Looking Forward: The City on a Hill Revisited

      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.)

Discrimination on Our Doorstep

      I see “Gattaca” as more of a social commentary than a dystopian warning flare set in “the not-too-distant future.” If you think about the kind of discrimination we see in the movie, namely, discrimination based upon genetics, you'll realize we've always been doing it.

      Yes, that's right; I'm saying we actually don't need some sort of fancy DNA test to tell us who we think is and isn't capable. When I thought about most of the qualities upon which we discriminate—gender, skin color, athleticism, physical and mental stamina, etc.—I realized that they were already linked in some fashion (with the note of a few exceptions) to each person's genetic code.

      In other words, we don't need to worry about “[having] discrimination down to a science” in the near future because it's already here.

      Racial/coloration discrimination is probably the most obvious evidence of this. A person's skin color comes directly from his or her genetic background, and for centuries Western society has believed that people without white skin are socially, morally, physically, and (now) genetically inferior. Ironically, one of the actors in “Gattaca” delivers the line “Blood has no nationality,” but according to Western society, it does.

      Thankfully, many of us have abandoned such views, but some groups still believe in racial discrimination.

Please stop saying you're doing "the Lord's work." You're making the rest of us who are actually trying look bad.

      We even pick on people who are mentally different than us. I cannot count how many times I have heard “retard” used as an insult. Some cases of mental retardation come from genetic abnormalities, and our using that term as an insult reveals that we must have some sort of propensity to discriminate against and regard those people who have that condition as “inferior.”

      I'm reminded of the sister of an old friend of mine. She has Down's Syndrome, so she was picked on growing up because she looked different, talked different, and acted different than the rest of the students. Some of them couldn't get past the genetics and see the sweet, outgoing girl she really was.

      And now we have this sentiment in society that says it might be okay to abort or euthanize a fetus that will probably have genetic abnormalities when it's born. Without getting too controversial or moralistic, I have to wonder how fair it is for us to do that without knowing what impact that person may have. Some of my most meaningful experiences have come from interactions with people who are “handicapped” or “different.”

      So, yeah, “Gattaca” was close to the bulls-eye, but not quite there. Genetic discrimination isn't in the future; it's here, with us, right now. Our continuing discrimination while paying lip-service to the idea of equality keeps putting us farther and farther away from a potential utopia.

(Image of the Klan march on Washington taken from southernnationalist.com.)

Is an Utopia a Reality?

      George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is possibly my favorite piece of dystopian literature. Sure, the regime lacks the seemingly well-placed love and cleverness of the one in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, but I think that's why I enjoy Oceania's governmental system. These people aren't in it to create a better world or help the people who need it; they're in it for the power, plain and simple.

      But, I've always enjoyed reading about villains who are power-hungry and evil simply for the sake of being evil.

      I also really liked reading the philosophical debate at the end of this book. I've always kind of enjoyed philosophy, so this kind of battle of wits excites me.

Here is my favorite quote from this book: “ 'We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull' ” (274).

      In a way, O'Brien, the speaker here, is wrong; however, in a way he's right. Someone once asked me how many realities there are. I immediately just wanted to say “one,” but once I thought about it I realized the answer is sort of “infinitely many.” (Actually, they're not infinite, but the number is so high they may as well be infinite.)

 It's not quite as fancy as a "multiple earths" theory.

     Now, stay with me here as I describe my wonky theory. There is one reality in which all things actually happen as they are. This reality is called “Truth.” All of our perceptions and personal takes on “Truth” are the other numerous realities. (I call them “the Infinities.”) Here's an example:

I'm sitting in the dining hall at a table by myself. At the table next to me is a group of three people chatting. Now, in the prime, true reality (“Truth”), they're making fun of my haircut; however, I think (from what little I eavesdrop) that they're talking about basketball. My perception is one of the “Infinities.” While my thoughts aren't true to what actually happens, they're true to me, and therefore realistic. So, in consequence, there are infinitely many realities based upon our daily perceptions.

Get it?

"Welcome to Coblentz Dining Hall: where the recipes don't make sense and your perception of reality doesn't matter."

      So, with so many realities, is it even possible to have an utopia? Sure, one may exist in “Truth,” but what if everyone perceives it differently? It may be perfect, but it won't be utopian to some people because it won't line up with their expectations and perceptions of perfection. If they don't want to go along with it, how can the society be perfect/better? How, then, can it be utopian?

(Multiple earths picture taken from 123rf.com. Image of Coblentz taken from youvisit.com.)

Technology: Society's Doom?

      We see a lot of technology in Brave New World. It seems to cause some problems for them, but does it cause some for us, too?

      I have a serious love-hate relationship with technology. On one hand, it has made my life much easier through my cell phone and has given me opportunities to entertain myself through video games and Netflix. On the other hand, it infuriates me and cripples our society.

      On second thought, even the technology that I love can tend to make me angry. When Hood College's trademark email barrages at noon at five o'clock light up my phone like a Christmas tree, I often want to throw it against the wall just to get it to stop vibrating. When I begin losing a video game that I've invested a lot of time in, I kinda get the feeling that I want to throw my laptop out the window.

      But maybe I'm just a sore loser.

      Let's look at what technology has done to the generation that follows ours. We boast that technology has made children more connected and much smarter than we are. Perhaps the children are more connected, but Facebook and other social media are making it more difficult for them to communicate in face-to-face encounters. My local Board of Education even considered creating a mandatory “Social Relations” class in order to help kids develop effective interpersonal skills.

A class for developing skills that come naturally for most people?! You've got to be kidding me!

      Our boasting that they're smarter is also kind of misplaced. First, I'm not even convinced that they know more stuff. I went to school with kids who couldn't find Maryland on a map of the USA and thought that Austria was located adjacent to Massachusetts.

Second, these kids have sacrificed some of their childhood innocence to get to where they're at (and remember that their current intelligence may actually be worse than ours was). Two years ago, I spent some time tutoring kindergarteners at my old elementary school. Aside from the whole experience being extremely throwbacky, I learned some things about how kids have changed in the thirteen years since I had been in kindergarten.

      These kids were swearing at each other. Not the “Oops, it just slipped out in the moment” or the “I don't know what this word means, but I'm going to say it anyway” kinds of swearing. No, these kids knew what these words meant, and they were hurling them at each other without getting in trouble.

      Five-year-olds. Dropping the f-bomb. I can't even articulate how much trouble that would have gotten me while I was in kindergarten.

      We've given the next generation cell phones so they can stay in touch and computers so they can write their papers. Instead, they have used their phones to spend our money and used their computers to look at porn and play those silly MMORPGs. The results of these choices stay with them for the rest of their lives, hurting them, and in turn, society.

      So, is technology the death of society? The devices themselves are fine; it's how we've used them that is hurting us. If society is damaged by technology, it will ultimately be us, and not the technology, that will be to blame.

(The first meme is from weknowmemes.com. The second is from blog.hsoi.com.)

My Name is Bernard Marx: How We Judge Others

      Labels are an everyday facet in our society. We use them to determine the quality of a brand of clothing. We use them so we can know what processed ingredients we're packing our bodies with. Heck, I even have to use them on this blog post so my professor can identify it as one of mine and grade me on it. Needless to say, labels are pretty important.

But they can also be a form of predestination, just like the kind we see in Brave New World.

      Rather than being an “Alpha” or a “Beta,” which would determine our status in life, we—and sometimes other people without our knowing it—assign labels to ourselves and others whether we know it or not. Obviously, this leads to judgment of others, which is something we all do (you can't deny it, sorry). It also leads to others expecting certain things from you, just like society expects poor old Bernard Marx to be a perfect Alpha.

      I'll use myself as an example, using the judgments I have been subjected to in the past. I am a Christian, and to some (if not many) people, that makes me a homosexual-hating hypocrite who watches Fox News, is a rabid conservative, a Bible-pounding-fire-and-brimstone inelegant debater, an idiot who has the audacity to believe in Creationism while mainstream science contests its reality, and a person who—in the end—will eventually deny the facts if they conflict with the point I'm trying to make.

      In reality, I love homosexuals no less than I love any other of my fellow man; I do my best not to be a hypocrite, acknowledging the fact that I will occasionally mess up really bad; I loathe partisan news channels, and I attempt to avoid the news altogether; I have a solidly moderate political stance; I (at least) think that I can debate rather well, using facts and figures and saving the fire-and-brimstone stuff for when its really needed; I've extensively studied Creationism versus Evolutionism and the science behind both, and while I am a Young-Earth theorist, I strongly hold to the existence of microevolution; and whenever I encounter an obstacle in an argument, I often research, study, and think (even to the point of losing sleep) about it until I can make a decision.

      But those people didn't know me, and they didn't want to know me. For them, the label is all they needed to see.

      These labels make life so easy, but they're so restrictive and binding and destructive!

      I think an utopia ought to be a place where labels do not give people an opportunity to judge others based on a title or a name. Needless to say, our society is a far cry from this utopian vision.

      Hello. My name is Bernard Marx. I hate labels, and like the back cover of Brave New World puts it, “I want freedom” from the judgments associated with them.

There's a Reason Why It's Not Called *Myland*

     I have to admit, I am pretty disappointed with Herland. While I expected the classic Amazon, shining warrior-woman society, we read about a society of female philosophers and scientists. And to be totally truthful, some of those women weren't even good philosophers.

      I should probably stop now and remind all of you that I'm not a sexist (at least, I wasn't the last time I checked).

I think my biggest problem with Herland is that it's so BORING!

 I don't often encounter a book that makes me long for its ending or my death (whichever comes first), but sometimes there is that one...

      For me, Herland is also too perfect. It seems like Charolotte Perkins Gilman tries to create a sort of heaven-on-earth scenario with a wholly female society. This whole heaven-on-earth idea has been done before, except Gilman tries a different strategy than the others: she doesn't change the inhabitants for the better in order to fit the society (although she does change them).

      Let's examine the classic example of a heaven-on-earth scenario: the idea of “New Heaven” and “New Earth” from the book of Revelation. There's not a whole lot of detail given in the description of New Heaven, but in what little is given a massive shining city of gold, gems, perfect people, and a perfect God is revealed. There's no description of what the details of society will look like, so a lot is left to speculation.

      What will people do for eternity? Won't they get bored eventually? Those are valid questions, but elsewhere scripture reveals that the inhabitants of New Heaven will be both physically and spiritually changed to be perfect. Only the good emotions shall remain, pain shall be gone, eternal joy shall abound, etc. In other words, the people change to resemble more perfectly the flawless society in which they live, so it is quite possible they will not become bored.

      Herland, however, doesn't do that. The women are different from regular women in that they have lost most of their emotion. How, then, can their “perfect utopian society” exist without an abundance of the good emotions? Without an abundance of such goodness, their society really doesn't seem utopian at all.

(Image of the dreadfully bored fellow courtesy of google.com.)

Halfway There: Looking Backward and Looking Forward

     So we're halfway through the semester and we've already seen a massive array of utopias. They've included futuristic visions, shining cities, spiritual happiness, and island paradises. It's been interesting, and so I wanted to share my opinions on where they sit on the spectrum. (The diamonds are color-coded to the text at the bottom.)

     Now that we've examined all of these different visions, I think my own idea of an utopia is coming together. I want to look back at how my utopian vision has grown, and I want to look ahead to see if we will ever get close to achieving anything like it.

First, I'll give my definition of an utopia:

1. It is not perfect. Instead, it is a better place than where we are now.
2. It does not have to exist in some sort of time or place.
3. It either has some form of written constitution of the people or is ruled by a benevolent autocrat. It is one of these two extremes, but nothing in the middle.
4. The people in it must be involved in some sort of activity for the betterment of others. This action can be physical or spiritual, but it must exist in some capacity.

Now on to my personal utopia:

1. Kindness is strongly encouraged. Most everyone participates in some sort of charity work.
2. Vice is discouraged and frowned upon.
3. Those in need of help receive it.
4. Men and women work together to lead the household and society.
5. Education is crucial, and most everyone participates in and enjoys some sort of thought-provoking activity.
6. Some sort of philosophical study or relationship with the Supreme Being is encouraged.
7. The leader(s) (either constitutional body or autocrat) are constantly reminded of the burden of their position. They do not fritter away public funds, waste time, or slack off on the job.

      So, the big question is: do I think any of this is possible? I think some areas may be possible, but others certainly are not.

      There's another pressing question: do I believe that we will ever achieve an utopia? At the beginning of the semester, one of my posts included a stanza from W. H. Auden's poem, “One Evening”:

“O stand, stand at the window

As the tears scald and start;

You shall love your crooked neighbor

With your crooked heart.”

I still believe in a utopia based on kindness and love, but another stanza from that poem comes to mind:

“O look, look in the mirror,

O look in your distress;

Life remains a blessing

Although you cannot bless.”

Do I think we'll ever be good enough to achieve a utopia where we help each other? No, I don't, mainly because I don't think we're than interested in doing so.

(Chart provided by the Dr. Heather Mitchell-Buck.)

Pack Your Bags?

      I'm going to say it right now so you can stop reading if you hate it: I like Thomas More's Utopia and his utopian vision. I really enjoy the Utopians' outlook on so many things. For instance, academics are an important element of society (great for bookworms like me); politics and private life are not allowed to mix; and priests may not occupy political positions, which prevents corruption.

      There are, of course, bad things. We have the Utopians sowing lots of assassination plots and other interesting forms of skulduggery amongst their enemies; encouraging suicide for medical purposes; committing genocide of the Zapoletes; and giving public honor for virtue.

… But I'm beginning to digress.

      The Utopian society seems so perfect and wonderful, but it's not. When I read this book last semester, I thought it was. Even when I sat down to begin this post ten minutes ago, I thought I was going to write some clever little letter from a Utopian railing against our society or some sort of post about how I'd like to take an extended vacation to Utopia.

      And then I remembered something: a utopia must have two halves, one internal and the other external (hello, Saint Augustine). See, the external world can look all pretty and perfect (Utopia), but the internal world can still be terrible.

...Perhaps I should tell you what the internal world is. It's you, or more specifically, your feelings and your state of being.

      Let me tell about two people I've had the opportunity to meet over the past year. I met one a few months ago. During the course of our conversation, she told me that she gets so depressed that she cuts herself. The second person had some serious anger management issues. Rather than confronting them, he would just lose himself in his addiction: Xanax. They were total strangers, and I was more or less powerless to help them.

      I thought if everyone in society moved to Utopia we would all enjoy life a lot more, but we wouldn't. These two people would still be self-harmers and addicts. They—and we—all look a little bit like this on the inside:

Moving to Utopia wouldn't change a thing.

      We can make the outside world as utopian as we'd like, but without work on the inside it's just a decaying shell.

(Train wreck picture from www.eccchistory.com).

A Non-Utopian Perfect Place

      Is Augustine's Heavenly City a utopia? Initially, I thought that it wasn't based on Lyman Tower Sargent's definition: “[It involves] a topos—a location in time and space” (5); however, I've given it some thought, and it appears to fit the criteria.

      First, let's look at the temporary City of God, the one which inhabits the people who work toward peace on earth. Does it have some sort of physical location? It is located in the physical being of the aforementioned group of people. The answer to this question, therefore, is “yes.” Does it exist in some point in time? Well, this City got its start with the birth of Christianity, which would indicate that it exists in some sort of temporal way. The answer to this question, then, is also “yes.” It looks like the temporary City fits the bill.

      Now let's look at the eternal City of God, which is heaven. At first, it appears as though this version of the City disqualifies its possibility of being a utopia because it doesn't appear to exist in time or space. A closer examination of Christian canon, however, reveals that the final version of the City of God does indeed exist in time and space in some sort of capacity. For instance, the book of Revelation states that the New Heaven will be located on the New Earth. While this description is rather vague, it does actually situate the City at some point in space. Revelation also describes the City as being the beginning of Eternity—at which point time no longer matters—but the fact that it begins could indicate that it exists at some point in time even if time is irrelevant. It would seem, then, that Augustine's heavenly City also fits Sargent's description.

      And yet it doesn't. Sargent also states that a utopia is a “no place,” meaning that it doesn't exist (5). To Augustine (and the larger Christian community), both the temporary City and the heavenly City are very real places, which means that they exist in some capacity. In this way, they do not fit Sargent's description and therefore are not “utopias” by his definition. Reading Augustine's work really made me think hard about this, and even though I thought the Heavenly City may be a utopia by Sargent's definition, it isn't.

      Lastly, I'd like to give a quick explanation of the temporary City of God. The common belief is that when a person accepts Christ, he or she immediately becomes a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. Scripture then states that he or she is no longer a citizen of the world, meaning that his or her worldly nature and national heritage no longer matter. This individual is spiritually bound to all others with the same faith, meaning that they are united into one big City. This is where Augustine gets his idea. Hopefully, this helps explain it a bit.

(Image of New Heaven taken from www.bloodynailsguiltyhands.wordpress.com).

Guardians and Unjust Justice

  

     Plato's attempt at making a beautiful city in The Republic is very commendable. His city has some good qualities, but most of them are bad. For instance, he (not to be anachronistic here) has a very Bolshevik-esque method of controlling what people learn from reading and hearing stories. While some form of censorship is appropriate and necessary, his seems to be a bit overkill. His can be summed up as:

      There are also prostitutes, communally shared wives, and pastries (and we know that sugary goodness is evil), but removing some of these things might actually make his city a good place.

I also really like what he says about the guardians and the judges not necessarily being happy. Happiness in a position of power may distract from the gravity of the position. It follows, then, that governance should look less like this

and more like this

      Speaking of the guardians, let's look at his method of raising them: “We must keep them under observation from childhood . . . and we must select whoever keeps on remembering it and isn't easily deceived” (413c-413d). Am I the only one who thinks this is a little bit creepy? It bears a striking resemblance to the kind of population control we (will) see in (SPOILERS!) Huxley's Brave New World.

       I also really enjoyed Plato's summary of wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice. I was surprised to see his definition of courage as a sort of preservation of the city and its institutions, especially because he seems to lean toward the idea in his Laches that courage is a form of endurance. The more I think about it, though, the more preservation of the city's institutions seems to be a form of endurance. He's relatively consistent to say the least.

      I think my biggest issue comes from his definition of justice as being a sort of refusal to meddle in affairs or duties that are not one's own (434c); furthermore, he asserts that an individual who is just is also wise, courageous, and moderate in his indulgences (442d).

      Here, his logic is fallacious because his definition of justice doesn't coincide with the other three qualities from which it's derived. I'm training to be a teacher in Maryland, so let's use that as an example. I will be obligated to report any suspected cases of a parent abusing his or her child. That's the right thing to do, ergo it's just, which means the deed is justice. Obviously, reporting such an incident would be wise (to prevent further injury) and courageous (because it's a tough decision to make, especially if one turns out to be wrong). According to Plato, both of these categories factor into justice, but the action wouldn't be justice because it would be meddling, which is unjust. Yeah, right...

(Meme taken from mybroadband.co.za. Crowdsurfing photo taken from blog.gotoohlala.com. Burden sketch taken from jonathanmetz.com).

City on a Hill

     With all the strife, pain, and suffering in the world, we often find ourselves asking what we can do to make the world a better place.

     I'm not proposing something radical, like unifying the world under a single government; rather, my plan involves people doing something very, very small: daily random acts of kindness.

     Throughout our history, we have often wanted to build a better community: the “City on a Hill.” (Notice that I said “better,” not “perfect”). Doing random and meaningful acts of kindness will build that city, brick by brick.

     But how would we achieve something so radical and fundamentally in contrast to the greed that permeates the heart and soul of every human being? Well, we can't force people to be kind; that just takes all of the meaning out of the act. We also can't give incentives to people for being kind; not only do we not have enough money to do that (hello, deficit), but that's also meaningless. (*Cough cough* tax deductions).

     I think the most effective route would be if a group of like-minded individuals gathered together and began doing such acts of kindness. Through their example, others might be inspired to participate, which would lead to a domino effect of exponential kindness. A similar method (without such a focus on kindness) can be seen in the development of the organization/zeitgeist Anonymous.

For those of you not familiar with Anonymous, you may want to check this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_%28group%29 (Yeah, it's Wikipedia, but I've managed to corroborate almost all of the information in that article. Simply put, it's true. I am also willing to provide external corroborating links upon request).

     These people had a dream, they came together, and they acted on it. Now, as the Wikipedia page states, “In 2012, Time named Anonymous as one of the most influential groups in the world.” If something so powerful can come out of a meme on 4chan, imagine what a large group of technologically linked people (minus the hacking, please) with a shared commitment to kindness can accomplish. If we actually join together, then a movement of charity could occur very easily.

     Why should we try something like this? Because people need help, regardless of who they are, that's why. (Notice I didn't say “deserve”). Helping someone at his or her moment of need is one of the best ways of making a lasting impact on someone, especially a good one. And perhaps that person will feel motivated to help another person later, which will help to make the world even better.

“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

                                       - 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NKJV)

"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbor
With your crooked heart."
                  - W. H. Auden, "One Evening"

(Headless photo taken from above Wikipedia link about Anonymous. Unity photo from farazairoz.blogspot.com)