
Dystopia Is What Results from the Attempt to Create Utopia - unquote
https://kirkcenter.org/essays/would-you-recognize-a-dystopia-if-you-saw-one/
======
_bxg1
I don't strongly disagree on any particular point, per se, but the fact that
the author's thoughts are rooted in a religious worldview felt like it was
snuck in there at the end:

"Moreover, this world is fallen, so it is by nature flawed...The utopian
visions that animate real places...seek to remake humanity and society in
someone’s image—and that is not the image of the Creator."

For further context, the website it's on is "The Russel Kirk Center for
Cultural Renewal"; from its Wikipedia page: "The Center is known for promoting
traditionalist conservatism and regularly publishing Studies in Burke and His
Time and The University Bookman, the oldest conservative book review in the
United States."

Not that these things invalidate it necessarily, but they're important context
to place it in.

Overall I'd say the article is more an argument about semantic nuance than a
grand social commentary. Probably a valid semantic critique, but nonetheless.

~~~
kerbalspacepro
>this world is fallen

Makes the entire article essentially meaningless. How can I trust somebody
with such a bizarre and unconnected worldview?

~~~
philwelch
I’m not religious myself, but I think you’re letting some weird biases get in
the way here. The point is that the world and the work of human beings is
flawed, fallible, and imperfect. Whether or not heaven exists in heaven, it
certainly doesn’t exist on earth and essentially never can.

~~~
Retric
That’s a very religious view. At most you can say humans are not what you wish
them to be.

Where a crystal may have ‘defects’ that’s meaningless for a pile of sand.
Further, defects can be more useful than a perfect crystalline structure.

So, to say perfection is unobtainable requires a strict definition of
perfection and absolute proof it’s impossible. Both, are very high hurdles.

~~~
coldtea
> _That’s a very religious view. Humans are not necessarily flawed_

Historically they have been. At least they're not up to our own standards.

We can kill, lie, cheat, brutalize, exploit, each other, and we do so daily in
the billions.

We might not be total bastards, but we're no perfectly fine people either.

~~~
Retric
> We can kill, lie, cheat, brutalize, exploit, each other, and we do so daily
> in the billions.

All of those can be very useful traits. Evolution, promotes using miliple
strategies.

Now, you can talk about spherical humans in a vacuum, but reality is more
complex than that.

~~~
coldtea
Useful for either the survival of the species or the individual. Still, hell
for those suffering them. That's the broken part.

~~~
Retric
Which logically would mean it’s the universe that’s flawed not humans.

Though, that gets into some very odd arguments. History would be rather boring
in a static or cycling universe.

~~~
coldtea
> _Which logically would mean it’s the universe that’s flawed not humans._

Logically you can argue either way. Logically one can say the universe doesn't
give a fuck, so can't be flawed any more than a rock is.

Humans however both crave unity and love and compassion and so on (and know
those things for good), and also do the cheating, lying, killing, bullying,
racism, and so on. So, one can justifyably call them broken.

Heck, tons of our books, movies, and songs call us just that.

~~~
Retric
> and know those things for good

Path finding algorithms optimize for the least cost path. That does not mean
such a path is good, nor a zero weight path from start to finish is
perfection.

In that context just because humans seek something does not inherently make it
good. Religions for example often prohibit some gratifying behavior.

Is an eternal state of pure bliss perfection, or little more than a drugged
out meaningless existence? Individuals may prefer one state to another, but
it's not clear that the state of maximized preference is thus perfection.

------
jd007
More generally speaking, when you optimize on a particular set of metrics to
the extreme (when it comes to social issues this is what utopias try to do),
you will inevitably cause another set of metrics to be correspondingly de-
optimized to the extreme (which can be qualified as dystopian).

There is no way to optimize everything simultaneously because many things are
fundamentally inversely correlated with each other (e.g. security vs freedom).
So you either have a state that is relatively balanced (everything is
mediocre), or a state with more spread (some aspects are really good and some
are really bad).

~~~
shredprez
I agree. It's also worth noting the lifecycle of most optimizations, including
the non-partisan variety:

1\. Early on many benefit and costs are minimized per capita.

2\. As the benefits diffuse across the population, smart/wily/greedy
individuals push the optimization to squeeze more value for themselves.

3\. Benefits begin to centralize among the smart/wily/greedy. Awareness of
costs starts to grow. The general population becomes ambivalent. Regulation
can keep the system in this state for a while, but it too will eventually be
optimized.

4\. The arms race of optimization ultimately excludes all but the
smartest/wiliest/greediest from any benefit while the rest of the population
eats the cost. The optimization is now Bad For Society™.

My gut says this pattern is true for any social construction, from marriage
and markets to card games and communism. The only meaningful insight I take
away from it is that ideological conflict (competition between optimizations)
is literally the foundation of a functioning society.

The relative balance that tension provides doesn't strike me as mediocre.
Without it, everything devolves into an oscillating heaven and hell, mirroring
your ideology.

~~~
roenxi
Using 'optimization' here makes it an odd construction where I don't think
I've quite understood what you are trying to say.

Is it synonymous with social change? Most social changes aren't optimisations,
they are complicated changes to how resources are distributed; leading to
unpredictable outcomes.

Take social welfare. This can probably be considered a social optimisation and
most reasonable people would agree that some level of welfare is appropriate.
But there doesn't seem to be any particular agreement on the economic or
social front about whether the optimum amount is more or less. Or what we are
optimising for.

~~~
shredprez
Optimization in the sense of optimizing for a specific (often ideological)
outcome, rather than optimizing away an objective inefficiency.

Social welfare is a perfect example of "competing optimizations" precisely
because there are so many different (and often mutually exclusive)
organizational models and success metrics.

------
viburnum
Procedural arguments like this are silly. You have to judge things by what
they are substantively. Feudalism and slavery were not utopian projects but
they were clearly brutal. Nordic social democracy consciously set out to
create a decent society for all and largely succeeded. I don't know what game
the author is playing.

~~~
philwelch
Nordic social democracy isn’t a utopian idea, though. It’s a progressive idea
and an ambitious idea but it only really peeks out slightly from the normal
range of market economies with welfare states, especially within Europe.

Feudalism and slavery were awful, but don’t come close to the concentrated
human misery inflicted by the utopian projects of the 20th century.

~~~
ijpoijpoihpiuoh
> Feudalism and slavery were awful, but don’t come close to the concentrated
> human misery inflicted by the utopian projects of the 20th century.

By that I assume you're largely referring to the Soviet Union and China during
the cultural revolution? Yeah sure, those were bad, but it's hard for me to
say whether they were particularly better or worse than slavery (at least from
the perspective of a slave).

Moreover, I think that the assumption that those 20th century projects failed
because they were utopian is unsourced. I think I could equally validly claim
that they failed because of a fundamental failure to understand basic
economics and/or a deep lack of empathy or realism on the part of national
leadership.

~~~
blotter_paper
I think you could argue that the horrors of this last century have been
crueler than all the others simply because there were so many more humans to
thrust them upon. I'm not convinced that it had a higher horror per capita,
though.

~~~
philwelch
Per unit time, certainly. Though this may also be because slavery persisted
for centuries and the e.g. Khmer Rouge would have never been capable of that.

------
stcredzero
Back in my childhood, if you told me that one day, there would be more games
of any imaginable genre, more than what you would know what to do with, of a
higher visual and production quality than I'd ever imagined, I would have
thought that to be a kind of utopia. Now in 2019, I find it to be somewhat
dystopic. (See also, the "Paradox of Choice.")

A century before cars, if you told people that a commonplace device could
quickly and inexpensively take you to the very store or house you wanted to go
to at speeds up to a mile a minute, that would sound utopian. Now we know such
systems have serious downsides.

Be careful what you ask for. You may get it. Or, as I put it, into any complex
system whatsoever, some suckage must come. Solving one problem either exposes
or creates another.

------
Bucephalus355
We don’t fully understand how society works. There is an emerging field known
as Cliodynamics that has started to identity cycles and feedback loops
societies go through.

For instance, people raised inside of a generation tend to have a similar
cluster of personality traits to some degree. These traits propel certain
innovations forward , leave other things lagging, and cause a reaction
formation in the next generation who tend to value opposite traits. These new
traits then alter which innovations are pushed forward, which are left behind,
etc.

There are additional cycles I’m not covering here, but together they form a
sort of “super cycle” with great periods of unrest as well as innovation
occurring when the lines converge periodically.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliodynamics)

~~~
foolrush
In fairness to the humanities, there has been a good deal of research and
knowledge via sociology for a long while.

------
hugh4life
"A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing
at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And
when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets
sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias." ― Oscar Wilde

"It is our utopias that make the world tolerable to us: the cities and
mansions that people dream of are those in which they finally live." \- Lewis
Mumford

The sentiment is true if Utopia is persued at a mass level, but what we need
are more attempts and experiments at small utopias.

~~~
pontifier
I try to run the makerspace I started as a mini utopia. Access to technology,
tools, and a place to explore what is possible, is a big part of what a utopia
is to me.

------
qwerty456127
That's because everybody forgets the only way to reliably create something
good artificially is to engineer it carefully taking as much relevant real
world phenomena as possible in account and keep applying well-engineered fixes
as feedback arrives. Just building a set of facilities, proclaiming a set of
rules and expecting everybody to play nicely treating those who don't as
enemies rather than a rightful element of the puzzle is stupid. Politicians of
whatever a kind tend to hate critique while failing to recognize it as a vital
resource is a fatal mistake. Even biased critique and false accusations are
important to analyze as these still highlight important issues indirectly (at
least the fact there is a serious portion of people who are going to believe
these for some reason that should be taken in account too).

------
foolrush
“The Will to Order can make tyrants out of those who merely aspire to clear up
a mess.”

— Brave New World Revisited, Huxley, 1958

------
davidivadavid
This amounts to arguing about definitions and it doesn't seem like the article
proposes anything of real substance.

In the introduction to _The Utopia Reader_ , a compendium of utopian and
dystopian literature, the following definitions are given:

* Utopianism—social dreaming

* Utopia—a nonexistent society described in detail and normally located in time and space

* Eutopia or positive utopia—a utopia that the author intended a contemporaneous reader to view as considerably better than the society in which the reader lived

* Dystopia or negative utopia—a utopia that the author intended a contemporaneous reader to view as considerably worse than the society in which the reader lived

* Utopian satire—a utopia that the author intended a contemporaneous reader to view as a criticism of the existing society

* Anti-utopia—a utopia that the author intended a contemporaneous reader to view as a criticism of utopianism or of some particular eutopia

* Critical utopia—a utopia that the author intended a contemporaneous reader to view as better than contemporary society but with difficult problems that the described society may or may not be able to solve, and which takes a critical view of the utopian genre

Given that utopias are speculative explorations of possible futures and
societies, it seems hard to reconcile that with questioning whether reality is
a utopia or a dystopia, as the author does here. That just doesn't type check,
and then the article is more about the author telling us about various things
he considers dystopian.

For a more interesting take on the concept of utopia, I highly recommend the
Fun Theory sequence on LessWrong:
[https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K4aGvLnHvYgX9pZHS/the-fun-
th...](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K4aGvLnHvYgX9pZHS/the-fun-theory-
sequence)

~~~
GauntletWizard
You're the one arguing definitions. This author is trying to make an actual
argument, and you've introduced a non-standard vocabulary, and are judging the
argument _with your vocabulary instead of the definitions the author made
quite clear_.

How do you pronounce "Utopia"? How does it differ from "Eutopia"? Your
definitions are fine, internally consistent, and quite clear for serious in-
depth discussion... But they align badly with the common set of definitions
(In which Utopia is your Eutopia), and so reading vernacular writing is
probably unclear or poorly argued when using such - But that doesn't mean that
their argument is bad, only that you're misreading it.

~~~
pjc50
What the article seems to miss out is any mention of Plato's invention of the
term, and its original meaning of "no place". From the very beginning
unachievability was associated with the concept.

~~~
blotter_paper
Plato's republic has been called a utopia only in retrospect, the term was
coined by Thomas Moore.

------
blaze33
Dystopia or utopia, both seem rooted in the idea we could ultimately shape and
rule the world as we wish. I constantly see the reliance on some kind of
system to somehow apply constraints to preserve order against chaos. And every
time the perfect and all-powerful *topia fails in some unexpected way.

One's long life indeed benefits from a controlled environment able to
consistently provide food, water, air or protection from potential dangers.

But why would society's survival works like my own? The dinosaurs didn't last
but life itself did. Abilities to evolve and adapt to change or the
multiplicity of methods to keep going proved themselves as some of the
reliable skills to survive.

Anyway, I'm eagerly awaiting any future story of a society able to provide
each one with a promising and somewhat reliable environment while managing as
a whole to evolve and overcome any new challenges the universe constantly
throws at us :)

------
narrator
Dystopia is when you get frustrated with your societal model not producing
appropriate outcome metrics and up the learning rate of the algorithm so it
happens faster and remove a lot of democratic metrics like elections that are
hard to tweak effectively and get a horrible overfit to your small training
set.

------
afpx
A Dystopia is only recognizable when juxtaposed against a state that is much
different from it. That is, a Dystopia would develop over time, with many not
even recognizing the gradual changes; it's not something that develops
suddenly. For example, it's not hard to imagine that our world could be
considered a Dystopia to some who lived hundreds or thousands of years ago.
Or, it could even be considered a Utopia to others. Utopias and Dystopias are
only interesting as thought experiments to imagine what Humans could be
possible about. There's never actually been one or nor will there ever be one.

~~~
winchling
_> Utopias and Dystopias are only interesting as thought experiments to
imagine what Humans could be possible about_

They both have the property that progress has ended; that we have ceased
learning about reality. An undesirable state to be in!

Yet _ideas_ of utopias and dystopias have been used to advance the
careers/interests/ambitions of the power-hungry, e.g. when they reluctantly
accept power. they don't want power (allegedly) and will cede it when the
utopia is achieved (it will never be achieved).

~~~
Retra
I don't think there's anything inherent to a utopia that means you stop
learning about reality. If anything, you should expect anything you learn
about reality to have maximally broad impact according to its relevance to
people's lives. There's nothing about a perfect organization of society that
implies a steady, non-adaptive state.

~~~
winchling
How can anything have an impact if there are no problems? How can there be
problems if the arrangements are perfect? How can anything which is perfect be
improved? etc.

~~~
Retra
Why would there be no problems? What is perfect is the ability of society to
solve problems, not the whole of existence. A utopia is a state of social
order, not a state of reality.

~~~
winchling
The problem here is that problems are connected to problems in other fields,
and that solving problems always creates _new_ problems. So a notionally
perfect social and political order could only be achieved by halting progress
in all other fields.

------
towaway1138
Thomas Sowell's book _The Search for Cosmic Justice_ talks about this sort of
thing in the context of social justice. However well intended, trying to do
the impossible can produce atrocities.

------
btilly
The article is right, but fails to explain why. Here is an abbreviated version
of the argument within _Enlightenment Now_ for the same basic point.

We are prone to believe that the ends justify the means. When the ends are
infinite good, we therefore become willing to inflict unlimited harm to
achieve them. In practice the infinite good people aimed for has proven to be
debatable, but the harms inflicted have not.

The more right you feel your cause is, the more that this should worry you.

------
chongli
I took a philosophy course on Utopian and Dystopian literature last year. The
takeaway I had from the course is even more stark than this headline: Utopia
and Dystopia are two names for the same concept.

In all of the utopias we studied -- from Plato's Republic through Thomas
More's Utopia and including Marx's Communist Manifesto -- the question that
kept ringing in my ears was "utopia for whom?" Every utopia makes assumptions
about people that naturally divide them into identifiable groups. Some of
these groups end up happy, others not so much. A utopia which purports to make
everyone happy (shouldn't they all?) is one that assumes all people are the
same or it endeavours to make them so. Either way, we lose our humanity in the
process.

~~~
aschampion
> A utopia which purports to make everyone happy (shouldn't they all?) is one
> that assumes all people are the same or it endeavours to make them so.

So the contrapositive is that because people differ all societies require some
people to suffer? That's a great way to justify all sorts of exploitation.

> In all of the utopias ... including Marx's Communist Manifesto

Ah, the Chicago school framing. What's primarily a positive work describing
existing material conditions and relations is utopian, because it is not a
kind assessment of those conditions.

~~~
chongli
_That 's a great way to justify all sorts of exploitation._

Describing is not the same as justifying. Nature is what created us as
individuals. Humanity could have been a vast society of clones (like an ant
colony) but it isn't. We take all of the good and all of the bad together when
we accept our individuality.

 _primarily a positive work describing existing material conditions and
relations is utopian_

It sounds to me like you're conflating the Communist Manifesto with Capital.
The Manifesto is distinctly and unabashedly utopian. It is not a critique of
any extant society, it is a call to arms. It sets forth a sharply bifurcated
worldview, proletariat versus bourgeoisie, and attempts to rally the former in
revolution against the latter.

This fact is so obvious, to so many people, that terms like "Communist utopia"
and "worker's paradise" have become clichés.

~~~
aschampion
> Describing is not the same as justifying. Nature is what created us as
> individuals.

We have little means of empirically separating what is natural versus social
construct (or even qualifying what such a distinction means) when it comes to
human behavior and society. Claiming that our nature makes inevitable that
societies require some significant portion of their constituents to suffer is
not simple description, it's a conceit that, like most naturalistic fallacies,
is consistently used to excuse and justify existing social order. Viz
evopsych, etc.

The premise I'm contesting is that minimizing suffering due to social
constructs necessitates homogeny, which is a condition that narratively pits
potential social orders against the individual.

> It sounds to me like you're conflating the Communist Manifesto with
> Capital...It is not a critique of any extant society

The Manifesto contains the class struggle interpretation of history, the labor
theory of value, excess value, the means of production, etc. Those are all
models and critiques of extant society. It is not as descriptive or
theoretical a work as Capital, but it primarily argues for a model of things
as they are and have been. To my decades-old recollection only the third
section is focused on ideal societies, and a large portion of that on
contemporary political movements.

You can disagree with those models of extant society, or like me view them as
historically significant but superseded theories, but you must admit the
fundamental contrast to something like Moore's Utopia. They both have explicit
normative perspective, but the Manifesto's are constructed out of an analysis
of existing conditions, whereas Utopia is primarily concerned with describing
the order of its hypothetical social ideal. Books like The Road to Serfdom are
rarely framed as being utopian despite primarily being normative.

Politics is the art of the possible. Labeling perspectives on social order as
"utopian" is a move designed to exclude them from the realm of possibility. I
also first read the Manifesto in a political philosophy course as part of a
unit on utopianism. It was only years later I realized the framing by the
right-libertarian professor to demarcate it from _serious_ political
philosophy, despite post-Marxism having at least as comparable a profile as an
academic philosophical tradition to the just-market apologetics that made up
the remainder of the course.

~~~
chongli
_Claiming that our nature makes inevitable that societies require some
significant portion of their constituents to suffer is not simple description,
it 's a conceit that, like most naturalistic fallacies, is consistently used
to excuse and justify existing social order._

If you eradicate violence then those who love violence will suffer. You can't
please everyone. This is not a normative claim, it's a fact of individuality.
If your Utopian society is free of violence, then you must exclude people who
love violence. How you accomplish this without committing violence is another
matter.

 _you must admit the fundamental contrast to something like Moore 's Utopia_

I don't, actually. More was every bit a critic of his contemporary society as
Marx was of his. The difference between More and Marx is that More was one of
the most brilliant rhetoricians of all time. Taking the form of a Socratic
dialogue, Utopia employs a pair of interlocutors, one of whom is the author
himself, in order to present a critique of enclosure and the excesses of
nobility that flew right over most nobles' heads. To call it "primarily
concerned with describing the order of its hypothetical ideal" is to
completely miss the author's point. I suggest you read it again.

------
moosey
> Is Trump’s America a dystopia?

I would look at America over the last 40-50 years, instead of asking about
Trump specifically.

This is one question asked in the article, and I think that the author does a
massive disservice here, while simultaneously writing an article that suggests
that any Utopia is also a Dystopia, but never asks the question: is there a
subset of Americans that would consider America today to be Utopic. I would
argue that yes, that is the case: Those who hold massive quantities of
capital. They collect massive amounts from the economy, and pay relatively
little in taxes, all by design, since Reagan. More speak against them today,
but it is relatively new to see the arguments against their economic value, or
whether such concentrated power is dangerous, at least for me.

I could go one step further and look at oil production and usage in this
country, and probably be able to formulate utopia/dystopia from it.

However, neither of these are specific to "Trump's" America, and instead
discuss an America that has existed and been going in this direction for some
time. I consider inability to see dystopia and utopia in this system to be
lack of creativity.

------
magpi3
When I read this article, I thought of growing up in the suburbs. The suburbs
I grew up in are ideal for the adult who wants to have a large house and
minimal contact with strangers, but they are something very different for the
adolescent child who is craving experience and contact with the outside world.

It would be hyperbole to call the suburbs an example of a dystopia for
teenagers created in an attempt to create a kind of utopia intended for
parents. But I have to admit that was the first thing that popped in my head
as I read the article.

------
wisty
I think a lot of dystopias arise from Rousseau-style or blank-slate naturalism
- the idea that humans are naturally good (or that they can be easily
socialised to be naturally good).

A dystopian ruler does not believe they are destroying humanity, they believe
they are rescuing humanity from some exogenous menace, whereas a more Hobbes-
inspired ruler believes themselves to be rescuing humanity from itself.

If humans are only evil because they are brainwashed by capitalism, or
patriarchy, religion, or royalty, or lizardmen, or the government, or some
other menace then any brutality used to purge this evil is both justified and
a temporary state of affairs. On the other hand, if you assume that some
people are just a little bit naturally anti-social then trying to fight this
(through either soft measures like education, or hard measures like
punishment) is only justified if the the tangible benefits (not the promise of
some eventual Utopia) exceed the costs.

------
skookumchuck
Despite all the complaining, we're living in a utopia in the US right now. By
any historical standard, life in the US is good beyond imagination.

For example, we're the fattest people on the planet, at all income levels, due
to ridiculous overabundance of food. People throw away 40% of their food!

The only crisis in America is a crisis of whiners, which has reached epic
proportions.

------
safgasCVS
So the majority of the examples proving the claim rely on fiction books and
Netflix shows. Well I'm convinced now for sure

------
dusted
An interesting read, but I also returned here to remark that the argument
"Moreover, this world is fallen, so it is by nature flawed. ... and that is
not the image of the Creator." is invalid and does make me wonder if there are
other, more subtle misconceptions sprinkled throughout.

------
jondubois
There is no utopia. There are always winners and losers. Also, every system
has cracks and loopholes which work against meritocracy.

------
hansjorg
Trying to immanentize the eschaton is risky business. On the other hand, that
there's pie in the sky is a vicious lie.

------
clouddrover
Everything will be perfect when I am king. Trust me.

------
porpoisely
Using that logic, does utopia result from attempting to create a dystopia?

------
petermcneeley
An article brought to you by an institute that believes in:

"There are certain permanent things in society: the health of the family,
inherited political institutions that insure a measure of order and justice
and freedom, a life of diversity and independence, a life marked by widespread
possession of private property. These permanent things guarantee against
arbitrary interference by the state. These are all aspects of conservative
thought, which have developed gradually as the debate since the French
Revolution has gone on."

~~~
yters
Interestingly, utopian projects tend to try and eliminate those things.
Perhaps because they guarantee against arbitrary interference by the state.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
But you see, only arbitrary interference by the state can bring about Utopia,
because in order to get there, we need something powerful enough to run over
everything in the status quo.

(Or so proponents seem to believe.)

~~~
yters
Fortunately with super social technology we can succeed where all past
attempts have failed.

------
shoguning
I've heard the assertion that utopianism is bad, but what about it is bad?
Certainly, we should be able to strive for improvement, in ourselves and
society?

The problem with utopianism is the desire to create a new society out of whole
cloth, with no regard for the lessons of the past, or the structure of
existing society. Drastic changes, like those of the communist revolutions,
rarely bring about positive change (not never), and frequently bring about
huge disaster. Instead, changes on the margins tend to more reliably improve
things. There are exceptions of course.

~~~
gowld
Utopianism is Perfectionism, as opposed to Progressivism. It's unsound to
believe that's possible to elminiate _all_ problems, and someone having a
belief that utopis is possible is s strong signal of either deceit or
stupidity.

~~~
PavlovsCat
Surely you meant to say that it's a strong signal of not being completely
candid, or of being disingenuous :)

I like the perfectionism vs progressivism thing. My analogy would have been
that it's like "the truth": if you think you're in full possession of the full
truth, or ever could be, that's silly. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't
strive to learn more, be more honest, and so on. "truth" with a small t is
still a useful concept. But it's always subjective, and requires people
figuring that out both alone, with nothing between themselves and their
conscience, _and_ together (which will never change it to being objective, or
completely agreed upon by all, or mean 100% the same thing even for two
identical twins who "totally agree" on it).

Just like one could say we are the "result" of what our cells are doing all
the time (I know you really couldn't simplify it like that at all, but for the
sake of argument), society is the result of the daily decisions of the actual
people in it - what they think others expect of them, and whether they listen
to that or their inner voice, and so on.

It seems to me many want to change society "on" others rather than with them,
you might say they would rather attempt to change society on a drawing board
to change their neighbours, than get to know their neighbours and themselves
in the first place. But societies aren't really that different from personal
relations and families. People grow over time, societies grow, decay or heal
over time, too -- not as the result of turning a switch or throwing out
everything that was before on a dime, just because we really want to.

> Until now the totalitarian belief that everything is possible seems to have
> proved only that everything can be destroyed.

\-- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"

------
0x262d
this was a completely useless run of the mill red scare piece whose only real
argument is "things can only get better slowly you squirmy discontents, I have
tenure so don't rock the boat"

------
thefounder
The only argument seems to be some religious BS. What we live today(in the
developed world) could be perceived as Utopia for the poor caveman for sure.

~~~
NateEag
Maybe.

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-case-
again...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-case-against-
civilization)

------
fwip
Sounds like the author finally got around to reading Utopia and went, "hey,
wait a minute, this society is actually... bad. A dystopia, if you will."

------
Zenst
Politics is a see-saw of right and left policey, swings one way, then over
time the objection to that swing grows and you end up swinging the other way.
But then, you can see this historically with the two party system, even though
you have more than a choice of two. Those two are the majority and the way
politics works, it's the majority (however small).

So yes, a push to one direction or another will increase and raise risistance,
but then that's due to lack of engaging with the resistance and as we see play
out time and time again in politics. Instead of engaging, it becomes one of
posturing and what I call playground politics, with name calling and labeling
to dismiss the opersition. Both sides are guilty of this, they both equaly
hate it when they are the minority at the time and on the recieving end. Yet
nothing changes. So you end up with a sing to one side for a few years or
decade and then a swing the other way.

How do you solve it, well as with any negotiation, compromise, as they do in
buisness. But I'm sure many who have been at board meeting trying to get thru
a project would love to resort to the political approach of labeling and
dismissing all objections and vilionising such objections in an internal
marketing campaign. But we don't as we are adults. I just lament how politics
today on both sides, often forget they are adults and left the playground
behind years ago.

Sure there are politicians who are above such approaches, but alas they are
drowned up by the masses and I often wonder - has politics today improved or
gone downhill? Equally has it always been the case and is it more due to more
faster communications of the news and media access that has allowed us to see
it more clearly?

But then, physics has taught us that for every action there is a reaction.
Which parallels in many walks of life outside physics.

~~~
munk-a
Politics in America are a see-saw of right/left swings... and the see-saw
swings back and forth every eight years almost like clockwork, this is because
of the American political system though, it's not due to the nature of
humanity. America needs to take a serious swing at removing money from
politics and giving more voice to third party dissenting opinions, it'll help
stabilize the country over the long run and allow for a less partisan/black
and white approach.

In America there are socially conservative people that believe the in the
right for women's choice in abortion, and there are otherwise socially liberal
people who believe in removing that right, these people are left voiceless to
the benefit of the two entrenched parties and end up see-sawing back and forth
between who has been the least terrible recently.

~~~
Zenst
You see exactly the same over here in the UK, and in many other countries. But
then that's the case with many voting systems alas. Which needs to evolve
beyond a token X in a limited choice every N years. It's like a carpenter
going to do a job, and only allowing him to pick from either a hammer or a saw
and he has to stick with using only that same tool for years and future jobs
in that time. That's politics today alas.

Though when we keep failing to produce a simple electronic voting system, a
problem shared around the World. You wonder if perhaps the World could come
together and group design an open source solution that the people of the World
could audit and help improve, until we all become happy. That would be a
start.

