanced but they are always moving towards or away from a polarity, nothing is ever static. Utopia is some fantasy ideal end point where everything is perfect, balanced, no conflict. No tension. For that reason it is not possible.

It's silly anyway because we do have the potential to make life much more enjoyable for everyone on this planet but we're held back by greed, power, and fear. That's the saddest part of the utopian dream.. we literally have what we need, right now, to make this world a kind of paradise. We always have done. And the more technology we invent the more enslaved we are becoming and less thinking we are doing. Quite the tragedy.
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My utopia is having the world at my feet begging for salvation while I burn it.

See that? I came up with another utopia that doesn't match yours. Point made?
 
Joeof1 said:
My utopia is having the world at my feet begging for salvation while I burn it.

See that? I came up with another utopia that doesn't match yours. Point made?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure you made a point so much as simply restating his...But there really isn't any reason that a uptopian society must be the ideal for everyone.

Utopia describes an idyllic state that cannot possibly encompass the breadth of human desire. Furthermore, it is that desire that makes the state unattainable. Capitalism demonstrates this well; you can get everything you want- which, for many, can never be enough. The innateness of human desire, and its integral nature to humanity, suggests we will literally never be satisfied; we will always seek something more.

Note that Utopia actually means "no-place".
 
Anarcho-Capitalists: Most annoying internet trolls.

dorotheenstaedtischer-friedhof-2-herbert-marcuse-2c13aa2d-2837-48e2-87e5-6f078442b481.jpg


Maybe Adorno, Horkheimer or Marcuse will answer your question.
 
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I don't think total utopia is possible, due to human nature. We are still quite animal and robotic in the way we behave... always wanting the bigger or better castle, always wanting more power and to dominate others. Someone is always trying to get the one up on someone else. It's that adversarial competition which has made us inventive. It's also what keeps us divided into tribes that are constantly suspicious and at war with one another.

Utopia only works if no one is in charge. As soon as someone is given a leadership role, their testosterone increases and they are prone to power abuses. Power needs to be shared along with the same vision for living.

We can definitely do better than we currently are though. We're being held back by a small group of people. I mean, take cars for example... they are 19th century technology and there's no excuse why we're still using that model. Ford wanted everyone to use the same model of car so that there'd be no competition, and then I think it was Chevy that introduced different colours and what not. Tesla wanted free power for everyone and he got steamrolled by Edison. It seems like the most socially minded inventors always get oppressed by cave men.
 
You think the USA is a utopia? Wow. Is it well off compared to much of the rest of the world? Yes. But utopia? Far from it.
 
Utopia comes from a Greek word meaning literally "nowhere". So the simple answer is no, a utopia is not possible.

The complex answer is a little more upbeat, though. British historian Arnold Toynbee wrote (I'm paraphrasing) that it's only by aiming for what is probably impossible, that societies make real the bare minimum of what is possible.

So I don't begrudge anyone their utopia, and certainly don't consider the dreaming-up of utopias to be a pointless exercise at all. Just because I'm mature and world-wise enough to see that all my dreams won't come true, it does not logically follow that none of them will, or that dreaming is a waste of time. I would reckon that most of the visionaries whose ideas truly changed society incubated these ideas within thick clouds of utopian fantasy.

Case in point, the USA. =D It started as a utopian fantasy among a clique of well-educated, progressive-minded men. And although the way this nation has played out in practice would certainly not be recognizable or appealing to these men were they alive today, it's worth noting that some of the better elements of their fantasy continue to guide this nation's development today.
 
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Finland is the happiest country i read somewhere
but as for a utopia i doubt it is possible because... there is a bad apple in every batch!
 
^ Finland has an unusually high standard of living, and practically no poverty. But I've been there, and the people don't strike me as any happier than people anywhere else.

I realize that geography is a so-called "soft science", but I'm sorry, ranking countries based on their average happiness, if happiness is based on self-reports from surveys, is about as fruitful an exercise as sewing tofu. I haven't read any such study that doesn't have a very clear agenda from the perspective of the countries that "happen to" land on top. Happiness can and does occur in any place where people's basic needs are met. I'm skeptical that there is such thing as a "culture of happiness" or "culture of unhappiness".

I've heard it said that group life expectancy is the sine qua non of who lives better than who, because it's a pretty accurate account who whose bodies and minds face the most (and last) stressors and threats. I think this is probably a vast oversimplification, but it's got a much more solid leg to stand on than the above.
 
for people saying the concept is impossible, what hypothetical things do you think would have to happen for it to be a possibility or plausible?
 
^
Hypothetically,
You would have to have something in place for equal distribution of resources.
Then that beggs the question of how do you motivate people to produce to their full potential
If they recieve the same for not producing to best of ability.
I dont know if you have noticed,
but with all needs satisfied humans tend to do nothing but plant potatoes in their couches.
 
I don't think so. Why? Human nature. I think communes can be stable with under about 300 people, because this is the number I feel like you can actually connect with on a personal level and you can know each person.
The problem you get when you exceed that number is that people start wondering, "Well, why should I work for someone who I don't even know?" and greed takes over.
That said, there are several communities (mostly the remaining hunter-gatherer tribes) who exists in extremely peaceful, semi-utopic way. I think it has a lot to do with their ideas surrounding ownership and privacy (we have the idea that we can own things and they are ours and nobody else's, and that the more things we own, the better off we are. This is an idea that will be really hard to beat out of our collective consciousness).
I also think that when people have their survival needs taken care of they tend to be more unhappy. Look at these hunter gatherers, subsistence farmers, etc... their existential happiness is generally greater. Their purpose, they know, is to live and continue living and they are actively working toward that. We in the developed world, however, are left to sit in our cubicles and ponder our purpose because we don't have to actively work toward the betterment of ourselves and our family or tribe.
 
methamaniac said:
^
Hypothetically,
You would have to have something in place for equal distribution of resources.
Then that beggs the question of how do you motivate people to produce to their full potential
If they recieve the same for not producing to best of ability.
I dont know if you have noticed,
but with all needs satisfied humans tend to do nothing but plant potatoes in their couches.
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But, surely, reaching our full potential has nothing to do with what we can 'produce'. I think that is the more dangerous aspect of capitalism, whereby humans are primarily evaluated as producers/consumers. That form of evaluation has nothing to do with ultimate happiness or personal satisfaction, two things that appear integral to foundation of a utopia.

Do you see couch-potato-cultivation as a terribly bad thing? :)
 
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