[April 16, 2023] One essential behavior about people that we really don’t understand and should understand is that we are inherently unappreciative. Fyodor Dostoevsky insightfully wrote that if you set up a utopia so that all people had to do was eat cake and busy themselves with the continuation of the species (Russian humor), after a short bit of time, people would begin to break things just so something unexpected and remarkable could happen. Utopia Über Alles!
“Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky
People are not built for security and safety; those are utopian things the evil of Communism promises. Instead, we are built for adventure. That is a good thing to know. We don’t want to suffer unjustifiably, and that seems reasonable. From that, it might follow that we want happiness even when we all know that happiness is a boat that is easily capsized. If our philosophy is one of impulsive happiness, let’s call it a Utopia Über Alles, then we are not prepared when things go to hell in a handbasket. And that will happen during our lifetimes, many times.
Adventure is more reliable and sustaining than the happiness of a utopia. Adopt responsibility and tell the truth. Now, that will set you on the path of adventure.
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I’ve really never given any thought that communism or Marxism is anything different than pure evil. Gen. Satterfield helps make the case better. Utopias are doomed to fail.
Evil yes. Pure evil, yes.
Excellent discussion. I would like to read more on this topic of UTOPIAs. The marxists are always pushing the idea but fully fail to understand people. No surprise that all marxist societies are total trash.
Plato’s Republic: A Utopia For The Individual
https://philosophynow.org/issues/70/Platos_Republic_A_Utopia_For_The_Individual
The Republic is Plato’s most famous dialogue, contains many of his best-known arguments and is one of the great classics of world literature. It is also the victim of a serious and widespread misconception, in that it is held to present a political utopia, a polis [city state] to be imitated. This assumption has led to a criticism of the Republic as recommending a totalitarian regime or an extremely communistic society. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Good read.
… and good idea.
Utopia makes excellent entertainment value but nothing practical except like the kind of ideas Gen. Satterfield is discussing. This is a great quote and one we should not be forgetting, “Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Pretty much by their nature, utopias tend to sound dull (due to the lack of conflict), homogeneous (since it’s hard to describe a world of people living very differently from each other) and alien (anything very different from the status quo is just going to rub lots of people the wrong way).” – Holden Karnoffsky on the problems with utopias.
https://www.cold-takes.com/why-describing-utopia-goes-badly/
Why is utopia unpopular? If I’m right that there’s little-to-no serious discussion of potential utopias (and general contempt for the idea) in today’s discourse, there are a number of possible reasons. “Ends justify the means” worries? One reason might be the idea that aiming at utopia inevitably leads to “ends justify the means” thinking – e.g., believing that it’s worth any amount of violence/foul play to get a chance at getting the world toward utopia.
You guys are way over my head.
I think that most of us would want a utopia and that is why we want safety and security but most folks are unable or don’t want to think about it further. It is just a future “impossible” goal they are happy to work towards.
Perhaps yes.
Gen. Satterfield, I’m still trying to wrap my brain around this article. I think I will go into my office and THINK a bit more.
Yeah, me too.
Yeah, good points. Love this website by Gen. S.
All, the idea of a necessary, inevitable, and perfectly established Utopia as defined by Communism, Socialism, and Marxists (both traditional and neo modern) is a well established failure everywhere it has been tried. We must educate and show everyone in easy simple words why they fail. It is hard, very hard. Do your best.
Wow!