Think about a utopia - an idealized place for happy, healthy, and productive life. NAZIS!!!!
Think of an awesome human being - healthier, happier, smarter and stronger - a superman. NAZIS!!!!
Such is the state of affairs that fresh ideas for societal innovation and human betterment evoque some of the most negative sentiments and connotations. How long can one publicly ponder some social alternative to modern democracy before being called a Marxist, a fascist, a socialist, a dirty hippy, a megalomaniac, a subversive, or worse yet: an idealist? That’s if anybody, publicly or privately, cares enough to listen.
Discourse on creating a better society and a better individual is not only missing from mainstream society, but is also deeply frowned upon. Political discourse is mostly focused on interparty dynamics, soap operatic personalities, and incrementalism that adds up to little other than putting out fires. Meanwhile, religious discourse, when it’s not too busy mirroring political discourse, has been narrowed significantly enough by dogmas to forbid truly fresh thought.
How did we get to a time where we lack both the interest and the ability to rigorously imagine a better world? How did we become a world of anti-utopianism?
Kid: “Daddy, I can imagine a place with peace, happiness and productivity for all.”
Daddy: “Can you pleeeeease focus on increasing the tax rate on the rich by 2.7%?! Christ!!!”
In this essay, I explore what led to this absurdly gloomy status quo. I then suggest some ways towards a more utopianist future.
Part 1: An Anti-Utopian Present
(in case you’ve heard enough about the problem and just want the solution, skip to Part 2. And if you just want the more “realistic” solution, skip to Part 2 of Part 2.)
The death of philosophy
The word philosophy conjures dusty, out-of-reach imagery of dusty out-of-reach books on dusty out-of-reach shelves. It’s a leftover from days past - curated by adorable, elderly professors; occasioned upon by burnout losers; studied by weird geeky cousins who’ll probably end up as either adorable, elderly professors or weird burnout losers.
Neighbor 1: What’s your kid studying?
Neighbor 2: Mine studies philosophy.
Neighbor 1: Oh, I’m sorry for your loss.
Most philosophical discussions today focus on whether Trump is a sociopath or a psychopath (not philosophy, I know). Can you think of many in your social circle who are capable of competent philosophical discussions? Odds are that philosophy is not, and probably never has been a part of your life. Perhaps you came across it in a class or two, many years ago. That doesn’t count. And you’re not alone in your philosophy-free existence. For the majority of the educated population, philosophy never entered the picture.
Consider the indisputable leader of intellectual discourse in today’s pop culture: Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan, bless his heart, boldly ventures into any topic and does his best to comprehend and contextualize. However, Joe does not have anywhere near the knowledge base or skill set to partake in a serious philosophical discussion.
I’m not knocking Joe here. I’m in his camp as well.
It’s hard to say when philosophy suffered its popular demise, especially since it has never been a mainstream-favorite flavor. Perhaps its modern peak was when the US forefathers leaned on Hume and Locke to create a new society. Around the same time, Thomas Payne’s 49-page tweet storm became the best selling book (adjusted for population) in US history.
200 years later, in the 1960s and 1970s it was still possible to come across some philosophical depth in an issue of a Playboy magazine. While Don Draper was mostly disinterested in philosophical issues, he did have the attention span to slug through a 20-page article on the crisis in man’s destiny. In fact, Playboy’s middle class reader was welcomed to each issue with Hugh Hefner’s own take on Playboy’s Philosophy, which was magnitudes of depth beyond Tucker Carlson’s capacity.
Arrive 2020. We have Instagram. And of course, the intellectual’s favorite: Twitter.
If one were to pose the challenge: create a society - its principles and a set of rules to govern it by. Where does one even start without a solid grasp of fundamentals in philosophy? How does one proceed without any practice in abstract thought?
It’s ok. One doesn’t have to. Because these questions don’t come up. Serious discussions about better societies and better humans simply aren’t being had. Which should be strange. Shocking, even. We are civilized, right? Shouldn’t these be the exact conversations that are part of our civilized purview? Or have we called it quits on the whole progress thing?
In reality, when posed with the challenge above - today’s citizens will start with what they know. They’ll tell you democracy is better than fascism; capitalism better than communism. And if you’re really lucky, they’ll quote - nay, paraphrase - Churchill about democracy being shitty, but the best thing we got. Without philosophy, this is all they’ve got.
Capitalism
I love capitalism. As a 6-year-old in Soviet Ukraine, I was written up for selling snacks in Kindergarten. My parents were called in by the authorities. It was a whole thing. At home, when things blew over, my parents proudly whispered in my ear that I was a born American.
I’ve worn the capitalist American badge with pride through immigration, education, and a career that did not suffer for a lack of profit-motive. I showed insta-disdain for communist ideologies, while other ideologies were guilty by association. Idealism be damned! I favored practical thought and practical action. The laws of supply and demand seemed to suggest a natural order of things - the “human nature” of capitalism.
This hasn’t changed. I’m still a capitalist. I have a healthy distrust of the government. I instinctually groan at the thought of hippy communes, and even doubt Burning Man despite all of the awesome testaments. But perhaps it is my capitalism that makes up a big part of the anti-utopianism problem.
Capitalism is focused on practical problems of the here and now. Bigger house? Better dates? More exotic vacations? Softer mattress? Shorter commute? Best school? Best phone? Best porn site? Capitalism is incremental. We focus on what is realistic; what is affordable. We calculate risk-to-reward ratios. Is it worth it? Capitalism is to Utopia what instant gratification is to building a family. (Ooops, not the best analogy, as the “original” instant gratification does lead to having a family.)
Capitalism, not as an ideology but as an environment, becomes unconducive to social innovation and philosophical thought. How many units of social innovation have you completed today? What would you pay for seventeen hours of philosophical thought? These questions sound absurd. They are so foreign in our capitalist world.
Capitalism is very concrete and predictable. As we live capitalism, our minds become similarly concrete and predictable. In such a world, the utopian - the ideological - is valued as a waste of time. Sometimes explicitly by parents, teachers, bosses. Sometimes, implicitly, by ourselves. As we label the utopian as dangerous, or weird, or a waste of time, we leave behind the curiosity and imagination required to conjure a better world. We leave behind wonder. We leave behind too much of our humanity.
Democracy
Everybody loves innovation. Companies want it from their development sectors. Countries beg for it from their industrial sectors. In fact, even the word disruption is in vogue, counter to the “never negative” social trends of today. However, when it comes to disrupting democracy… well, that’s for terrorists.
Neighbor 1: “My kid is interested in disrupting the tech field.”
Neighbor 2: “Hah, you think that's impressive?! My kid is interested in disrupting the medical field.”
Neighbor 3: “That’s nothing. My kid is seeking to disrupt modern society.”
Neighbor 1+2: “Interesting. Is he ISIS or ANTIFA?”
Democracy has done a good job of branding. Democracy = freedom. Democracy = representation. Democracy = wealth. Democracy = The Best Option We Got.
Today we exist in a state of extreme democratic stasis. "You don’t like democracy? Go stand in line for toilet paper in communist Russia." "You don’t like democracy? Go hide from the terrorists in war-torn Syria." "You don’t like democracy? Go wear a burka in Saudi Arabia."
OK. ok. Fine. I like democracy.
But wait… do I? Do I really like democracy? Do I like the 2 party system? Do I even have an option not to like it? Perhaps I can dislike it a little bit. Quietly. If I don’t tell any of my friends.
One of democracy’s brute strengths is, in fact, anti-utopianism. Democracy loves the status quo and it is the status quo. It is the middle way of patient moderation where nothing terrible can ever happen.
Federal democracy, with the 2-party system in the US, is a diverting opiate. Fervent ceremonies of rooting for parties and candidates grip the attentions and emotions of millions of Americans. The rich ecosystems of CNN, Fox News, & social media amplify the drama. Parties and politicians play the PR game daily; and now with Twitter - hourly. Those best at it, make their fans feel ever so important, by building tribal mythologies, using team colors, uniforms, hats (and sometimes guns).
The show can be so wild and engaging that thoughts of utopian societies are never engaged, let alone rejected. The quotidian drama creates an effective illusion that during every democratic minute of every democratic day the individual matters. This illusion only comes close to a truth once every few years on election day. But this seems like enough for many, if not most.
Local Democracy is certainly more practically relevant to the individual, but is also exceedingly anti-utopianist. At the heart of local democratic systems lies a formidable barrier to entry for utopianism: incrementalism. The color of a picket fence, a new park bench, perhaps a school extension are the most likely topics at a local city council meeting.
This incrementalism is completely practical and… well, small. Utopian thinking requires full disruption; a wholesale cancelation of the status quo; a ground up reconstruction of the social structures and fabrics. Local democracy just doesn’t provide such mechanisms. If anything, it can perhaps provide protection to such thinking and/or experimentation by shutting itself off through some private property laws. In other words, local democracy’s best move towards utopianism is the giving up of jurisdiction.
Our “freedom” within a democracy, thus, is quite conditional on the status quo. This is not necessarily a deal breaker for utopianism. We can try to squeeze in a utopia between the rock and the hard place. But democracy does remove the option to start utopia generation with a blank slate. Instead, it establishes an extensive set of restrictions and assumptions that will inevitably dilute, distract, and hamper the utopianist’s best efforts.
History
Perhaps we can blame the 20th century for our utopia-free existence. Between Hitler and Stalin, utopianism suffered a century-long setback within a single decade. These “world-builders” turned world-building into world-destroying. They synonymized utopia with genocide.
While the remembrance of these extreme failures of humanity stymies utopianism, there is something else in our relationship with history that is at play. A shallow and ignorant fear of history is what truly serves as a barrier to entry for utopia.
“History repeats itself.” “History is BOUND to repeat itself.” “Whatever you will do has been done before.” “Whatever you try has been tried. And it failed!” And so will you! Yes, if not genocide, it will be famine. If not famine, then war. If not war, then revolution. Etc. Etc. Any utopian thought must defend itself through inevitable comparisons to poorly-informed historical analogies.
Historical knowledge, analysis and synthesis is a critical component of any utopia. Unfortunately, without said knowledge, onlookers readily reduce utopia conceptualization to fear-mongering historical allusions. If any part of a utopia concept resembles a famous failure of the past, all other variables become swiftly ignored as semblance morphs into predictions of inevitable historical repetition. A single communal component will be labeled communism. Any un-democratic structure will be labeled fascist. This injustice of inaccurate analogies to atrocious bad actors may be enough to discourage anybody to take up utopianism.
“History repeats itself” has become a trolling filter aimed against utopianism. Ironically, it’s usually misquoted. Perhaps it’s the fault of George Santayana, who originated the phrase as “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Remember is a funny word to use in this context. Too many studies have shown that human “remembering” is an emotional mess. There is an immense gap between “deep study and knowledge of history” and “remembering of history”. The misquoted sentiment - that we are condemned to repeat history - grants a powerful authority to those who DID NOT study and learn history, but instead use their “remembrance of history” as an excuse for ignorance and anti-utopianism.
Of course, history doesn't repeat itself. Humanity may repeat itself, or show patterns of behavior which lead to wars and genocides “repeated” across centuries. But any student of history knows that each war is different, borne out of its own unfortunate circumstances. Alas, serious students of history are few and far between in our world. Perhaps history books outsell philosophy books by 100 to 1; but that is not enough to elevate the historically educated beyond a fractional minority.
Part 2: Fixing for Utopianism
Reactionary methods
One way to pave the way for utopianism would be to attempt to reverse some of the factors of anti-utopianism discussed above.
Reintroducing philosophy into the public fabric of life would significantly change how we live, how we think, and how we talk. Let’s add one hour per day of philosophy starting at age six. This would get us to about 7000 hours of philosophy by the age of 20. Our capacity for deep thought, abstract problem solving, complexity, and general attention span will be increased by orders of magnitude. It is hard to quite imagine a world filled with such a populace… but it’s really really hard to imagine it being worse than the current status quo.
Districting capitalism may help our minds code switch between the practical and the theoretical. Some of us are able to make the switch from capitalist thinking when participating in various spiritual or religious organizations and rituals. Similarly, we are sometimes able to sideline capitalism when it comes to family and friendships. Perhaps a capitalism-free allocation for utopianist thinking could be created. With such a mindset, we could collectively recognize and respect a proper time to leave the realm of practical capitalism. (This would be less foreign of a concept to those accustomed to their daily hour of philosophical pursuit).
Districting democracy may be more of a challenge. To create safe spaces for utopianist thinking is one thing, but to create safe spaces for utopianist experimentation will be much more controversial. We could pursue the Burning Man model - in a quasi-decriminalization regime. If successful, it would remain below the radar of federal democracy and outside of the immediate jurisdiction of local democracies. Perhaps it will require billionaires with private islands.
Learning History is knowing that history is complicated and the devil is often in the details. While some trends, personalities, behaviors and outcomes do exhibit clear repetitive patterns across history, they are usually not quite the same. Knowing the environments, economics, and biographies of history fosters respect for its complexity and inherent inconsistency. A deeper understanding of history will replace the common binary responses and political polarities with informed analysis and strategic exploration of historical variables that can be manipulated for future utopias.
My Own Private Utopia (Part 2 of Part 2)
Don’t have the patience to reverse decades of civilizational regregression? Don’t have the time to change mass education and global economic structures? Don’t have it in you to topple governments?
Let’s try starting small. How small? There are three levels.
Level I - Utopianist Self-Help
I’m not going to dive deep on this one. We all know things we can do to make ourselves suck less. And after that, we can move on to making ourselves more awesome. We can ask not what our country can do for ourselves, but what we can do for ourselves. One can devote one’s life to the goal of self betterment and probably find oneself both successful and fulfilled.
Level II - Utopianist Home and Family
Why move on to Level II, when Level I sounds so sweet?
Level I tends to fall apart the minute children enter the equation. All of a sudden, your ability to exist in your own private utopia of the self falls apart and you have no choice but to engage with the distasteful world that wants to pollute the minds and hearts of your greatest creations.
Some of us find ourselves in a constant tension with the world around us. It might be that “something smells funny” feeling, where you don’t quite know the source of the stench. It might be a better defined set of dissatisfactions with the status quos. You might feel a defensive or escapist impulse to protect yourself from the lies or pollutions of the world. Or, if you’re the Alpha type, you may feel the rebellious and aggressive calls to fight the injustices around you.
But once you have kids, your relationship with the world changes - because this very world you so mistrust lays more of a claim on your kids than you do. Between school and other social activities, your kids are out in this world 80-90% of their waking time. Your measly 10-20% often become an ineffectual and pathetic battle over screen time. While negotiating the logistics of your professional work and family management, your self-help takes a back seat and you find yourself wading through the low level muck of dealing with the very social systems that you find so distasteful. Utopia? Ha! How about getting my in-laws to watch my 3-year-old while I take my 5-year-old to his soccer game. Utopia? Ha! How about washing the dishes and doing the laundry, while my wife makes sure Billy is doing his homework instead of watching Pornhub.
Of all the households you know, how many resemble utopias and how many resemble dystopias? Call me judgemental, but I haven’t yet come across the former.
And yet… the family home is the best opportunity for actual utopia building. If only we could access our atrophied utopianist abilities, we might see that our household is the one place where we can create our own culture - replete with philosophical and historical discourse. Our home is the one place where the government still has limited influence, so we have freedom to live, behave, and teach as we see best fit. Our home is the one place where we can set up internal economic systems that encourage and incentivize what we consider to be the best of our human potential.
And best of all, the home utopia can be as iterative as we want. The system can be small and responsive enough to allow almost immediate feedback. We can make it better and better and better.
The home utopia approach requires a fairly dramatic restructuring of the household status quo. We may have to turn our backs on how our parents raised us. We certainly must turn our backs on how sitcom parents raise their kids. We must also turn our backs on what our neighbors think is best. Beyond that, we must turn our backs on what the schools, governments, and spiritual leaders tell us. We must educate ourselves (history). We must think for ourselves (philosophy). And we must create for ourselves (utopianism). This is not easy.
“This is not easy” is an understatement. This - is supremely difficult.
Perhaps following the status quo instructions is easier, and in theory it is. In theory, we can buy the products and services to take care of life’s complicated details, and then go on our merry way enjoying life to the fullest. But if the status quo is so satisfactory, why do we feel such a dread of something being very wrong? If the status quo is so functional, why is everybody such a mess behind their veneer of social media posturing and prescribed/self-prescribed medication? Why are we surrounded by such mass fragility?
It is because no effective instruction manual exists for our complex & dynamic world. There is no blue pill. There is no IKEA solution to our family’s quality of life. There is a whole lot of marketing to make us think otherwise. And there’s no shortage of medication to take the pain away and distract us from our failures. But the reality is that we are increasingly ill-equipped to deal with the status quo, and we are completely unadept to search and build alternatives. Which brings us back to why we are here, discussing the supremely difficult option of utopianism.
Level III - Utopianist Community
If you have decided to take the red pill, two main struggles evolve from the drive towards a utopian home. The first struggle is internal. One must create and create and create.
Unfortunately, one often feels the lack of tools or knowledge or strength to keep creating, perhaps even suffering a lack of creativity (let’s blame the schools on that). This struggle can be simply put: building from scratch is hard. Building from scratch, alone, is even harder. Not only is it hard, but it can be very expensive - consuming more time and money than one might have.
Few of us have the know-how to embark on home utopianism. Few of us have the resources. And out of those who have both the know-how and the resources, few have the courage to do it alone.
The second struggle is the external. When we find ourselves in a contrarian position with the rest of the world, it’s not a pretty picture. It’s us versus them - “us” being myself, my spouse and perhaps my kids; “them” being everybody else. We seem to be setting up for a battle that is impossible to win - a few against millions. We are surrounded - across all physical and digital media. We will be questioned, discouraged, criticized and even ridiculed at nearly every step of the way. Our families and our friends may not be compatible with our utopia, leading us to an even lonelier position than where we started. With optics of such terrible odds, it’s quite irrational to even spend time considering such options.
What can make our drive towards utopia less fraught? What can alleviate these struggles?
Fortunately, the answer is the same: community. Community serves both as a means of creation and a means of defense. In creation, community provides a sharing of resources, a pooling of knowledge, and a network of moral support. It allows us to learn from the mistakes of others, and to leverage their successes. It helps with our time economics and everyday logistics. And, since most of us are social animals, community lets us feel joy in sharing the bounty of our accomplishments.
There is strength in numbers. Community offers us protection from the status quo world. Whether through territorial protection, democractic influence, or moral support, community can be our safety fence and safety net.
BUT…
If this community existed, aligned with some or all of our utopianist ideals, would we be in this lonely predicament in the first place?
I suggest it does exist. Across a billion people, we might find 50 million who are proactively dissatisfied with the status quo. Among these, perhaps 5 million speak your language. Among them, 50,000 may agree with your utopianist principles. Among those, a few thousand may live in your state.
How we define these communities can be flexible - digital, physical, or hybrid. One of my goals at Protopiac will be to create tools for individuals to find such communities, as well as to build them.