No Utopias, Please

7/27/2020

"Utopias now appear much more realizable than one used to think. We are now faced with a different new worry: How to prevent their realization."
- Nikolai Berdyaev

2 Comments

bruce charlton

7/28/2020 09:42:33

I suppose the Great Reset is an attempt to appropriate utopian language and mobilise utopian energies. But it is a negative agenda, not a positive one; and it is being imposed top-down by propaganda rather than arising from the masses; so at most it will enforce compliance to top-down motivations; rather than the kind of genuine zeal (in face of adversity and social disapproval) that supports courage.

Francis Berger

7/28/2020 10:20:17

Spot on, Bruce.

The Great Reset is not being touted as a utopia, but it does indeed utilize utopian language; the same kind of language that pollutes public discourse in the West: equity, justice, anti-racism, equality, etc.

As far as I can see, the consumerist lifestyle in the West - which until quite recently have been endorsed and celebrated - is now being stigmatized as unjust and unethical. This is tricky territory. I myself am no fan of hyper-consumerism/materialism in the West, and I do believe many in the West suffer from what could be termed affluenza. The Establishment appears to want to use this energy to lower standards of living in the West and pass off this lowering as a just and necessary action. The crux of the matter, in my mind, is the spiritual malaise underpinning the West, which is something the Establishment is sure to exacerbate, regardless of what it manages to accomplish.

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No Utopias, Please

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