Optimistic Idealism. Dead? Boring?

[Homer Potvin]

Something about enjoy our humanness

Which obviates the possibility of utopia.

 

[Naomasa298]

Which obviates the possibility of utopia.

The Silverberg book might be more about how one "utopia" doesn't work for everyone.

 

[Rigor Mortis]

Has there ever been a story about a utopia that wasn't about how the utopia was rotten to the core and everyone was really miserable? I can't think of one where the utopia was just a setting and not the crux of the story. That would be interesting, I guess.

Loads of 'em, so long as you stop watching/reading about half way through, like Logan's Run or The Beach. Do you really need to watch until the end to find out what Soylent Green is made of? And, The Stepford Wives made informed life choices.

I guess we do like to see it all a shambles, like that line in The Matrix when they say they abandoned the utopian version of the virtual reality world because the human subjects couldn't accept it.

The closest thing to a utopian book I've read is based in a barren village after the Chernobyl incident when an elderly woman returns to live in the still radioactive area, which then gathers a muddle of other inhabitants who just want out of the world they'd become accustomed to. It's not utopian, but the lead character is so zen she transforms everything around her into some kind of serenity, including the murder she gets accused of and other less than savoury interactions with the wider world. Very little happens. My kind of book.

 

[Louanne Learning]

I read something today that made me think of this thread and the original meaning of Utopia – that of a society which replaces private property with communal property.

Dr. Luke Kemp, a researcher at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, is the author of Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse. He studied the rise and collapse of more than 400 societies over 5,000 years.

And what is this curse that Dr. Kemp has uncovered? – Inequality

We are a species that evolved in egalitarian social structures – but what’s happened in the last 5000 years?

According to Dr. Kemp -

“History is best told as a story of organised crime. It is one group creating a monopoly on resources through the use of violence over a certain territory and population.”

So, this suggests a question – is Utopia a society more like the primitive, egalitarian societies we evolved in?

 

[DLC]

I'd say he's full of shit if he's saying 'a species that evolved in egalitarian social structures' while also saying It is 'one group creating a monopoly on resources through the use of violence over a certain territory' bro's just typing words.

 

[Louanne Learning]

'a species that evolved in egalitarian social structures' while also saying It is 'one group creating a monopoly on resources through the use of violence over a certain territory' bro's just typing words.

the egalitarian social structures existed tens of thousands of years ago.

One group making monopolies existed in the last five thousand years.

 

[Louanne Learning]

the primitive, egalitarian societies we evolved in?

When we lived more connected to nature, and more closely followed the rhythms of nature

 

[DLC]

The old noble savage, hey?

 

[Louanne Learning]

The old noble savage, hey?

No, that is an invention/imagination of Europeans. It is not what I am talking about at all.

 

[DLC]

egalitarian social structures existed tens of thousands of years ago.

 

[Louanne Learning]

@DLC - we were not "noble savages" tens of thousands of years ago. we were humans living in nature.

We were not caricatures.

 

[Louanne Learning]

the more I think about it, the more I am inclined to think that our notions of Utopia hark back to a time before the structured hierarchies of modern civilization.

Historical writings about the small-scale type of society of Indigenous peoples mentions a greater civility -

Below is a quote from Chapter XIV (Intercourse with One Another) from Heckewelder’s HISTORY, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS OF The Indian Nations WHO ONCE INHABITED PENNSYLVANIA AND THE NEIGHBOURING STATES (first published 1818) -

They certainly … show a reverence for each other, which is visible on all occasions; they often meet for the purpose of conversation, and their sociability appears to be a recreation to them, a renewal of good fellowship. Their general principle, that good and bad cannot mingle or dwell together in one heart, and therefore must not come into contact, seems to be their guide on all occasions. So, likewise, when travelling, whether they are few, or many, they are cheerful, and resigned to the accidents which may befal them; never impatient, quarrelsome, or charging any one, or one another, with being in fault, or the occasion of what had happened; even though one should lose his all by the neglect or carelessness of the other, yet they will not fly into a passion, but patiently bear with the loss, thinking within themselves that such a one feels sorry enough already, and therefore it would be unreasonable to add to his pain. They judge with calmness on all occasions, and decide with precision, or endeavour so to do, between an accident and a wilful act;—the first (they say) they are all liable to commit, and therefore it ought not to be noticed, or punished;—the second being a wilful or premeditated act, committed with a bad design, ought on the contrary to receive due punishment…

I do not believe that there exists a people more attentive to paying common civilities to each other than the Indians are…

 

[Naomasa298]

The moment humans picked up a rock and started hitting things with it, we stopped "living with nature". And that was before homo sapiens.

 

[Louanne Learning]

"living with nature"

depends what this means to you

 

[Naomasa298]

.

 

[Louanne Learning]

depends what this means to you

Why do we like camping so much? Why do we like being close to the water and the forest? Why is forest-bathing even a thing?

Forest Bathing in Japan (Shinrin-yoku) | Guide | Travel Japan - Japan National Tourism Organization (Official Site)

The best places to try forest bathing, a vital part of preventative healthcare in Japan. Studies show it can improve your mood, focus, and stress levels.

www.japan.travel

 

[Homer Potvin]

Why do we like camping so much? Why do we like being close to the water and the forest? Why is forest-bathing even a thing?

Forest Bathing in Japan (Shinrin-yoku) | Guide | Travel Japan - Japan National Tourism Organization (Official Site)

The best places to try forest bathing, a vital part of preventative healthcare in Japan. Studies show it can improve your mood, focus, and stress levels.

www.japan.travel

I hate camping. Love hiking and the outdoors and swimming in nature, but I'll retire to a B&B with a bar and wifi connection.

 

[Louanne Learning]

I hate camping.

i want my cottage to have a full kitchen and bathroom, too

 

[Pyroglyphian]

the more I think about it, the more I am inclined to think that our notions of Utopia hark back to a time before the structured hierarchies of modern civilization.

I think you’re onto something there, but I see it the other way around. Notions of utopia involve an absence of hierarchy, and it so happens that examples exist in history (and in modernity, in small ways). There seems to be a general consensus that imagining a credible utopia could take considerable effort; I agree; I’m not sure why a writer would go to such lengths if they weren’t planning to use the utopian setting – a sociopolitical circumstance – to make a point. This, for me, potentially shifts the work from fiction toward propaganda.

 

[Stuart Dren]

depends what this means to you

I think that's the most frustrating part of these conversations. Some people have a pretty convenient, sunshine and roses view of natural order and laws, as if parasites aren't waiting at the first chance to lay eggs in my eyes and it's such a shame that antibiotics and far safer child birth exists today.