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One Simple Step to Create Utopia
Since the dawn of human civilization, man has dreamed of progress, of furthering the human endeavor, of creating a society he is proud to call his own. But to what end? Surely their must be some end, a point at which society is no longer able to further improve upon itself. In essence, a point of absolute perfection, the transcendence of earthly society into the heavenly realm. A dream so prevalent among the ages that the term Utopia was coined. But how to achieve such a noble ideal? You see, humankind has always had a problem- and the problem is that most of the people are unhappy most of the time. Now as it simply won't do to have anyone be unhappy, ill-content, in a state of despair, upset, questioning anything, making enemies, experiencing heartbreak, depressed, realizing the arbitrary nature of society, experiencing non-euphoric emotions, pondering unanswerable questions, and/or generally not living a perfect life in our utopia. Basically if you really want to have utopia, you have to ensure that no one ever experience an unpleasant emotion. Unfortunately, as far as I've been able to discern, emotion, especially the unhappy ones, is pretty much inseparably tied to whatever unfortunate aspect of our cognition that makes our pitiful souls human.
Allow me to further elaborate on the concept of utopia. In my mind, utopia is the abstract idea of the society to which we all dream of. The impossible to achieve society in which life is, for lack of a more precise word, perfect for all those who have the privilege to carry out the course of their lives under its jurisdiction. Utopia is an ideal. Utopia should be your dream of what an, arbitrarily approaching infinitely long, time of human struggle, refinement, and more struggle ultimately culminates. Essentially, bringing the ideas typically associated with heaven into an earthly society. Why do you confine yourself so? Why do you limit your idea of utopia to what is so obviously humanly achievable. The question I ask to you is not what your idea of a better, but still conceivably within the realms of human achievability, society would be. What I ask of you is to describe to me what your concept of heaven is and dare to challenge conventional thought. What I ask is for you to remove your skepticism; your cynicism of human nature, and describe to me that society. What I ask is for you to momentarily fancy yourself a divine creator of a new world, a world intended for yourself and those you love, a world in which none of the typical earthly ideas apply, and describe for me that society. Surely when you imagine such a grand place sadness is not the first desirable thing that comes to mind! I pray that your imagination is not so limited to only include what modern-humans may achieve! If, still your dream of utopia is imperfect, stop reading here! I can convince you of nothing and may part here as gentlemen having agreed upon the fundamental divide that separates our opinion. But, if even a little bit of you understands the greater idea of utopia, of creating a perfect society, if only for the sake of dreaming, please allow me to try and bring you around to my way of thinking. That is, keep reading.
Now, with this new idea of utopia in mind, let us continue and see where this assumption may take us. In order for our dream of perfection to come true, we must remove from our society all things which are not perfect. So in a sense, I suppose I am banning imperfection.
Now, in my humble and limited experiences in the world, I have found that it is often the imperfections in life which lead to sadness. In fact, I am yet to meet a single person who associates sadness, despair, depression, sorrow, or hardship with perfection. It is human nature to experience these emotions because something in our lives is wrong, because something in our lives is going wrong, something is broken. And surely broken conflicts with the most basic sense of the human mind's ability to perceive perfection. Therefore, it is not perfect. And, excluding some kind of semantic superposition argument in which quantum logic implies truth beyond the ability of the human mind to begin to grasp, if something is not perfect, it is imperfect. And as we already established, we must seek to ban imperfection in order to create perfection, which we must associate with utopia.
So there we have it. We must ban imperfect human experience. That is, we must ban negative emotion, the downs of which you spoke. They simply do not comply with an expanded view of utopia. Thus, in order for utopia to exist, we must ban all thought.
So in my utopia all forms of thought will be banned. And the best news is that lobotomies are fairly simple procedures! And for the economically minded, I believe that Costco is having a sale on ice picks this week. Now I'll admit that I'm not really sure what the practical difference between living in this utopia and being dead really are, but its good to know that utopia is in fact a reachable goal and one day all may live a life without having to worry about anything, without ever experiencing sorrow, without ever having to endure the hardships of freedom. Isn't that the dream?
Jason Carter is currently a student at the University of California, San Diego working towards a double major in Biochemistry & Cell BIology and Philosophy. He enjoys writing on topics in philosophy of mind, society, and law, as well as swimming, surfing, and hiking.
Email: Jason Carter
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