Utopia etymologically means something that is nowhere. But it looks like what it is, mostly. Sure, any work of fiction speaks of the era and place in which it appeared. What's sad is that it doesn't stray too far from that place and time. A "real" utopia would be one that actually makes you dizzy, don't understand anything that's there. Now, when all art is meant to shock, Hollywood fantasy stories, be they also scientific, they are the most common. All that's shocking is the budget. The narrative is of kindergarten, and the message, 4th grade at the most. That we are now experiencing a great drought of ideas and the courage to invest in creativity is already well known.
But it was once different? Human vision was once extraordinary?
To answer these questions, we must first answer what people want from utopia. Since with their gathering together in great numbers, since with the emergence of tougher hierarchies, but especially of slavery, people realized that you can't really be happy in such a society, and they began to dream of what should be changed. They were the happy people before? Hard to say, because we don't really know what the world was like, how they were organized now over 10000 year old. Now 10000 year old, after the advent of agriculture, we have some clues. Non-agricultural societies (although there are nuances here too), those so-called traditional societies, of hunter-gatherers (in fact the opposite would be more correct, that a very large percentage of the food is provided by picking- cam 90%, but because women are the gatherers…) they were heterogeneous, and would actually have appeared at about the same time as the agricultural ones, after the last glaciation. What we do know is that mental illness is not recorded in these societies, such as schizophrenia (v. The civilization of hunger/another approach to humanization). There is what we call depression there?
Although in the agrarian societies of Africa there are all the races from us, maybe sometimes more accentuated, from envy and intrigue, malice, when they come to the West the rate of mental illness increases enormously, a few times, especially in the second generation of immigrants. Notice to those who keep talking about radicalization when they describe such "terrorist" attacks by young people who fall into this category. A psychiatrist from Great Britain advanced the hypothesis, presented at a psychiatry congress in Vienna, 2010, that family ties, the type of rural relationships in the home areas, would be what provides protection. There are extended families there, before AIDS there were no orphans, no one was truly left behind, even if it was poverty. If we didn't know their habits too (of black Africans, but not only, as well as Middle Eastern people, criticized for this by Ayaan Hirsi Ali) to send money home, to help their extended families, maybe it would be harder for us to understand. They think it's cruel of us not to do that. It seems to us something anti-progress, tribalism etc. The incredible corruption in Africa is related to these customs. How to get my cousin to come to the store and make him pay? How can I not help him when he is in trouble? If the social role (SERVICE) allows me?
We have no idea how they feel, because we were not raised like them, but if we look at mental ailments, it seems better. It seems that other indications point to better. And because they feel better, behave better. What would it be like to find out that the horrifying story ofThe king of the flies it would take place with real collaboration, solidarity and good organization, rules respected, in the case of children from traditional societies? And yet this is what happened a few decades ago in the case of some teenagers from New Guinea shipwrecked on a desert island. The shipwrecked children went through difficult situations, food shortage, until they were discovered. And, precisely because they were not English, they made a good figure. Sure, they knew each other. And they remained friends. Who would make a movie about something like that?
Although these data, but also others, suggests that equality, solidarity, lack of a strict hierarchy, they are sources of happiness. People can accept natural disasters, even Malthus says it's incredible how quickly populations recover from disasters, which does not compare to wars. Humans can accept the evil of nature, but not of peers. Because besides the pain, the aggression of men brings humiliation. It seems that the above ingredients have the same effect across ethnicity and culture. All the happiness studies that put the Nordic countries at the top suggest the same thing. And if you think about it, there is practically no place to live there! How to be happy in the Arctic Circle?! The data shows that the maximum happiness achieved in the UK was in 1976, when the maximum of social and material equality was recorded. A documentary shows that during World War II, although there was poverty and scarcity of food, people felt better, they lived longer in the UK. In Hungary, after the demise of communism, the same, poverty has decreased, but life expectancy has decreased, according to the same documentary. People prefer equality to liberty itself, consider sociologists like Serge Moscovici. The many prisoner's dilemma studies show how much people hate being wronged by a human, not by a car. Maybe those who regret communism, ignoring dictatorship and poverty, i actually feel this? But the Leninist dictatorships were first and foremost generalized humiliation. But it seems that some have forgotten.
Actually, if we take the most successful utopias, that is, Christianity and the younger relative, Islam, I'm talking about it. In Christianity there are no more differences between people, of wealth, rang, sex. In Islam, the umma is formed, a Muslim community that must be all over the earth (where have I seen anything like this before??) where there are no slaves, where the leaders are religious, but they live very modestly and behave equally. And for several generations it was like that, until…talented politicians imposed themselves as caliphs and usurped the rules (v. Ansari in "Altered Destiny"). Communism, after many opinions, it is actually another form of Christianity. The monasteries and the Essenes are passed over as examples of real communist communities. Kibbutzim are also added here.
The failure of communism and Islam are already well known. What is the cause? Human nature, sounds the standard answer. Poor quality, the selfishness of people, this seems to be the most common cause. For the same reasons, nothing works, including capitalism. Isaiah Berlin în culegerea de eseuri sub numele „Adevăratul studiu al omenirii”, citing and analyzing numerous Russian authors, comes to the conclusion that a better society is not possible, that you wouldn't even know how to create it, and if you want. And it wouldn't work anyway. The suffering in the world cannot be removed, they believed. Nothing makes sense when it comes to changing the world. Sure, it was also hard to imagine the social good in Russia, a country of extreme inequalities, in which eight forms of slavery were legal during Catherine's time and after. Just as social good was unimaginable in classical India, with castes and its hierarchy-related taboos. How can Buddhism not be born there? The only solution was to give up, ISOLATION, life inside.
Russia has shown that suffering (and slavery) can be exported successfully. And history has shown that many miracles can be done if you remove poverty and give some equality. I can't help but give the example of Greece, a country 85% mountain, terribly poor before the war. And after... How shocked our grandparents and great-grandparents would be to visit Greece now! People are different now than they were then, they behave differently. Can anyone imagine stealing so little in Greece? But the crisis of 2009 visibly transformed Greek society, the suicide rate has increased a lot. Most social problems start from poverty.
What causes of unhappiness did the utopias of the past talk about? We can make a classification of utopias according to the social problems they considered responsible for the evil in the world, and which, once removed, would have led to happiness (generous?). In ancient writings, from Plato to the Old Testament, evil was in man, an inherently immoral being. In Atlantis, men had a divine nature to a great extent, what gave them morality. In the Old Testament man is fallen, but happiness existed before agriculture and civilization anyway. Heaven is given by natural abundance, where people don't need to work. And where they are equal. A metaphor for traditional hunter-gatherer societies? Perhaps in the societies of the East, this nostalgia exists. Perhaps their contacts with such societies were still in memory (considering also the appearance of older writing). The local societies themselves retained many elements of the old societies, preclavagiste. Classical slavery was in Europe. It is not absent from the utopias in this part of the world either.
RepublicPlato's brings dangerously much to caste-based Indian society. There is the working class, of soldiers, but also the ruling class, animated by wisdom. Only aristocrats can rule, but others must also have virtues, from courage and strength, in moderation. Everyone knows their place, everything goes smoothly.
Thomas More evolves, „Utopia” (written in 1515) his resembles models closer to us, maybe that's why it's more frightening. His ideal society is ruled by a king, high administrative positions are held by elected officials, but...most people can't participate in elections because they are stuck in professional associations. Let's not forget, it was the time of the guilds, whose monopoly was a problem for future bourgeois-democratic revolutions. The best part is yet to come. Utopia contains slaves, who do all the hard work. They are recruited from among immigrants on death row and inmates. Indeed, Utopian! But for the others, who work quite a bit. There is no private property, no money, the differences between people are small. Society is uniform, and art does not exist. The intuition of the leveling effect in which private property is fenced off, e remarcabilă. Dar măcar e libertate de religie…
O utopie cu efecte care pare și mai mult… or dystopia and ceases to him Thomas Bell, „Cetatea Soarelui” (The city of the sun). There is pure communism, well applied, with everything in common, from the bedroom to the dining room. Next to private property as the ultimate evil, Campanella also brings the monogamous family. In this society that resembles that of Pol Pot, leadership belongs to scientist-priests who do everything according to the laws of nature. How familiar that sounds, if you know that socialism was scientific!
It is interesting that beyond the property, bani, another evil was monogamy. And the first communists saw this, but it seems that the patriarchy, that is, the desire to dominate women, was stronger. Stalin decides that women must re-enter the noble role of mother, after Alexandra Kollontai, a leading feminist of the Russian revolution, he had talked so much about sexual freedom. What the critics of monogamy did not understand was that it was brought about by patriarchy.
No one thought that at the origin of the glaring inequalities, of violence in society, of the main sources of unhappiness, including jealousy, it would be...the patriarchy? Societățile matriliniare erau studiate, however, although a little, including Engels speaks of them in “The Origin of the Family, of private property and the state". But a remarkable author, with original thinking, who understood biology, Charlotte Perkins, wrote such a utopia. „Herland”. Sigur că acea societate e feministă, dominated by women. It is a society without violence, crime, of wars, of dominance over other people. Women are intelligent and moral, there are no signs of the differences between them, not even in terms of clothes. It reproduces asexually, and they don't even know about men. How did the world escape this evil?? Through violence, you would think, if you were to quote the Enlightenment classics or Marx. Sure, men did not give up power alone, as expected. Nature's fury, more specifically a volcanic explosion killed most men centuries ago. The survivors became slaves, then they were assassinated.
This society resembles some existing ones? Incredible, give. Such all-female communities have existed for years 60-70, the golden years of feminism. Most of the members were lesbians, and the current was even called separatist. The respective women, many still alive, they believed that it was not possible for a woman to be happy in a society where there are also men, because whatever he would do, they will exploit and abuse her. These women cultivated total separation from men. They went so far as to not even support the right to abortion. What did a woman who shunned men need an abortion? Even though these communities have disappeared for economic and political reasons, this mentality exists even now, especially in Latin America, in the very violent societies of the area. There women see lesbianism and separation as the only desirable option, even if hardly feasible.
The conclusion would be that a "true" utopia would be feminist, that world would not be patriarchal. How can we talk about equality?, of justice, in patriarchy? When all institutions are created to dominate and exploit women? How can we talk about happiness in this world? The problem is that women don't even know what it's like to be free. Majoritatea utopiilor pornesc de la ideea că răul e în afara omului, that the money, the property, monogamy, i hurt him. There is an ideology that says some people are bad, others, this. what is that? And how it separates them? In the most brutal and irrational way: by race, meaning descent. And a child's thinking would reject such superficiality! How to believe that in a family, let alone in a population, only good or intelligent or moral people are born, and in another, exactly the opposite? How can you say that Darwinism encourages such ideas, when Darwin's theory is based on variability, i.e. exactly on the differences? We can speculate that only a class society, with castes, what European society was like in the 19th century, maybe swallow something like that. And people believe what they want from any idea, from any book.
Communism is said to work, but it was not applied properly. Some wonder why this is not also said about fascism. There is at least one utopia that speaks of the correct application of fascism , the one from the short story "Born on March" (Born on 8 March) by Ioana Petra. In that utopia, feminist (how else?), men exist, but they are as women want, so they are no longer capable of creating patriarchy. A biological revolution, led by some feminist researchers, removed evil from society. Men look and act like women want them to (some). In that society, in which women behave and look very varied, like their sexual tastes, but that is precisely why it is egalitarian, there is much more energy for solving real problems, including disease and aging. Valerie Solanas draws attention in "The Scum Manifesto" to the hidden costs of patriarchy, in which the male leaders, at any level, they primarily want to shock, then solve the problems. Most of the time they pretend to solve them. Women don't need that.
Concluzia legată de o utopie „adevărată” e că trebuie să fie una feministă, to talk about an egalitarian society, in which suffering from all causes, especially poverty, is removed or greatly reduced. It's the interactions between people that matter, but also the quality of people. Related to all of this, I think Epicurus was right. Happiness is with the people you like, who are moral and intelligent. As it would have been in his community?
