Utopia: A Step in the Wrong Direction

Utopia: A Step in the Wrong Direction 

            At the start of this course, I believed that a Utopia was an attainable world where all people lived without conflict.  I thought that while it would be difficult, a Utopia could be created in very unusual circumstances.  As the course progressed, my definition of a Utopia did not alter greatly; however, my opinion did. 

            As we started this course, I held the idea of a Utopia high in my mind.  I pictured a world with no conflict as perfect and almost picturesque.  In my mind, there were absolutely no downfalls to these ideal communities.  As the course progressed, we learned about countless attempts at Utopias.  I couldn’t help but to notice that all of these attempts seemed to share a common downfall.  In most cases, the intentional communities that we studied did not collapse due conflicts, but rather collapsed because of the lack thereof.  Without any competition or conflicts, the communities lacked motivation and became frustrated.  This interesting observation caused me to look deeper into the idea of a Utopia and whether or not it was really all that great.

            From this point on I became more skeptical of Utopias.  My main point of skepticism came from the notion that a world without conflict is a world without progress.  I realized that in a Utopia, there is no conflict, thus no motivation to progress further.  After this point I became doubtful that a Utopia was really a world that we should strive towards.  Then, my skepticism grew to distaste after reading Berlin’s essay about the flaws of a utopia.  I realized that in order to create a world of perfect order, some dictating force must be acting upon all of the people.  In this scenario a real perfect world isn’t created, it is simply a world of fear and submission.  For some time after this I was very against the idea of a Utopia.

            Eventually my view of the Utopias settled somewhere in between dislike and like.  I don’t believe that Utopias are good as they create a lack of incentive and motivation.  Yet at the same time I don’t think that they are bad, as having the goal of a perfect world to work towards is always beneficial.  At the end of the course I have reached an interesting conclusion.  I believe that the human race should not strive for a perfect world without conflict; but rather we should take baby steps and focus on making the world a better place one step at a time.