
Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun (1943) - monort
http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/socialists/english/e_fun
======
RangerScience
Perhaps it used to be the case that people had trouble imagining a utopia, but
here's two solid utopias (or near enough) I've encountered in fiction: the
entirety of Ian M Bank's "Culture"; and the second chapter of Cory Doctorow's
"Walkaway".

Also, there's the perennial example of Burning Man (and related festivals) -
here's an example of people creating happiness that has little to do with the
removal of scarcities, and plenty to do with the addition of abundance.

To go off @mactintyre's selection: if "nearly all creators of Utopia have
resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists
in not having toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an
endless continuation of something that had only been valuable because it was
temporary", well, seems to me that's a failure of imagination and experience
more than an incapacity in humans or reality.

You could also look to Asimov's "Profession"
([http://www.inf.ufpr.br/renato/profession.html](http://www.inf.ufpr.br/renato/profession.html))
- again, while not exactly a Utopia, it's decently close - and more
importantly:

"It won’t do to say to a man, ‘You can create. Do so.’ It is much safer to
wait for a man to say, ‘I can create, and I will do so whether you wish it or
not.’"

These are the people that, when all scarcity has been eliminated, take that
bland contentedness which results and turn into something _more_.

Not to say the Orwell is wrong - he's on the nose: "Happiness hitherto has
been a by-product, and for all we know it may always remain so. The real
objective of Socialism is human brotherhood."

~~~
smsm42
> Also, there's the perennial example of Burning Man

Which is a temporary outlet for a select very affluent few Westerners (non-
affluent person wouldn't even be able to afford transportation and supplies,
not mentioning $500 entrance fee) who drive there for a week (increasingly
accompanied by air-conditioned tents and personal chefs), frolic in costumes
or negligee, burn stuff down for fun and return to their regular lives. A lot
of fun, but I can't see how any sane person can see it as a model for a
society.

> The real objective of Socialism is human brotherhood

Somehow in the real socialism it happens in exactly the opposite way (the
famous joke is that under capitalism man exploits man, and under socialism
it's the other way around). Socialism always produces the nomenklatura (note
that I have to use a Russian word for it, because it is so inherent to the
largest Socialist experiment in history) and the privilege networks (another
Russian word, "blat") which create a complex network of inequality and
privileged access to formally "equal" benefits. In a capitalist society, most
inequality is monetary - through class, sex and race play its role, ultimately
money usually overcomes most of it (especially in a modern society, where
things like open racism are frowned upon). In a socialist one, not only money
can't do much without privilege, if you are outside the privilege network, the
mere attempt to make this money (or otherwise route around the privilege
network) would get you imprisoned or executed. Some brotherhood it is.

~~~
panarky
Proof by example is a logical fallacy.

 _I know that x, which is a member of group X, has the property P. Therefore,
membership in X causes property P._

I can play this game too.

Haiti, Ethiopia, Liberia, India, Honduras and Somalia have market economies,
and they are poor. Therefore, market economies make nations poor.

There's really not much to learn from this kind of argument.

~~~
krustyburger
It seems that the phenomena the parent describes were or are present in all
instances of fully implemented socialism to date, not just in the USSR.

Since you edited to add your counter-examples, I’ll edit to point out that
socialism is a system that has been deliberately implemented by its
instantiators in each case I’m aware of. To compare it to capitalism, but only
those capitalist countries that have suffered lawlessness or other calamity,
is to compare apples to oranges.

~~~
panarky
You don't need to speak Russian to understand the nomenklatura. It's a group
of privileged people who are appointed to positions of power based on their
personal loyalty to the leader or to the party.

Seems like a very familiar concept ripped from today's headlines, certainly
not restricted to archaic economic systems.

I usually find that apples and oranges are quite easy to compare.

~~~
krustyburger
You seem to have a habit of dramatically changing your comments after you’ve
posted them, without noting that you’ve done so. In this case, you originally
posted only what now seems to be your final sentence, the one about apples and
oranges, then added everything that now precedes it. I have the sense that you
are hoping for a political argument.

------
apo
I'm always amazed at how readable and relevant Orwell remains. This essay is a
good example.

 _It would seem that human beings are not able to describe, nor perhaps to
imagine, happiness except in terms of contrast. ..._

I wonder if this also works in reverse: humans are incapable of describing or
imagining unhappiness except in terms of contrast.

This reminds me of a line that goes something like: revolutions happen not
because of poverty but through the process of a society becoming poorer.

~~~
daodedickinson
Hmm... I guess I'm not amazed that something written less than 100 years ago
seems relevant when Aristophanes is still hilarious.

~~~
badcede
Almost nothing from 50 years ago is even remembered, let alone still read, let
alone as fresh as Orwell. You make the same point by giving him Aristophanes
for company.

------
mactintyre
A great anti-elitist rant.

Beautiful language: "Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who
has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having
toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an endless continuation
of something that had only been valuable because it was temporary. ... when
[Swift] tries to create a superman, [he] leaves one with the impression the
very last he can have intended that the stinking Yahoos had in them more
possibility of development than the enlightened Houyhnhnms."

------
smacktoward
_At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin
of Sasha [Alexander Berkman], a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face,
as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to
me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such
reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to
become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the
Cause._

 _I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind
his own business, I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my
face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for
anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should
demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect
me to become a nun and that the movement should not be turned into a cloister.
If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-
expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things."_

\-- Emma Goldman, _Living My Life_ (1931)
[http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/goldman/Features/danceswithfemin...](http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/goldman/Features/danceswithfeminists.html)

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Goldman wasn't the kind of socialist that Orwell is describing.

Orwell was obsessively critical of Authoritarian Socialism - namely big [S]
State Socialism as represented by the Soviet Union.

That is in stark contrast with Goldman's Democratic Anarcho-Socialism which
shares little relation - philosophically or sentimentally - with the State
Socialism that Orwell was writing about.

~~~
stcredzero
_Orwell was obsessively critical of Authoritarian Socialism - namely big [S]
State Socialism as represented by the Soviet Union._

I don't think George Orwell would necessarily be cotton to variations of
Authoritarian Socialism implemented in very large corporations.

 _That is in stark contrast with Goldman 's Democratic Anarcho-Socialism which
shares little relation - philosophically or sentimentally - with the State
Socialism that Orwell was writing about._

I have friends who claim to be "anarcho-" something, who at the same time
espouse state socialist politics. Their action in aggregate is often
authoritarian, and I don't see how any anarchic politics can prevent the
oppressive rule of a majority. As such mechanisms play out in my private life,
it seems that anarchy results in less diversity of thought and virulent
oppression of minority viewpoints.

EDIT: My corollary -- Oppressive tribalism is just a later stage development
of anarchy.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
My post was a historical contextualization about the thrust and focus of
Orwell's criticism of Socialism, as the parent seemed to be trying to object
to the premise with an anecdote from a "socialist" with whimsical
predilections. The implicit point there, being that there was a categorical
error being made.

I do not claim to say anything about possible or theoretical corollaries that
Orwell may or may not have drawn around hierarchical structures more broadly.

To your last point, conflicts around self-organizing groups and spontaneous
formation of oppressive hierarchies is an ongoing debate within Anarchistic
philosophy itself, so no new ground tread there simply by stating it.

See: Proudhoun, Bakunin, Kropotkin etc...

~~~
stcredzero
In that case, you really need to do something about self styled "anarchists"
on social media declaring that they can do any evil to fight evil, so long as
they use just a little less evil.

From what I can see, thought leadership doesn't reach the "anarchist" on the
street, leaving them to wallow in a toxic tribalism which is welcoming of
nihilistic violence. Have all the erudite debates you want. Others are
presenting a far different face to the public. The fact that the media will
then dissemble and cover for such actions and attitudes then makes it all much
worse.

Or is it ok to use evil to fight evil, so long as you use a little less?

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Well, Anarchism has been pretty successfully demonized, misinterpreted and put
into the "evil" bin with every other -ism except for capitalism. Kind of hard
to organize when you're whole philosophy is allergic to hierarchical
structures. When Noam Chomsky is your most famous public personality it's hard
to build a broad and passionate following.

I don't see it getting anything like mainstream traction ever, as it's a
lifestyle as much as it is a philosophy. I also don't think it's how people
naturally behave. People seem to like to be ruled, so long as they have just
enough freedom.

~~~
bena
I don't think anarchists have _really_ thought through their position or have
noticed particular ironies within it.

At its core, it's basically everyone doing themselves. I do my thing, you do
your thing, it's all good. Until the thing I want to do interferes with your
thing. And yes, we _could_ come to some agreement. But there is going to be a
certain segment of asshole that will just decide: Me strong, you weak, and
just override you.

And that's what you really get, a rule of the weak by the strong. Unless, of
course, we gather enough of us to overwhelm the asshole. But what if, in our
group, we have conflicts? Well, we have _some_ rules. Yeah, not everyone will
get exactly what they want all the time, but a tiny bit of compromise is still
better than having the asshole take your stuff for the fifth time this week.

But that's a winning strategy. And don't think the assholes won't notice. Then
they get groups. So the groups escalate further and further. And as you bring
in more and more people, there are more and more rules. Eventually, what you
will have done is simply to have recreated modern governmental structures. We
are living in the endgame of anarchy.

So, I don't think it's so much that "people like to be ruled", as much as
"people would rather there be a set of standards people are expected to
follow". Someone needs to enforce the social contract.

I don't think anarchism is evil, just naive.

~~~
pdonis
_> At its core, it's basically everyone doing themselves._

No, it isn't. Anarchists can cooperate; in fact, rational anarchists will
certainly cooperate with each other, to reap the benefits of specialization
and trade and comparative advantage.

What anarchists object to is being _forced_ to cooperate when, if left to
themselves, they would choose not to.

 _> there is going to be a certain segment of asshole that will just decide:
Me strong, you weak, and just override you._

These people exist whether society is an anarchy or not. The difference is, in
an anarchy, they have no way to capture more resources and power by, for
example, becoming politicians or regulators or lobbyists or heads of
corporations getting government favors. Whereas, in the system we have now...

In other words, anarchists are basically pointing out that trying to "fix" the
problem of assholes by having a government is a "cure" that is worse than the
disease.

 _> Someone needs to enforce the social contract._

You enforce the social contract socially: by refusing to deal with people who
do not respect it. In an anarchy, everyone has that option; and therefore
people who do not respect the social contract quickly find themselves
ostracized and powerless.

Whereas, in the system we have now, people can break the social contract with
impunity without losing anything, if they can get themselves into certain
privileged positions.

~~~
PeterisP
It seems to me that this argument essentially relies on everyone being an
anarchist. This is not the case for systems we have observed in reality -
totalitarian regimes can function even if significant parts of population
don't want to be in a totalitarian regime; democracies can function (perhaps
poorly, but function) even if significant parts of population don't agree with
core principles of democracy; oligarchies have functioned as well without much
of the society not acting in an oligarchic manner.

Does the same apply to your vision of anarchy? Is your proposed method of
enforcing the social contract _stable in the face of adversity_ (a Nash
equilibrium of sorts)? I.e. for a non-anarchist participant, is it _really_ in
their own best selfish interest to participate in that enforcement instead of
defecting, and _not_ refusing to deal with people who don't respect the
anarchist social contract because it's good for them at that point of time? In
an anarchy, everyone has _that_ option as well, and if the boycott isn't
sufficiently strong (which IMHO requires it to be organized, monitored and
_enforced_ to work in any community much larger than Dunbar's number), then
people who do not respect that social contract do _not_ find themselves
ostracized and powerless; especially since they'll be dealing between
themselves if the anarchist community does not. Are there sufficiently strong
incentives for people to actually 'keep to the plan' and fully ostracize the
others? There will be some misdeeds done by well-loved, respected members of
the community against someone that's not liked - will _those_ misdeeds be
punished at all? It's not sufficient to _try_ to ostracize them if there's
enough critical mass (which is quite small) for them to be somewhat self-
sufficient; there certainly will be both individual maniacs and random gangs
and extended family clans that will laugh at such ostracism, in which case you
need to be able to reliably organize enough violence to physically prevent
them from breaking the social contract and getting away with it; and you need
to be able to get everyone to agree that this person or group _has_ broken the
social contract, instead of you just wanting to remove a competitor.

My core point is probably the following:

1\. there would inevitably be certain sub-groups run by decidedly non-
anarchistic principles, obtaining strong cohesion by whatever means. Cliques,
family units/clans, groups of friends, etc - the concept and benefits of
cooperation can't be eliminated.

2\. at least some of these groups (or their leaders) _would_ have a way to
capture more resources and power by easily taking them from any disorganized
groups or disjoint individuals, so either:

3a. the surrounding anarchists would be forced to cooperate in a sufficiently
organized manner, to become a _larger_ and _more organized_ group than the
local strongman/warlord/whatever, and enforce that social contract on them;
and be prepared to do it _permanently_ , as otherwise the threat would re-
appear - in which case that organizational structure and its decisionmaking
process, whatever it may be, is a de-facto non-anarchistic ruler of that area.

3b. the surrounding anarchists do not manage to cooperate in a way that
results in them being the largest/most organized group in the area, in which
case, their communities are eventually 'eaten up' by the larger non-
anarchistic groups/organizations that force their will on them, and eliminate
anarchy in that area.

Can you imagine (and describe) how would an anarchistic community operate
sustainably next to a miniature equivalent of North Korea, a plantation using
slaves, or a religious cult that's eager to push their rules onto everybody
they can? How would many village-sized anarchistic communities cooperate to
unify against a common threat that one or two villages can't handle on their
own? For a social system to be possible, it has to be somewhat stable, it has
to be able to overcome competing systems (both from within and from outside);
both dictatorships and democracies have shown themselves to be capable of
resisting/suppressing at least a certain size of revolution attempts; if a
system can be overthrown or overtaken by a reasonably organized band of men,
then it _will_ be overthrown, and if such threats force a system to change,
then the system _will_ change and the unchanged system can't exist.

All competing systems have processes to eliminate other systems (i.e. enforce
their rule) within their 'zone of control' \- if anarchy has no plausible
process to enforce 'rule of anarchy' i.e. prevent pockets of democracy or
dictatorship or theocracy or whatever from rising, thriving and expanding
within its zone of control, that's what will happen and the anarchy will
cease.

~~~
bena
Not just anarchists, but also agree to follow a certain set of rules or laws
that will be enforced by no one.

Even the "ideal" he is putting forth isn't _really_ anarchy. Because anarchy
means absolute freedom and the minute you don't allow someone something,
freedom isn't absolute. And the minute you get two people living as some sort
of unit, you have compromise.

Cooperation is good, systems of cooperation are better. Government is a
solution to the problem of individual trust. In a completely anarchistic
system, I can't trust you and you can't trust me. Either of us are allowed to
break our bond at any time. We need an impartial third party to manage our
interactions so that if one of us decides to screw the other, that person is
appropriately admonished. Something to govern interactions of citizens, if you
will. So whatever system you've set up to govern the interactions of your
citizens is de facto a government. Even if you don't explicitly call it that.

~~~
pdonis
_> anarchy means absolute freedom_

No, it doesn't. It means the absence of government. Nobody has absolute
freedom; even in the absence of government, everyone has to deal with other
people in some ways.

 _> In a completely anarchistic system, I can't trust you and you can't trust
me._

This is simply false. Do you trust your friends? If so, would you stop
trusting them if there were no government?

There are plenty of ways for people in the absence of government to build
trust relationships with each other.

 _> We need an impartial third party to manage our interactions so that if one
of us decides to screw the other, that person is appropriately admonished. _

And you think government, as it actually is instead of as it might be in
somebody's idealized model, is such an impartial third party? Surely you jest.

~~~
bena
Yes it does. It is the very definition.

[https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/anarchy](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/anarchy)

Absolute freedom.

You do understand I'm talking about two strangers. Of course, you can build
trust between people over time. But no one comes into a situation with trust.
And if we can't start on a basis of trust, then we can't start. Knowing there
are repercussions for breaking that trust allows us to treat.

You're the one peddling a libertarian fiction novel as the-one-true-way and
not even taking half a second to consider the actual ramifications. Or if
"anarchy" is what you actually want. (Hint: it isn't)

~~~
pdonis
_> It is the very definition_

You can't make reality be the way you want it to be by defining words. Nobody
has absolute freedom in reality.

 _> Knowing there are repercussions for breaking that trust allows us to
treat._

There are repercussions for breaking trust whether there is government or not.

If your claim is that governments do better at enabling trust relationships to
develop than a society without government (I'll stop saying "anarchy" since
you keep quibbling about the definition of that term) would, then please show
your work. From where I sit, governments have possibly done better in some
respects, but those benefits, on net, are more than outweighed by the ways in
which governments allow people in positions of power to abuse trust without
paying any price.

~~~
bena
No, you can't, so I suggest _you_ stop trying to do that.

I'm using the common, accepted definitions. You're trying to define "thug" to
mean "can't engage in productive endeavors" and "government" to include a
coercive element. Neither is commonly accepted.

I nobody has absolute freedom in reality, then by your admission, anarchy is
impossible and what you want isn't anarchy.

Yeah, if we agree on something and I break that agreement, the repercussion is
you don't like me. Whoop de shit. I can fleece you as hard as I want until
that point.

Once you envision a body that will recover your property, you have envisioned
a type of government. The problem is you have a very narrow definition of
"government". You only see it as a bunch of people "in charge" in a central
building making laws by fiat (even though that's pretty reductionist, but then
again, you are). It's not always that.

Even an ad hoc, informal system of rules and enforcement is a government.

~~~
pdonis
_> I'm using the common, accepted definitions_

I strongly disagree, but at this point I don't think further argument will
help. You and I are simply speaking different languages, and I don't have the
time or the inclination to try to learn yours, and I get the idea you feel the
same about mine.

------
eezurr
Note: I am responding to comments here, haven't read the article yet.

Utopia is not possible because the desires and wants of millions of people
(focusing on a country) don't overlap with everyone else's 100%, or sometimes
not at all. We also don't live long enough to truly appreciate what we have
today, as I'm sure people from hundreds of years ago would think today's
society is a utopia: (basically) infinite potable cold and hot water, heat and
air conditioning, electricity, sewage removal, relative privacy, trash
removal, modern medicine, fast, cheap transportation, a wide variety of fresh
food all year round, internet... I could go on.

So maybe utopia is genuine appreciation on a personal level for what one has.
You can't do this without contrast, and contrast is best developed from real
experiences. Maybe one could spend a couple weeks out in the woods with canned
food and a stream for water (and no electronics except a flashlight), and come
back with a new found understanding for the amount of convenience and comfort
one has in this modern life.

~~~
nradov
That's pretty close to some schools of Buddhist philosophy.

------
stcredzero
_Here you have a picture of the world as Wells would like to see it or thinks
he would like to see it. It is a world whose keynotes are enlightened hedonism
and scientific curiosity. All the evils and miseries we now suffer from have
vanished. Ignorance, war, poverty, dirt, disease, frustration, hunger, fear,
overwork, superstition all vanished...But is there anyone who actually wants
to live in a Wellsian Utopia? On the contrary, not to live in a world like
that, not to wake up in a hygenic garden suburb infested by naked schoolmarms,
has actually become a conscious political motive._

This is a neat summary of the ideological contradiction of the Bay Area and
Silicon Valley. Everyone wants edginess with safety, but no one wants the
Disnified, safe version of edginess. We want the hard-nosed meritocracy of
innovation, technical prowess, and commerce, but we don't want to let our
children risk even the failure of losing in sports.

 _All ‘favourable’ Utopias seem to be alike in postulating perfection while
being unable to suggest happiness._

'Favorable' Utopias are like Mary Sue characters or fanfics without real
conflict. There is no interest without real risk and real adversity. Even Iain
M. Bank's Culture universe has imperfections, conflict, and death, even if
there are untold trillions in it living idyllic lives of enlightened hedonism
and curiosity.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Humans can't really tell the difference between real and simulated risk.

Online games are incredibly compelling for the people who play them, but
they're a lot less risky than taking part in a real war and risking real blood
and real body parts.

I don't see why we couldn't sublimate games like economics in the same way.
The experience of winning would be almost identical, but simulations wouldn't
have to be zero sum in the way that meatspace acquisition games usually are.

~~~
otakucode
Err, I think going much further down that line of reasoning, you will discover
something unpleasant: The winning, for some, isn't as important as someone
else losing.

~~~
eseehausen
Which can still happen in a simulated way that minimizes harm but maximizes
perceived harm by the inflictor. The gory death of an opponent in an FPS who
respawns without incident elsewhere, for instance.

~~~
stcredzero
_Which can still happen in a simulated way that minimizes harm but maximizes
perceived harm by the inflictor._

The old form of this is known as "sports."

------
ballenf
There's a fundamental conflict between conceptual Utopia/Heaven and the law of
supply and demand. All literary conceptions of a utopia rely on abundance of
some good that is scarce in the author's time. Usually ignoring that its
ubiquity makes it tend toward zero value.

Here's my stab at Utopia, but it requires a belief that Knowledge is infinite:

Utopia is a state of unhindered, continual learning at your own chosen pace.

~~~
larrydag
The U.S. founding fathers had another definition which is life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. It is very individualized. Suggests it is relevant
to the one as opposed to relevant to the masses. Very anti-elitist on its own
merit.

~~~
saagarjha
The “pursuit of happiness” is what is being discussed, given that “life” and
“liberty” are already guaranteed. The question is, how exactly to pursue
happiness.

~~~
stcredzero
Basically, keep striving until you are satisfied.

[https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy](https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy)

------
saagarjha
This article focuses on a utopia of worldy pleasures, and goes on to explain
why such a place would be a pretty boring place to live. But that’s just human
nature: we’re never permently satisfied with what we have. The only way that
we feel happiness from these things is if we get more of whatever it is, and
that’s kind of impossible in a utopia. However, I still think there’s a way to
get satisfaction out of a world like this: through learning. Even if we, at
some point, discover everything there is to know, I think it’s still possible
to find joy, since there people will be born unaware of this knowledge.
Perhaps we might even mark a lifetime by the amount of time it takes to learn
everything.

~~~
guelo
I would say through making. Making things gives life purpose, something to
struggle against and triumph over. And you also get to learn. Learning for
learning's sake doesn't give you the sense of purpose as learning in order to
make something great .

~~~
cfqycwz
Marx and others who elaborated on his work developed the notion of alienation
under capital—the notion that capitalism really screws up the specific sort of
pleasure you describe. The idea, if I'm not messing it up too badly, is that a
worker under capitalism encounters the stuff they make as something alien to
them—and in fact something that shapes and brings the worker into being rather
than the other way around. I know I experienced this phenomenon all the time
staring at code on a screen when I was working in tech.

------
petermcneeley
"This Christmas Day, thousands of men will be bleeding to death in the Russian
snows, or drowning in icy waters, or blowing one another to pieces on swampy
islands of the Pacific; homeless children will be scrabbling for food among
the wreckage of German cities." \- Should be some context for how completely
alien the world of the writer is to us now.

~~~
ConceptJunkie
It may be alien to us, but there are millions of people for which this
describes their reality.

~~~
beat
But millions less than there were even a few decades ago. The world is making
progress toward peace, health, safety, and a decent standard of living at an
_extraordinary_ pace right now.

This is not to say everything is hunky-dory. But it is to say that this is no
longer World War II.

edit: Where do you think all the Syrian and Lebanese restaurants in America
came from? Refugees from the collapse of the Ottoman empire post-WWI. It was
just as bad then as it is now. But it can get better, and I am totally
convinced it will.

Every wave of immigration that made America what it is today came from people
fleeing poverty and violence. Hardly anyone emigrates away from a safe,
comfortable life with family and friends and familiar sights nearby. In the
19th century, 20% of the population of Sweden came to the US to escape famine.
Sweden was 90% illiterate, mired in extreme poverty, with a birth rate above
5. Now, it's... Sweden. The most civilized country in the world.

If Sweden can evolve from an impoverished hellhole to being the epitome of
modern civilization in a century, why can't the same thing happen to Syria? Or
Sudan? Or Myanmar? I think it can, and it will.

~~~
merdreubu
>If Sweden can evolve from an impoverished hellhole to being the epitome of
modern civilization in a century, why can't the same thing happen to Syria? Or
Sudan? Or Myanmar? I think it can, and it will.

Except Sweden one hundred years ago was not an impoverished hellhole. In fact,
it was one of the richest (maybe the richest) countries on earth, smack in the
middle of the most developed, richest and urbanized part of Europe (the Baltic
region) already enjoying a booming economy and 100 years of peace.

~~~
jpatokal
Sweden in the 1920s was indeed in a comparatively sweet spot, but so was much
of Western world before the Great Depression and WW2 hit. However, by modern
standards, Sweden was still quite poor and agrarian: life expectancy for both
men and women was under 50 years until the 1890s, and it was the last nation
in Europe to experience a major natural famine in 1867-9, with ~15% of the
population dying.

[http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-
subjec...](http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-
area/population/population-composition/population-statistics/pong/tables-and-
graphs/yearly-statistics--the-whole-country/life-expectancy/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_famine_of_1867%E2%80%9...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_famine_of_1867%E2%80%931869)

------
tonyedgecombe
Judging by the list of _" Ignorance, war, poverty, dirt, disease, frustration,
hunger, fear, overwork, superstition all vanished."_ it seems many of us are
living in a utopia yet we still aren't satisfied.

~~~
saagarjha
Are you? Do you have no worries in the world?

~~~
beaner
Many do not. There is a theory of something called the Power Process, which
states that for people to be happy, they need goals which require effort, and
need to achieve at least some of those goals. The lack of meaningful goals
which require effort in the first world may be responsible for much of the
depression, suicide, and other issues that plague us today.

I found this Medium post which quotes the relevant parts:
[https://medium.com/chris-messina/surrogate-activities-the-
po...](https://medium.com/chris-messina/surrogate-activities-the-power-
process-16203dda87)

~~~
fucking_tragedy
> There is a theory of something called the Power Process,

This is not a theory in the scientific sense. It's an idea Ted Kaczynski, the
Unabomber, wrote about in his manifesto.

~~~
beaner
Ok, not sure how that changes the point.

------
tim333
He never really gets to the point in the title about not believing in fun

He says reasonably enough

>...not in order to establish some central-heated, air-conditioned, strip-
lighted Paradise, but because they want a world in which human beings love one
another instead of swindling and murdering one another.

But the fact you don't want an aircon paradise doesn't have to mean no to fun.
Why not party / go surfing / whatever seems fun?

------
badcede
Heaven is a place, a place where nothing, nothing ever happens.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bKW7JkHKm8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bKW7JkHKm8)

------
all_usernames
This site is blocked by openDNS for malware distribution :-/

~~~
everybodyknows
umatrix tells me the site, orwell.ru, wants to load a script from yandex.ru.

When Orwell wrote the essay he may still have been feeling his combat wounds
from the Spanish Civil War, where he took a bullet in the neck from one of
Franco's snipers. He also spent some days manning barricades in the streets of
Barcelona, futilely resisting a coup within the Republican government,
instigated by a Soviet-backed faction.

Something ironic in that, with the page here coming from a .ru TLD.

------
Semiapies
Seems like a good counterpoint to the silly, loaded argument of "Those Who
Walk Away from Omelas", which boils down to "Can you imagine a perfect, happy,
society and take that seriously?"

The answer is that few people really can, even among those people who think
society can be perfected.

------
DannyB2
Just an opinion here.

The article says a number of things about the Christian Heaven. But fails to
recognize the premise is that people who go there are changed. On the inside.
There is peace, on the outside, because there is peace in the heart, on the
inside. There is contentment, because it is on the inside. There isn't a lust
for power and control over other people's lives. Nor any shortage of
resources. And the biggest thing described as great about Heaven is being in
God's presence. Not material things or power.

The problem with all other utopias is that they seem to imagine something that
people create without a change on the inside. People have tried to create
ideal kingdoms for millennia. The problem is that its seeds of destruction are
on our insides. It is us that is the problem.

~~~
jmawesome
The idea of peace in the heart in Christian Heaven is an idea entirely absent
in the New Testament. Peace, in the NT, is always interpersonal--and it's this
very thing that causes conceptions of heaven to fail.

To describe it as peaceful, as tranquil is not the point. To describe it as
peaceful, where all have been reconciled and relationships have been restored
starts to capture an essence of what the purpose is.

~~~
rcoveson
Would it be fair to describe it as a place where nothing ever happens?

~~~
TimTheTinker
Actually, there's a lot of activity, responsibility, and work to be done once
heaven arrives. A few thoughts:

In the final state, there will be new heavens and a new earth (i.e. a very
physical Earth like we know it now, with mountains, trees, grass, animals) --
a sort of Eden restored, but better, since God's throne and presence will be
_on_ the earth, instead of in a separate place (Revelation 22, Isaiah 11).
There will be cities to rule, a lot of responsibility and work to do, many
"ages to come" in which things will change (scripture references provided on
request).

Imagine the grandeur of Tolkien's and Lewis's fantasy novels -- the ages upon
ages of interesting history and characters. I honestly don't understand how
the narrative will work without any antagonists present, because we presently
understand narratives via conflict and resolution. The "they lived happily
ever after" seems rather bereft of content, and is kept for the very end of
stories. I suspect that's because we have yet to see what the great, true
"happily ever after" looks like.

However, the boredom with eternity that Orwell alludes to will not be present,
simply because of the person of God. He is full of infinite love, creativity,
power, etc... and he will be the delight of all who are there -- that sort of
ever-flowing fountain of life and "newness". Indeed, without God himself,
everything would get incredibly dull after a while. Jesus says as much in his
prayer to the Father in John 17: ".. and this is eternal life, that they may
know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." The "life"
here is love, joy, and peace, not merely length of days.

~~~
Kye
>> _" I honestly don't understand how the narrative will work without any
antagonists present, because we presently understand narratives via conflict
and resolution. The "they lived happily ever after" seems rather bereft of
content, and is kept for the very end of stories."_

There are other ways to tell a story. For example, you've probably run into
kishōtenketsu without realizing it:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish%C5%8Dtenketsu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish%C5%8Dtenketsu)

------
bryanlarsen
1943 was the same year that Maslow first presented his hierarchy of needs. I
believe that it goes much further to explain the requirements for human
happiness.

------
sehugg
Lest the headline imply otherwise, Orwell was a proponent of democratic
socialism: _“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has
been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for
democratic socialism, as I understand it.”_

------
projektir
I never liked the formulation that utopia is not worth it because people lack
the creativity to imagine what could be done for fun in it. It's like we've
never tried but hey here's an explanation as to why you shouldn't want it! It
should really not be a surprise that imagination is lacking here because for a
lot of people, happiness is just defined as having things other people don't
have, because that's simply how we came out to be wired and because we
continue to live in a world that follows those principles.

 _Until those principles_ have been modified, you have no idea what a utopia
is and would look like. _This has never, ever, been the case_ , not in any
society you can think of. You might think you live in some super nice
societies but you have never escaped those principles.

Utopia isn't about making people not have toothaches or whatever anymore.
That's not the point. Utopia is about letting people live in a manner that
they would want, not in the manner, currently, prescribed by the law of the
powerful and the powerless.

But if you really think that if suddenly your problems being solved, you'd
find nothing to do, you are not thinking hard enough, and you are already too
wrapped up in the thinking of having things other people don't have. It's a
mindset problem of people born into a world working on that principle and it's
a hard one to rewrite.

~~~
n4r9
> Utopia is about letting people live in a manner that they would want

One of the lessons I learnt from Huxley's Brave New World is that this
phrasing is very ambiguous and the meaning of utopia is more complicated, if
the word is indeed meaningful. The people in BNW live in the manner that they
desire, but not many would call it a utopia. Sure, those desires themselves
are the result of genetic and environmental conditioning, but so are ours!

It seems to me that Huxley is saying that some element of struggle and
overcoming of adversity is necessary for human flourishing.

~~~
ConceptJunkie
Between Huxley ("Brave New World") and Orwell ("1984"), I think Huxley saw the
future more accurately, although Orwell has amazing insights.

I actually thought that "Wall-E" was a good, and particularly accessible,
commentary on utopia. Without the need to strive, we might all just turn into
human potatoes. I'm not far from that now, which is pretty frightening.

~~~
yojex
I just want to mention here for those who haven't heard of it: Huxley's
"Island" explores the complement to the ideas presented in "Brave New World",
i.e. it is an imagining of utopia. I highly recommend it.

------
lostmsu
Most here can eat 3 times a day, have fresh water, warm home and go wherever
they want. We are living in an utopia.

------
CalChris
Interesting that Orwell adopts Eliot as an _English writer_. He was from Saint
Louis and educated at Harvard.

~~~
vixen99
Eliot renounced his American passport and became a British subject. Orwell
respected that decision.

------
lordleft
My absolute favorite Orwell essay - it cemented my appreciation of him as an
essayist and political thinker.

------
caf
The original 1943 title this was published under was _Can Socialists Be
Happy?_ The title used here was used in a later republishing.

------
dragonwriter
Socialists believe in fun.

Socialists Orwell was familiar with 75 years ago may not have written much
about fun (or, at least things Orwell found fun) in their utopian literature,
but I suspect hat that's largely because _recreation wasn 't an area of
society that they felt needed fixed_, so it wasn't the focus of it utopian
literature.

In any case, I'm not sure how much relevance the observation (much less the
explanation offered for it) has now, even if it had some in 1943; more recent
left-wing utopian fiction _does_ address recreation (whether Orwell would find
the utopias described therein to be fun is, I suppose, an open and
unanswerable question), notably including Callenbach’s _Ecotopia_ , which
certainly is more relevant to the views of the modern American (or Western,
more generally) left than the works referenced in Orwell’s work.

------
cafard
I guess the question is, "Which socialists?"

Nancy Mitford professed herself a socialist, yet wrote frivolous social comedy
about the English and French upper classes. Kingsley Amis at one point was a
communist, and wrote very funny novels.

------
notthegov
A perfect society requires demonetization.

------
Koshkin
Socialism is like love - it does not work on a large scale.

------
mc32
The problem, at least back then, was that fun and such “non-essential” things
were considered either bourgeois or vulgar. Both of which were looked down
upon because they were the opposite of work and progress and the greater good.
At least to some in power.

~~~
Jolter
This comment looks almost entirely unrelated to the text of the linked
article.

~~~
fucking_tragedy
I'd have to agree. Here's the thesis of the article:

> The inability of mankind to imagine happiness except in the form of relief,
> either from effort or pain, presents Socialists with a serious problem.
> Dickens can describe a poverty-stricken family tucking into a roast goose,
> and can make them appear happy; on the other hand, the inhabitants of
> perfect universes seem to have no spontaneous gaiety and are usually
> somewhat repulsive into the bargain. But clearly we are not aiming at the
> kind of world Dickens described, nor, probably, at any world he was capable
> of imagining. The Socialist objective is not a society where everything
> comes right in the end, because kind old gentlemen give away turkeys. What
> are we aiming at, if not a society in which ‘charity’ would be unnecessary?
> We want a world where Scrooge, with his dividends, and Tiny Tim, with his
> tuberculous leg, would both be unthinkable. But does that mean we are aiming
> at some painless, effortless Utopia? At the risk of saying something which
> the editors of Tribune may not endorse, I suggest that the real objective of
> Socialism is not happiness. Happiness hitherto has been a by-product, and
> for all we know it may always remain so. The real objective of Socialism is
> human brotherhood.

------
daodedickinson
Of course, "brotherhood" is as impossible as "happiness" without contrast,
even more so whatever replaces it when it isn't inclusive enough.

