Themeattics

They constantly try to escape // From the darkness outside and within // By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good. // But the man that is will shadow // The man that pretends to be.

T.S. Eliot, The Rock

Mankind is full of idealists. We look around at the problems of the world today and imagine all sorts of solutions. Extreme poverty solved by taking wealth from the global elite. Overbearing central governments eliminated by brokering all the power to the people. Racism replaced with education, classism by compassion, ignorance by enlightenment. We have a solution for everything, with one ultimate goal in mind.

Utopia.

A world without anger, without selfishness, without hate. Where people do what they should and help those who cannot. Filled with magnanimity and camaraderie, where we love one another equally whether we know each other intimately or have never met before. The place where anarchy and communism meet, where Christ’s ideals are carried out without even the necessity of belief.

No one can deny the beauty of the ideal. Even me, as hard-in-the-paint for Capitalism as I am, understand the profound power of Utopia. The thing is, I recognize it can never happen in this world. And not only that, I recognize that it shouldn’t.

The title of this post isn’t a typo, it’s a direct translation of the Greek roots of the word. Outopos – ou “not” and topos “place” – coined by Thomas More in 1551 to describe an imaginary island which cannot exist due to its perfection. It seems we’ve forgotten this origin and replaced it with something even more idealized, somehow. We’ve taken “not place” and turned it into “good place,” as though it is something we can and should achieve.

I understand that. I really do. I even agree with the latter part, to a degree. We should strive toward perfection. That is what is asked of us throughout the Gospels, to imitate the example of Christ. That said, we also know it is impossible. We are, after all, human. That simple fact alone precludes the former part – we cannot achieve what creates Utopia, which is why that name was chosen in the first place.

Throughout history, many places have tried. None have succeeded, and in every case there are piles of bodies left in the wake. Why is that? Well, boiled down to its simplest element, it is because this sort of Utopia requires uniformity of thought. In order for everyone to achieve a level of equality where there is no envy or distrust of one another, no one can wish for anything other than what they have. There must not be a desire for bettering any individual, only for bettering the whole of society equally in the same instant. Anything else invites envy, spurred on by pride, which contaminates the whole experiment. Best exterminate the outliers lest they ruin everything.

Now, you may point to various Utopian experiments which were closer to success. I don’t doubt they exist, but scalability becomes an issue. As with all forms of government, size plays a huge factor. It’s one thing when three people up in the mountains live in a joint compound and quite another to use their same model on New York City or across the entire Midwest. The smallest form of government – one that would likely be considered the easiest and closes to Utopian – is the family, and even there you can quickly see the fractures.

So, why is it that we keep gravitating toward Utopianism in our politics? Idealism, for one. And for two, it’s easy. It’s easy to hold people to an impossible standard. It lets us chastise them for failing, lets us fall back on criticism and shouts of hypocrisy when people fail to meet their own ideals. But that’s the thing – none of us meet our own ideals. If we did, they wouldn’t be ideals. I’m beating a dead horse I know, but people are not and cannot be perfect. We can rub each others’ noses in the shit we create, but it won’t matter. Improve all we like, perfection is not in humanities cards. Often, we don’t even have the same definitions.

What hope, then, have we for the future? A great hope, so long as we turn our desire for Utopia inward. As Christ said in Matthew 7:5, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” This verse is often taken charitably as more forgiving than it is, but it ties directly with so many of Christ’s other teachings. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, judge not lest ye be judged, etc. Remember me saying no one is perfect? Well, guess what, perfection is not having sin. It’s having no plank in your own eye, it’s not casting judgment. We can’t do it. These lessons aren’t telling us that we’ll eventually get around to removing that speck from our neighbor’s eye or casting that stone or setting up that judgment. They’re telling us that the only person we can change is ourselves.

So before you go telling someone else what they have to change to bring about a better, more idealized world, take a look at yourself. Are you the kind of person who could live in it? Are you the kind of person who bears no ill will toward anyone, ever? Who would give everything you own to someone in need? Who feels no envy when someone else succeeds or has more, no animosity when they do not hold your views on the state of things, no schadenfreude when an ill fate befalls an opponent – in fact, someone with no opponents at all?

I know I’m not. I fall victim to it all. And while we have been promised just this sort of Utopia after death, I recognize I have no place in it as I am now. The way things are, not only would I lessen its greatness, I would hate being there. That’s why I’ll spend the rest of my life digging at this plank, praying I can get enough out before the end. Praying that, when the day comes, I’ll have chosen the true Utopia after all.

I hope each of you join me along the way.