That's what I've always thought of as utopia. The idea that mankind has united in a quest to improve ourselves and others sounds fascinating and full of hope. I always believed that that sort of thing would give mankind something greater than a political agenda to look towards. It would give otherwise mundane jobs meaning and purpose.
Now though, after reading sargent's article, I've realized two things. One: that man likes to contradict himself, sometimes within the same sentence. Two: utopia, or the idea of it, is a misleading load of ...
Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of improving society, but this article stripped me of my star trek given innocence and said, "screw you and your pre-conceived notions". Utopia was always fixed and unchanging. I thought that we're all working towards a life where we better ourselves, but never considered that other people might have alternative ideas. Sure, many of them might be the same, but as the article implied, some people's dreams are radically different have the possibility of being more detrimental than helpful.
It's something that is constantly changing, and is the product of people dreaming and scheming. We'll never really reach utopia, because there will always be somebody that thinks things should be different, as evidenced in season four of star trek: enterprise, where xenophobic people tried to force
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| "giant freggin laser" - http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Verteron_array |
aliens out of earth with a giant lunar laser because they were afraid of becoming a minority. So, if utopia is unreachable, then why study it? It's kind of like the perpetual energy machine: the only thing perpetual about it is man's obsession in finding it. What can the pursuit of something unattainable do to improve ourselves? Can these parodies of our society really let us improve ourselves, or are they just skeptical or naive representations of fantasies and horrors unfulfilled? These questions, I leave to you.
I would like to say that I agree with your Star Trek analogies, but I myself am not too familiar with the show/movie. However, what I can say is that I do agree with you that reaching what one might call a better or perfect utopia may be nearly impossible. I too agree that utopia’s, or the attempts at reaching a utopia start at the individual level. If no or minimal changes are reached there, reaching a utopia opinion the community level would be even more difficult. Great ideas and I look forward to engaging with you on future posts. -Jesus
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