The Ruse of Utopia and Its Discontents, Part I

The world has never come to an idealized version of what anyone has ever thought it should be. Ever. Many have tried. All of them have failed. They have failed their followers in both conception and in practice. And they have failed themselves in their belief that they could command the mysteries of a world that none but the most arrogant have claimed to understand well enough to wield. It has cost not merely livelihood but life itself, and, though they have failed, all the same, many have reaped great benefit from these innumerable attempts.

Guided by such a vision of ‘what should be’, it’s no wonder so many despots and tyrants live in fear from threats within their own ranks, and so often succumb to them. Indeed, how else might a tyrant be made than by adhering to such an untenable vision as ‘what should be’? For it is one in the same — the tyrant and the ideal — inasmuch as the carrying out of such a vision may only be given credence by one so utterly beguiled by their own delusion of self-importance to believe sincerely that the constraints of a world of such palpable complexity need not slow or impede their trajectory.

In large part, the tyrant need not be troubled by the fact that the mysteries of humanity and its societies are synonymous with the mysteries by which our lives depend in and of this world, that is of nature itself, and that the mysteries of one imply the complexities of the other. The tyrant need only embark on the quest and the infrastructure of their society is assumed to bend to their will, whether or not the vision of such a utopia could ever come to fruition by ignoring these abounded mysteries, as opposed to taking heed of how much we do not know.

The fortune and folly of the human mind is its capacity to imagine a better world, but that in our capacity to imagine, also lies our capacity to be self-deluded. Truly, a mind that possesses a capacity to imagine a world that does not exist also possesses a capacity to imagine a self that does not and cannot exist. The crux of this all too human problem is that one can and readily will believe that one is, in fact, that very same imagined self that neither does exist nor can exist and, further, to rely on it as if it were one’s greatest truth.

Conscious as we may be, our consciousness is, as of yet, incomplete. We may see ourselves, but we cannot see all ourselves. If that were not the case, there would be no need for the entire field of therapeutics, at least — and how often our leaders past and present are in need of therapy. Because would you not fix your own problems if you could see them? Might it also be true that if you could only see yourself better you could better attain the pinnacle of your ambitions? And might the tyrant also choose a better means of reaching their goal, if it could only be seen? But, of course, such a means is available, and it lies in the dissent and skepticism that helped formulate a path through the stuff of the past that is both terrible and integral to the fabric of life. Through it comes building of our societies, the very societies that come to be exploited by the ruse of the idol utopia.

Nevertheless, in a world in which the ideal is attaining ‘what should be’, as opposed to ‘what can be’, perfect compliance is requisite to getting there. Clearly, it must be nothing less than a heresy, a sacrilege of the highest order to question and, thus, slow the route to utopia; think of the suffering that will be alleviated once the goal is reached and, thus, the suffering that is prolonged by a slowing of the course — and, therefore, to slow the course is now akin to the act of violence itself. Why then should we not wreak havoc and destruction in the name of the holiest of holies? By such a vision, there can be no bounds to what ought to be done in the name of attaining ‘what should be’ because even a morality that anyone would agree as immutable across all other circumstances, pales in comparison to ‘what should be’ because ‘what should be’ can be nothing less than the raw, unadulterated enemy of what is merely good. And thus the adage: does the end justify the means?

…Does it? Would it ever, if we could? If we could make our want of a ‘should’ a reality, that is if we could reach the utopia, would it be worth the selling of our souls to get there? And, could we still call it a utopia if we did?

In our self-deluded belief that we will get there, we try and fail so terribly. The trouble with utopia is that we are always on the road to getting there because the world is full of suffering, and no matter how good things get, it is never as good as we can imagine it. Indeed, what a well-motivated desire it is — to expunge the suffering we feel. Unfortunately, no system of thought, however well-designed, is ever well-designed enough to grasp the complexities of a fluctuating world we simply cannot fully account for, and through these inevitable blind spots, our detractors find the reasons and rationality to be skeptical of our strategies and ambitions.

And we say, “But if it were not for the dissent, the questioning, the talk and debate. Let us take the reins. Don’t you see that we know how it should be done!” Only to have our words parroted back to us by those we once thought merely skeptics who are now becoming our enemies. And then we have the fodder for our resentment.

How strange it is that our quest to attain what should be is so often invariably bargained for with what should never — and yet, when utopia is at stake, the bargaining of human life, the defacing of the very countenance for which we have committed ourselves to that greatest of ideals becomes the morality, and, at that, the justification for the most horrifying human rights violations that have ever occurred, all in the name of the lessening suffering, all in the name of what should be.

What do we do with this information?

As we sit here among the ranks of someone else’s self-styled despot, demanding change neither one can nor is willing to see good reason for, we find that we are, nonetheless, pointed in a particular direction, and that despite the triumphs and losses of our societies and our civilization, what settles is usually a little better, a little further ahead, a little less at odds or antithetical to what was the agreed upon reality before the indiscriminate break down of peace. It makes one wonder whether the bombs and the fires and the labor camps and the general destruction in the name of what amounted to anything worth the cost if we could have wound up there anyways without it. And certainly we will understand when we’ve all had enough of the death and destruction in some distant future, when we all finally agree we are each, as individuals, just as much subject to the realities of human nature as our comrades and our enemies, and it is just no longer worth squabbling over who is more susceptible to them.

Undoubtedly, when we all finally agree that the dissent, the questioning, the talk and debate are precisely what is keeping us from a sincere quest for the unattainable, for the idol utopia, we will begin to understand that other people live amid a reality that is just as valid to them as our perception of our reality is to us, and that it must be in our singular incapacity to understand the remarkable complexity of this great unknown by which we depend for our very presence and existence here, at all. Indeed, a civilization’s worth of minds will accomplish far more as a whole than what any fraction of that whole could ever hope to accomplish alone.

Here, today, in light of the past, something is being maintained through it all that we always seem to return to once the dust settles. We are bound and in this binding we build, we rebuild, we negotiate, we renegotiate. However things wind up, we wind up back at a homeostasis, though with something lost, but also with something gained as we must find better and better reasons to remain peaceful as we live closer and closer together. Far too often what we have gained, for all it is worth, is a revealing of the worst we are capable of and an ever increasing realization that we are just as human as those we most fear and hate. We are the dystopian overlords of our enemies, just as much as our enemies are dystopian overlords to us. It is one in the same, the tyranny and the ideal. It need only be a matter of perspective. So, what will we do in the quest for our utopia? Or, more importantly, what will we not do?

However things wind up, we wind up back at a place that is stable enough that we may once again ponder the complexities of our world in our all to human way which inevitably looks toward the future and possibility. But for once, perhaps it is a possibility in light of how things are, as opposed to how we demand they should be, though, as yet, that is too much of a fantasy, and what a fantasy it is in which we humans might have a little less fantasy in our dealings with one another, but, in any case, knowing that it is a fantasy is a good and humble place to start.