The Home of Steven Barnes
Author, Teacher, Screenwriter


Tuesday, January 04, 2011

The real reason "mankind" might not ever embrace Utopia is that no two people have exactly the same definition of what it is.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The real reason Utopia will never see the light of day is it's contingent on self-satisfaction. Utopia, or the best of all worlds, is for me the complete gratification of my self-interests. The same is true for everyone else. Since facets of all these innumerable self-interests doubtless clash, no solution that enables everyone to obtain all they need or desire is possible. The "best" that's feasible is something approximating Utopia for some subset (ruler, aristocracy, majority, what-have-you) of the whole, or a modulus vivendi that gives something to everyone, but also denies Utopia to all.

Ethiopian_Infidel

Nancy Lebovitz said...

Also, utopia tends to be greatly oversimplified compared to any society that humans would actually invent.

Just for the fun of it: Weirdtopia.

Anonymous said...

thank you