Topics Value

Question I've been thinking a lot about Utopianism and the people who strive toward a certain type of communal perfection. It seems to be a distinctly human longing and one that recurs constantly through history, even though all previous attempts to create utopias (in life: Fruitlands, Oneida, Fourierism, 1960s experiments in communalism; and even in literature: Thomas More, Christine de Pizan, Campanella) typically end in disaster. How do utopias benefit humanity when all they are is a series of failure after failure? Is there something "higher" or "more truthful" gained from such experiments?

Accepted:
June 14, 2010

Comments

Good question. Perhaps there are at least two points to bear in mind in reply: the literature that is classified as utopia (and recall "utopia" means " no place") often is NOT about some ideal place that its authors hope to encourage establishing. This is pretty clear in Thomas More's Utopia --which contains much satire and fun. It also seems true in Christine de Pizan's City of Ladies, and is probably true also of Plato's ideal polis in the Republic (though this is quite controversial). Second, there is a view sometimes called ethical idealism, according to which we should seek the ideal even if it is virtually certain we will never attain it. Presumably this is the way at least some Christians act: they set out to fully imitate Christ or be sinless, even though they also believe that they will not perfectly attain this. Ethical idealism is in tension with a position associated with Kant that "ought implies can." According to the latter, an essential condition for you to have a duty to do X is that you have the power to do X. A person trying to be a saint may be someone who is trying to do what she knows she lacks the power to do. I am deeply sympathetic to ethical idealism and practice a kind of idealism in the classroom. That is, in every classs I set out to try to attain the perfect, ideal class: everyone grows intellectually and in all sorts of learning and skills. Everyone produces publishable papers and acheives clarity on the deepest of questions. Everyone gets an A+. True story. And at the same time I know this will not be attainable.

If you continue to be suspicious about seeking ideals, you have a friend in Karl Popper. In his two volume set Enemies of the Open Society (approximate title), Popper offers a systematic, historically grounded critique of utopianism. He thinks that social engineering in the employment of attaining utopia has proven to be dissastrous in human history. It is hard to disagree with him (though I think he is too harsh on Plato). But perhaps you and Popper would not object to a liberal arts professor trying for utopia / an ideal state in a classroom, even if that is doomed to failure? After all, every day I think maybe we will not fail next time.