Today I finished reading Arthur Koestler's novel, Darkness at Noon. It takes place in the Soviet Union in the 1940s and is about a fictitious top-ranking member of the Communist Party who's arrested as part of the Great Purge, subsequently jailed, tortured, and made to confess to crimes of counterrevolution and sabotage that he didn't commit.
Perhaps in all of history there's never been a quest for utopia that did more harm than the communist revolution of the 1900s and its resulting totalitarian regimes. But I don't know much history, and I know even less about the Soviet Union, so today's post isn't about that. Instead, I'd like to write a few words about the philosophical underpinnings of all beliefs about utopia and why they ultimately result in—if anything at all—more harm than good.
The core problem with utopias isn't just that they're infeasible. Rather, it's that people who act with the belief that what they're doing will cause society to be ushered into a lasting era of widespread happiness are morally free to commit whatever atrocities are necessary in the present in order to make that future certain. This is a logical conclusion of believing in utopia: an infinitely good reward in the future justifies finite suffering—however vast—in the present.
There's only one safe way to believe in a utopia, and that's by believing it's completely off-limits to us here on Earth—as many religions have preached for centuries. Indeed, I've come to think that one of the major benefits religion imparts to humankind is their provision of a safe outlet for utopic dreaming. There's a strong desire within our species to believe that the meaningless suffering of life we observe around us isn't all there is or ever will be, that instead there exists and is achievable something that's wholly good. But the pious man harmlessly projects his Heaven beyond the metaphysics of death, and by doing so frees himself to do actual good Here and Now. Can an irreligious people do as well?
4 comments:
"This is a logical conclusion of believing in utopia: an infinitely good reward in the future justifies finite suffering—however vast—in the present."
Not to mention that the utopian frequently is justifying the suffering of others rather than a self-sacrificing suffering that is usually the hallmark of someone working under a religious motivation.
Josh— For me, whether religious persons are any less self-serving, on average, than irreligious persons is an open question.
But consider the pious, god-fearing Muslim that calmly steered a 767 into the North tower. Was he harmlessly projecting his Heaven beyond the metaphysics of death?
Whether religious or secular, irrational thinking is bound to cause some harm to someone somewhere down the line. "Utopic thinking" is just another irrational symptom of emotional beings yearning for something more significant.
Shafik— Sorry for the long delay in replying. Of course you're right that religion is no guarantee of moral behavior, and religious persons aren't immune to succumbing to beliefs in an earthly paradise—often as twisted offshoots of their religious beliefs.
That said, I'm wondering about the practicality of a secular people—that is, a massive group of persons who're collectively secular—in finding a way to resist, as a group, succumbing to the belief in an earthly perfection and consequently mucking things up a great deal in trying to realize that belief. Does religion serve an irreplaceable function for the mass of men?
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