Utopia Forgone

Chasing echoes There are no "good" or "bad" people in the world any more than there are "good" or "bad" any other sort of animal. Normative inquiry's a worthwhile pursuit for punishment theorists and, I suppose, for jurists determined there's some divine rhyme or higher reason for the law of a particular land. But outside of retributive contexts -- and the geopolitical arena, where pretensions to the moral high ground are a mainstay of Western foreign policy -- value judgement's largely the pur

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12 thoughts on “Utopia Forgone

  1. I don’t believe that Utopia can ever be achieved unless almost all individuals and groups of people are willing to commit to putting others needs and desires above their own and also be willing to “pay”, monetarily and otherwise, for any related costs. This is most of civilization, I believe.
    Whether one wants to admit it or not, there is a “transactional” nature to human relationships that is difficult to overcome and this can result in a wide spectrum of outcomes. At an individual level, the lucky among us are able to find an individual who values and desires what we naturally have to offer and willingly provides us something in exchange that we highly value. I will happily give you this (which I also want for myself) and you will happily and give me that (which you also want for yourself).
    When various parts of that transaction start to fall apart; then it often devolves into, “I will just do as I please”.
    H, your story is slowly unfolding, and in the most beautiful, intimate and intriguing way imaginable.

    So, how is your construction project going? 🙂

    1. I ended up with something not nearly as eccentric as I was planning originally. “Modern mini-mansion” sounded good when the developer pitched it to me in Sept/Oct, and she (and yes, she was a she, and she’s also a structural engineer and just an all-around cool person) has a track record in the area for making the finished product look very close to the renderings, but I just frankly thought she was over-promising in terms of price versus the renderings. She was trying to build something that looked like it belonged on a California cliffside, and I just knew there were going to be cost-overruns or else cheaper materials to make it work, so I went a more traditional route. I’m happy with it, but what I would say is that if someone came to this lady (and she’s actually younger than I am) with a blank check and just said “Here, go crazy,” she could build you something mind-boggling. She’s an incredibly talented person — she just lives in the wrong area of the country. If she were building in Miami or LA, she’d be a celebrity.

  2. Having lived a fairly long time, I have a really good guess as to why humanity doesn’t choose utopia. 1 in 20 people score highly on the psychopathy survey. I often fantasize a virus that targets sociopaths to end this scourge once and for all. If you haven’t read “Snakes in Suits” it’s a good primer and highlights how ’empathetics’ admire the empathy-free and constantly elevate them to power, with disastrous consequences. Recently I even saw someone in power declare that “empathy is sin!”

  3. Another fantastic piece.

    I have a Derrida story to share which I may have shared here before, and if so I apologize for being repetitive.

    I attended a lecture of his sponsored by the New School and Cardozo Law School (I think) in 1993. I traveled up from Philadelphia while in undergrad specifically to hear him speak. At the end of the lecture, I went down to the stage and waited behind several people to get a chance to ask him for some point of clarity on one of his latest books (probably also with the book in hand to be autographed). When I got to him, I queried “Can I ask you a question?”. His immediate and terse response was “No!”. Then he turned away and moved along nonchalantly while I stood there for a moment wondering what just happened.

    In 1994 he then came to Philadelphia to speak at Villanova University, where I was just beginning graduate studies in continental philosophy. His lectures during that visit and roundtable discussion resulted in the book “Deconstruction in a Nutshell”. As a graduate student, I had access to a small private cocktail hour with him. I was still a bit agitated by the NYC experience, and as well the repetitiveness of so many of his books that I had slogged through by that time. When I got to speak with him I got right to a question, asking it in a fairly blunt and not friendly manner which he seemed to immediately pick up on. For whatever reason after he answered my question I shoved my beer bottle in front of him and told him to autograph it. He initialed the bottle, while still clearly uncomfortably absorbing my demeanor. I’m sure in my mind I was somehow balancing out what I had experienced in NYC.

    I still have the bottle on my bookshelf for no apparent reason next to nearly twenty of his books that I’m largely done with for life, one of which I think I got him to sign the following day.

    Many years later I came across this youtube clip of him, which I like to think I may have contributed to:

  4. The time will come when one will prudently refrain from all constructions of the world-process or even of the history of man; a time when one will regard not the masses but individuals, who form a kind of bridge across the turbulent stream of becoming.

    If, on the other hand, the doctrines of sovereign becoming, of the fluidity of all concepts, types and species, of the lack of any cardinal distinction between man and animal – doctrines which I consider true but deadly – are thrust upon the people for another generation with the rage for instruction that has by now become normal, no one should be surprised if the people perishes of petty egoism, ossification and greed, falls apart and ceases to be a people; in its place systems of individualist egoism, brotherhoods for the rapacious exploitation of the non-brothers, and similar creations of utilitarian vulgarity may perhaps appear in the arena of the future. To prepare the way for these creations all one has to do is to go on writing history from the standpoint of the masses and seeking to derive the laws which govern it from the needs of these masses, that is to say from the laws which move the lowest mud- and clay-strata of society.

  5. Thanks for another fine post. I read everything you send to us because you are my idea of what an expert professional writer should be. I have written five books but somehow I never want to read any of them again. I tried to be as accomplished as you have proved you are so I continue to consume your thoughts because they are surely among the most sensible, clearly expressed and harmonious as any I get to read. What this month’s theme presented as I saw it, is primary evidence supporting the idea that humans as one of two species populating all of the earth are doomed to lose paradise. (Among visible animal species I believe only spiders also inhabit all the continents and they are likely to survive.)