The Loss of Utopia
In an article today, Dylan Evans writes of our major societal problem, that we no longer dream of a better world, of a world where work is fulfilling and leisure means more than time for TV.
But if idealism without a dose of reality is simply naive, realism without a dash of imagination is utterly depressing. If this really was the end of history, it would be an awful anticlimax. Look at the way we live now, in the west. We grow up in increasingly fragmented communities, hardly speaking to the people next door, and drive to work in our self-contained cars. We work in standardized offices and stop at the supermarket on our way home to buy production-line food which we eat without relish. There is no great misery, no hunger, and no war. But nor is there great passion or joy. Despite our historically unprecedented wealth, more people than ever before suffer from depression….
It is this complacency, this lack of idealism, that is in part responsible for the repugnance with which Muslim extremists view western society. When George Bush speaks of exporting democracy to the Middle East, he should realize that liberal democracy on its own is a limp, anemic idea. If the west is to provide a more inspiring ideal, then it is time we devoted more thought to the questions that Plato, More and Marx placed at the heart their utopias; the question of how to make work more rewarding, leisure more abundant, and communities more friendly.
Evans hits the nail on the head. Without visions of a better world, this one will remain dreary and only marginally palatable. The fall of “communism” brought the end to horrible regimes. But it also brought the end to hope. That great revolutionary union Solidarity in Poland, which dreamed of a radical democracy building on the creativity of all, could only help bring a “free market” to Poland, giving up all pretense of transforming life. The Gdansk shipyard where Solidarity was born was closed by the “market” and the workers joined the unemployed, while Lech Walesa, their leader, became only another right-wing steward of despair for all.
It is hard to dream of a better world, but the future of the human race may depend upon it.
1 comment October 27th, 2005