Can Utopia exist?
In the morning, you wake up, hearing the news of war in the Middle
East or the fights between politicians. On the subway to school or work you
find the people trying to ignore the homeless reaching out their hands for
money. You watch people fighting on the road with their cars crashed. In this
endless cycle of life, you may once have thought and desired to live in Utopia. However,
do you think that Utopia can exist? For a long time, maybe during the existence
of human beings, perfect world was a dream and a desire to be achieved. As
people are living in a world full of problems - poverty, crime, hunger,
disease, war and corruption people craved a world free of conflict, hunger and
unhappiness. Thus, the concept of Utopia began to exist. Utopia is a word Thomas
More invented when he wrote a book named Utopia. He coined the word
‘utopia’from the Greek ou-topos meaning ‘no place’ or ‘nowhere’. But this was a
pun because the almost identical Greek word ‘eu-topos- meant a good place. Thus
the word Utopia intrinsically contains the question whether the perfect world
can exist in reality. There were always controversies regarding the question.
However, I strongly insist that Utopia cannot exist in the real world.
As I mentioned, Utopia
has been a hot issue for everyone living the reality. Every person living in this world are dreaming of
their own Utopia. Compared to the history, it's true that the world seems to develop in a better way. As technology is developing rapidly, and the basic rights of humans are being considered importantly. Think of how
much revolutions and wars were made, and how much people fought to achieve
Utopia. From 18th century, utopian ideas exploded into actions. Condorcet,
Rousseau's opinions were enough to enlighten people to recognize that they have
right to claim Utopia. Thus in America and in france revolutions exploded. Also in
19th century Robert Owen and Titus Salt set up socialist utopian communities. Of course, these fights and
revolutions are still occurring.
Many novels which describe Utopia show people's
interests toward it. The first
people who invented the word Utopia is Thomas
more, who wrote the book Utopia defined Utopia on his own. The society existed
on the island and people living in there had no money. People moved to other
houses every 10 years to avoid obsession to their own belongings. Selected
officials govern the country and these officials have intellectual
capabilities. As people should share equal wealth, this society resembles that
of communism.
Not only in literature, there are many people
attempting to actualize Utopia in real world. New haven, Society of the woman
in the wilder, Ephrata cloister, Shakers, Harmony, Nashoba, New harmony, Brook
farm, Kindgon of St. James, Oneida, Icaria, Fountain Grove, Kaweah, Roycroft,
Point loma, Halcyon, Holycity, Peace mission of father divine, Drop city, Hog
farm, Twin oaks, Family of mystic arts, the diggers, the farm are utopian
societies that are
discovered. However if you think these utopian communities were just the old
story you're making a huge mistake.
If you type in "Marinaleda" in the search engine you
will find many interesting articles regarding this small village in Spain. You can read it from New
york times and wall street journal. Marinaleda
has gained a huge attention lately from the progressive press. It is located 70
miles east of Seville in southern Spain's Andalusia region, this small farming
village (population: 2,771) has set out to build a Communist utopia since the
late 1970s. Wall street Journal describes Marinaleda as "probably the most pleasant Communist society
on earth" To describe little about a village, there is complete absence of a police force.
And mechanization is avoided at all costs to put as many people as possible to
physical work. Marinaleda also
offers new residents a home for just €15 per month. What I wanted to emphasize
is that there are people trying to achieve real Utopia for all people and there
were lots of efforts to make Utopia. However, can those attempts end? Are those
efforts can be ended one day? In my opinion, I will say "no" Now, it seems to be sure that people have a strong desire to
actualize the utopian world when we see the novels and real villages that
people made.
However I insist that Utopia can’t exist in reality. There are
several reasons why. First of all every person have different standard toward
the perfect world. This is a simple thought that everyone could think of. When
you simply ask ‘What is your great pleasure’ to your friends or family members,
they will answer all differently. The perfect world means that it can all
suffice everyone’s desires and needs efficiently but as long as everyone wants
different things it is totally impossible to make up the perfect world for
everyone. A world which is perfect to you can be a dystopia to other people.In
our real live and in history people fought and start a revolution to get what
they want because due to the disparity between people’s opinions and interests
they could not come to an agreement. Let me introduce French
revolution as an example. Due
to the France’s failure to feed its population, the exclusion of the growing
bourgeoisie from political power and reluctance of the peasants to support an
oppressive feudal system, the revolution was caused. People tried to escape
from the reality that oppressed themselves and tried to make a world where
every citizen can live happily. It brought down the monarchy, the aristocracy
and the church so old regime in France ended. However does everyone living in
the world wanted the revolution to occur? No. The point is that it is right
that majority of the men living in France wanted the revolution but not all of
them wanted it. This is due to the fight between the rich and the poor which
still exists today. Every people want different society and rules. And we
already know that this kept going without making
In addition Utopia cannot exist because people must compete. Most
of the social problems occur due to the income inequality and rich get richer
and the poor-get poorer cycle. Thus to prevent these problems previous Utopian
societies inhibited the possession of money and shared all the resources
together. And by equalizing the income they forced people to accept uniformity.
However, historically, this method is not appropriate to human beings.
Communism which failed clearly shows the fact. Communism was one way to make
Utopia. It is the political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private
property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of
at least the major means of production and the natural resources of a society.
This was made in order to save citizens from sweating system and violation of
human rights. However when this was adapted to our reality, the fact turns out
to be different. People worked without competition and incentives thus it led
to the poor performance of economies. While competition may lead to income
inequality and conflicts between people without it, the community and society
of human beings cannot sustain.
Also Utopia cannot
exist because every human seek their own pleasure and interest. To be short,
humans are selfish. This is not a
problem of individuals’ personality. This regards to the principle of
evolution. In 1974, Richard
Dawkins published a book
named “The selfish Gene”. It is a book which describes a gene centered view of
Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. He argued that individual genes
adapt and evolve, using organism’s body as a survival machine for its genes.
Due to this mechanism, human beings become selfish. All human beings are
self-centered thus act and think selfishly. All altruistic behaviors are made
in order to maximize one’s inclusive fitness. Some people will think this point
of view as awkward. However this book is called as the classic of evolutionary
biology. Not only this, we can
see many proofs that reinforce this idea. People act on their own interests.
Everyone can accept this as a fact. However in Utopia, everyone cannot pursue
their interests freely because it makes the society hard to maintain. Thus many
novels that depict Utopia, as I mentioned before, restrict people’s desire.
However this society cannot sustain as long as people are selfish.
To be simple equality can be the key to Utopia. Everyone can share
their belongings thus there should be no poverty. However this idea leads to
the devastated results. Communism was the way to express and actualize the
Utopia. Equality and uniformity were the important rule. However communism
failed because of repressive environment, misallocation of resources and
totalitarian regime. Why did this happened? Humans are naturally selfish. Thus even
the leaders of the country could not bear the natural traits.
However, there are some
people arguing that Utopia can exist. They can find a research which was
published in Nature communications by scientists saying humans and animals
could not evolve in a co-operative environment by being selfish. They might
want to use this source as counter argument for my reasons that go "Utopia cannot exist because humans are
selfish". Some may say that this challenges a previous theory
which suggested that it is preferable to be selfish and put you first. Using
this source they might argue that because people evolve in a co-operative
environment by being altruistic, Utopia can exist. However all of these
experiments are conducted in a laboratory, with only computer simulations. It
seems that when that mathematics is fitted to the wild nature, it will pretty
soon break. New research suggests that co-operation helps a group evolve, but
does not mean that the selfish gene theory of evolution is wrong. Thus it is
obviously right in saying that as long as people are controlled by selfish
gene, regardless of possibilities of altruistic behavior, humans
are originally selfish. Also some might argue that as
technology develops, one day human society can be perfectly controlled by it.
Thus they can argue that by developing new technology we can make Utopia.
However it is totally absurd argument. Historically as technology developed,
new problems came out. According to Lewis, Harry R. history is an endless cycle of control and new technology. Thus
even if new technology can make our lives more comfortable, it cannot totally
change our societies into Utopia.
Therefore
Utopia cannot exist in reality. It's because people have different standards
toward Utopia and people should compete and humans are naturally selfish. It is
the most important thing to remember that Utopia does not exist in reality. If
we continue daydreaming about Utopia, which does not exist, it is obvious that
lose so many precious opportunities to change the society. Knowing the nonexistence of
Utopia leads to critical perspective toward society making people plan for the
best and most ideal way to make a better society. The value of pursuing
Utopia totally depends on realizing the fact that Utopia can't exist in
reality. However as long as human dream and pursue Utopia, there always a
possibility to a better world. In this perspective, Utopia is something that we
should always try to achieve knowing that we can’t. Dreaming of Utopia can be a
great tool for a better society and as long as we recognize it our future would
not be that miserable. Thus we should not stop dreaming about Utopia even
though we know it cannot exist in reality. That can be an important step toward
our better future.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-23529849
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2013/aug/02/evolution-punish-selfish-not-simple
