Utopia
The word “utopia” was coined by Thomas More by combining Greek
words for “no” and “place”. More also pointed out the close relation between
utopia and eutopia which means the “good place”. Commonly, utopia refers to
either something imaginary or someplace ideal. The utopian notion begins with
fables and myths of the Garden of Eden or some benign state of nature, when
harmony was allegedly the normal condition of life. Natural environment,
however, is seldom the same for any two different people who participate in it.
Some believe that the natural order of things will inevitably lead
to an utopian end of harmony (wherein the livelihood, happiness and legal
status of anyone is interwoven with the happiness and rights of all) and where
good life is secured and actualised. Others (as Malthus explains) insist that,
left to itself, the world is not inevitably good or bad (except to the extent
that we make it so), and society might just as easily proceed to an end that is
both unjust and miserable.
Reformers
answer that, if the latter is the case, they will put their efforts to fighting
against the malevolent and menacing ‘natural’
tendencies of society -- and so the utopian socialists broke away from the
comforting trust in the essential rightness of the world as it was.
The
author of the Wealth of Nations described an environment in which there
was good reason to believe that everyone could share in the benefits of a
benign providence. But, to the same man about 50 years later,
society seemed irrevocably torn into warring groups.
“Regardless of the country, creed or social
status of the person I approach (one philosopher writes), provided the same
flame of expectation burns in us both, there is a profound, definitive and
total contact instantly established between us. We feel that we are
of the same kind, and we find that our very differences are a common armour, as
though there were a dimension of life in which all striving makes for nearness,
not only within a corporate body but heart to heart.”.
Whether
or not, as Teilhard de Chardin stated above, we can have tremendous hope in the
future of life and of person-kind as improving (finding greater cohesion or “love);
the notion of utopia has always fascinated us. On one hand, there
are those who simply wish to make the world a comfortable dwelling-place; on
the other hand, there are those who conceive of it as a machine for progress,
so the philosopher tells us. On the one hand, we
find the ‘bourgeois spirit’
in its essence and on the other the true ‘toilers of the earth’
(who would make it a ‘better’ place).
Paul Tillich insists that, through each of us, “the universe
continues the creative process which first produced one as the aim and center
of the creation. In us nature comes to its fulfillment, it is taken into
knowledge and transformed”.
What
I want is a place in things where I can exercise practical reason and follow my
course/prospects, but have no greater advantage there than others are granted,
and therefore have no reason for lowered expectations over my lifetime than
might be wanted for anyone else. The concept of ‘right’
is involved here in what I call Utopia.
Obviously,
not all reformists, political and religious groups have sought to remake
society completely in conformity with a utopian aim (such as ‘harmony’). Nevertheless,
many have not been satisfied merely to speculate about the ideal society but
have sought, rather, to realise it either by persuasion or force. Where
the utopian writer may do nothing to improve society, he may still deem it
worthwhile to preserve the concept of the ‘ideal’
state or life. This may be thought desirable, even in
comparatively decent societies, and can have a chastening influence on those who
govern as well as on those who go along.
The
utopian thinker mostly promotes dissatisfaction and self-criticism –
which are useful in light of the grave deficiencies of the real world, and the
urge to replace them by better conditions. The principal mission of utopianism
I want to encourage is the hope that human nature is malleable beyond the
limits assigned by worldly pessimism or theological despair. Utopian writers
confine their imagination to the realm of the greatest happiness, but within
that realm, they say much is possible if only the world, or a part of it, can
be transformed or made more permissive.
Utopia; when love’s first thrum’s just thunk aloud and hope plays
one last longing round,
Purposes
aire rings rich, truth full in timbre, and familiar feelings snapped in
blissful trill,
‘ticement, joy and regret babble lost
refrains, then imagination gives the brane a bang.
There’s
someone waiting there, listening for me to sing.
Rudy McNair
The Philosophy Takeaway 'Utopia' Issue 44
The Philosophy Takeaway 'Utopia' Issue 44
