So this is it. We've reached the end
of the semester, and aside from feeling totally burnt out, I think
I've learned quite a bit about utopias over the past fifteen-odd
weeks. We've seen shining republics (with pastries), spiritual
cities, theocracies, classical utopias, weird martian utopias, modern
dystopias, and lots of explosions in an utopian/dystopian(?) Michael
Bay film.
Leftovers again?!
At the beginning of the semester, most
of us agreed that an utopia is not a perfect place; rather, it is
better than the one we currently occupy. Similarly, we will probably
never be able to achieve a perfect world, but that doesn't mean we
shouldn't try.
I think I may have realized something
this semester. What if the definition of utopia is wrong? What if, in
our real-world sense, the closest we ever get to an utopia is by
helping each other and trying to make the world a better place?
In that case, our “City on a Hill”
is already here. When we help others, we come the closest to an
utopia that we ever will. As the saying goes, “It's not the end
result of the quest that matters; it's the getting there that
counts.”
What if an utopia is the process by
which we try to make the world a better place?
(Michael Bay meme taken from www.joblo.com. Comparative photo of The Island and Transformers 3 taken from www.reddit.com. Image of the City on a Hill taken from insidetheshrink-dailygrace.blogspot.com.)
The way you are talking about utopia being a process makes so much more sense to me now that we are at the end of the semester. In Herland, the women were always trying to make themselves better, they were always in process. This seemed like the most utopian place we read about. The places that were pretty much done progressing and thinking they were already the best eventually crumbled and appeared more like dystopia. I definitely agree with you though. Even if individuals are not changing the world when they are helping others, they are changing themselves, making themselves better - in a way utopian.
ReplyDeleteInteresting thought, Sam! It's so incredibly hard to define Utopia to begin with, but the way you explained your thoughts on it really make sense. A Utopia (that accommodates to everyone's needs) is impossible to obtain, so the next best thing is to create your own Utopia. And what better way to do that than to help others?
ReplyDeleteIt should be pretty clear based on my last post that I agree :p
ReplyDeleteIt's the active commitment to change the world one small step at a time that makes a larger change overall. I think the general hope is that your act of kindness or charity inspires somebody else to do the same. It's tough to do in a society where there's little trust between individuals of whom you have no prior connections.
In part I agree with you in the sense that any utopia would have to be an evolving process. People change over time and environments and the rest change over time. If a society did not change I think it would eventually become the opposite of what it intends to be.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you on the aspect that the closest we might ever get to utopia is helping one another
but I do not think we should change what utopia is. I think having the idea of a perfect world is a good thing because it forces us to question what is happiness, perfection and good not just for us individually but for society.
so while you might be right we never will get closer to utopia than by helping each other
I still think the definition of utopia and what we imagine it to be should still remain