Concepts such as utopianism and dystopias are becoming more popular day after day. The creation and development of massive societies has led to a new trend: the obsession for creating the perfect government, a goal that could end up being just the opposite: a dystopia.
Since the 19th century, this ideal started to be put into practice in society itself, which led to discrimination because as we are different from each other, not everyone can fit within the same boundaries. This situation happened in many of the totalitarian movements of the 20th century: first focused on perfection, then obsessed with it, and everyone or everything that was outside of what they had established had to disappear in order to help and keep society’s perfection: a “justified massacre”.
In conclusion, the obsession with utopianism and perfection can lead to a dystopia due to an extreme or radical concept of discrimination between the ones who fit and the ones who do not. Many novels have shown us their reality: good can turn into bad, only a thin veil keeps them apart.
Clara E.
What is perfect? This has to be the first question we should ask ourselves before thinking of the idea of a utopian society, and chances are we understand that it is not as simple as it seems, and what is more, there are many things that do not play in favor of creating a perfect future society.
First things first, we should admit the idea of diversity of opinions. If we ask citizens to answer the question ‘what is perfect?’ we will find out that there are multiple opinions and points of view, so it is very hard to build a new society consisting of all those different ideas and regulations, it would lead to many controversial problems.
Secondly, as Descartes and Michael Shermer said as well, there is no way of creating something perfect starting from an imperfect thing. That means that in case we tried to create a perfect utopian society it would not be possible because humans are not perfect themselves.
Finally, the difficulty of creating a utopian future relies on future generations, that means, if humans around the world made a deal, this would not include future generations that could not think the same and cause problems.
In conclusion, the idea of a utopian world would probably lead to a dystopia because it is very difficult to blend a large variety of opinions in only one model of future society, so this would take us to a dystopian one.
Claudia M.
In times of crisis, desperate people always look for ideals that ensure they can take society to a perfect state where all their problems are gone. These theories look perfect, until people realize they have no practical basis and they are just nonsense giving citizens a false hope.
As an example it happened in 1930s Germany, where Hitler promised his country that all their problems would be solved and they would be a great nation again. We all know what the results of this idealistic speech were: millions of deaths had to be caused to take utopian ideas into action.
But, what happens when this kind of ideas appear in a stable, democratic society? Citizens are not in the aforementioned situation, so they are not desperate and are able to use their minds and realize how dangerous these ideas can be and that they can lead to a dystopia. We are responsible for how our society evolves.
Utopian ideas can only lead to a dystopian society if we let them get the power, so if we are intelligent enough -which we are, thanks to our experience- to detect ideals with no basis at the right moment, we should be ready to eradicate them and keep our democracy safe.
Jorge S.
Utopias are idealized concepts of society. They consist of a theoretical perfect world where everyone is happy. But when those ideas have been put into practice, the result was not close to the perfection. In the 20th century totalitarian movements had the intention to make perfect states come true, and in the end, those regimes provoked lots of deaths. With that context, can we think utopias are possible?
In today’s society, we give great value to free speech and freedom. In a utopia the ruler knows what is right and what is wrong so anyone opposing the government is censored and punished because he is promoting “hate speech” against the central power and its utopian idea. Also, when the government knows what is good and what is not they have no limits and they may violate the fundamental rights of the citizens.
In conclusion, in today’s democratic societies politicians are using those utopian ideas to get more representation, and they link dystopias with their opponents’ views. That is populism making society radicalized.
Ángel C.