You gotta beware of the utopian train of thought, mate. That’s usually the first step towards fascism — Daniel Clausen
Somewhere in the dark recesses of our hearts, we dream about living in a land of utopia. It is a land where the likes of dysfunctional and shortsighted politicians we have do not exist. It is a land of harmony where wars and conflicts are not the norm. It is a land where the lives of Alexei Navalny are not lost, and reasons remain shrouded behind the fog of war. It is a land of harmony, equality, tolerance, sustainability, and where people, immersed in contemplative thought, walk around wearing togas.
Can a land of unforced stable utopia exist?
The notion of unforced utopia needs unpacking. We all have seen dystopian movies where a utopia seems to exist — citizens have basic necessities, enjoy life, and do wear togas and may even walk around slowly lost in contemplative thoughts. But as the story unfolds, we learn that the air they breathe is infused with some brain altering chemical that keeps their mind content. Or when citizens wake up in the morning they take a blue pill that keeps them in a state of euphoria all day.
Later we find out that citizens are divided into have and have nots and the haves, for some ulterior motives that benefit their own kind, are controlling the have nots with exogenous means.
An unforced utopia, however, will exist on its own volition and no external manipulations will be required to keep it functioning. Is it a place where citizens self-govern, do not administer exogenous means, and yet, are able to have a long-lasting, stable utopia?
What is it that makes it seem like that such utopia would be an impossible?
That invisible culprit is the Bell Curve.
Bell curve is a phenomenological description of the consequences of forces that are responsible for differences that occur in nature, including humans. Examples of differences include shades of hair color, variations in height, variations in IQ.
Take the example of the shades of hair color. As a single fertilized cell starts to divide and multiply, along the developmental path to becoming a healthy baby, progressive generations of cells start to take on specialized roles, including some that will become hair follicles. What color the hairs would have depends on the two pigments Eumelanin (responsible for brown to black hair shades) and Pheomelanin (responsible for red hair shades) that hair follicles will produce.
Along this development pathway, random fluctuations that are part of gene expression subsequently result in physiological and psychological differences determine the characteristics of hair colors.
The type and amount of two pigments in the hair follicles generate, and how they are distributed, create a wide variety of hair colors among individuals and is determined by a switch in a particular protein synthesized by a gene within the follicle cells. The underlying biological processes may be complicated and hard to comprehend, but the external characteristics they determine — the hair color — follows a bell curve.
Differences in hair color is one example and may be benign in the context of having further downstream consequences, but inevitable differences exist in characteristics like IQ, or physical strength, which have larger ramifications. Can an unforced stable utopian society exist that pays due respect to such differences, and yet, manage not to fall apart?
A potential problem with differences in characteristics is that their direct or indirect consequences start to cascade into other differences, and left on their own, can result either in amplification or growing range of inequalities in social, physical, intellectual, financial realms. Individuals higher in IQ may be able to corner larger levels of resources (financial or otherwise). With those resources, hire an army of people to protect their interests. Looking around we know how the story goes.
To curb the runaway influence of positive feedback that can lead to growing inequalities, and to bring some level of equitability for the greater good, requires external management.
A utopian society that wishes to be tolerant of differences, cannot exist without drawing some boundaries to manage differences in the population and keep them within acceptable levels to avoid dissent and discontent. Figuring out where to draw the line marking the limits of tolerance is a wicked problem and cannot be addressed to everyone’s satisfaction.
Where to draw lines? Should someone be allowed to offer opinions even if they are hurtful to a few others? If someone wants the right to carry arms, is that okay? What about the tax rate and trying to bring some measure of equality between have and have nots? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, the resulting utopia is not a utopia of its own volition. It is not organic.
An unforced utopia would require a collection of people with the same characteristics, but the way nature works, and how ubiquitous the bell curve is, that is an impossibility.
The Bell Curve is the reason that unforced stable utopia will forever remain an imaginary place.
Ciao.
