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FW: Toward a Practical Utopianism

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Sam Ghandchi

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Apr 30, 2002, 6:42:48 AM4/30/02

http://iranscope.ghandchi.com/Anthology/fut.htm

TOWARD A PRACTICAL UTOPIANISM
By Tsvi Bisk
The Futurist (PP22-25)
May-June 2002

Utopian thinking needs to be rescued from fantasy and fanaticism; it must embrace science
but disclaim moral relativism.

Many of us need clear visions of our possible futures in order to live as human beings on
this earth. But we need, a new, more practical form of utopianism than what has existed in
the past. We need Neo-Utopianism.

A rational social science would offer a coherent vision of the innate possibilities of
humans, and this vision must incorporate our social values. Values underlie the pictures or
scenarios we create about the future. Indeed, some scenarios are mini-utopias. Futurist
methodologies will probably be a basic functional tool by which we might construct a
Neo-Utopianism.

Human society cannot conduct itself rationally without a clear idea of where it wants to
go. (Clear ideas would be a better term, because Neo-Utopianism should be pluralistic in
order to avoid the totalitarian, know-it-all temptation that has doomed utopian experiments
in the past.) We must have a vision of the kind of future we want in order to make rational
decisions on a daily basis. Having a vision and being a realistic visionary are absolute
necessities for functioning as a rational human being.

The primary human survival tool is not instinct but the reasoning mind evaluating the human
environment. Those who are better at this usually have more successful lives. Societies and
cultures that encourage this kind of thinking are usually much more developed.

The rational Modernists were simplistically optimistic about the perfectibility of a
planned human society. The Postmodernist critique identified the simplistic hubris of
Modernism and showed how this hubris resulted in catastrophe in ecology, politics, economy,
etc. Postmodernism gave us wisdom about the limitations of power. An anonymous hacker
shutting down AOL or hacking into a government computer system is an example of a
Postmodern assault on Modernist hubris.

But today we have graduated to an even higher wisdom-that criticism of simplistic visions
is not enough, that human society absolutely requires visions of where it wants to go, and
that without such visions it is impossible to conduct society in a rational way. These
visions might be vague, but exist they must if a culture is to be vigorous and healthy.

The question is, on what basis do we make our judgments? If we do not have a clear vision,
or if we have several alternative visions, then how do we make rational decisions? If we do
not have a future ideal of the kind of life we want, we cannot judge the practicality or
the value of judgments we make in our daily lives.

A plurality of visions may be necessary for practical reasons in such a rapidly changing
world, and not only to avoid the totalitarian temptation. Neo-Utopianism must reflect the
uncertainties of the future, and it must embrace a cosmos that is "progressively
evolutionary, infinite in its capacity and comprehensible," as Eric J. Lerner writes in his
brilliantly original book The Big Bang Never Happened (Times Books, 1991).

UTOPIAN THOUGHT AND FUTURISM

There is a socio-psychological price to be paid for the death of utopianism. Observe the
number of people in the modern world who seem to float through life rudderless, without a
clear view of their own value as human beings. They are so confused about the complexities
of modern life that they shut off their cognitive, rational faculties and try to fill the
subsequent spiritual vacuum by going shopping, taking drugs, getting involved in cults,
getting religiously "saved," getting "into" New Age fads, and so on.

Human beings are the only species that can conceive of the future, the only species truly
cognizant of its own mortality. The resulting angst leads us into the future-conceiving
business. Religions long had a monopoly on the far future (the end of days, the coming of
the Messiah, eternal life, eventual human salvation, life after death, reincarnation,
etc.). With the rise of Modernism, science began to replace religion in areas amenable to
quantitative measurement. Futurism has attempted to make this process more comprehensive
and as rational and as realistic (i.e., connected to reality) as possible.

A team examines blueprints. Envisioning a future and planning for it
are practical aspects of utopian thinking, says author Tsvi Bisk.

http://ghandchi.com/iranscope/Anthology/bisk_files/image001.png

Utopianism was one of the foundational building blocks for futurism. Now futurism must
serve as one of the foundational building blocks of a Neo-Utopianism.

Modern utopianism coincided with the secularizing process of the Renaissance. People were
beginning to shed their certainty about the future, such as the guarantee of an afterlife,
provided by religion. This uncertainty was reflected in the plays of Shakespeare, the first
truly modern writer, who anticipated the angst of modern man. "To be or not to be, that is
the question." Utopian speculations, in all likelihood responding to this incipient angst,
offered secularized versions of a possible end of days as it pertained to human society on
this earth.

One of the positive aims of Postmodernism was to attack human certainty (moral, scientific,
or political) as insufferable hubris. While Postmodernism has performed a valuable service
in critiquing Modernist ideology, it is essentially nihilistic. It offers no coherent
alternative to Modernism. Indeed, Postmodernism would view the very search for coherence as
a Modernist pretension.

But if humanity is to survive and have a meaningful existence, then the intellectual
project of the twenty-first century must be to move from Postmodernism to Neo-Modernism. We
must reinstate the Enlightenment ambition to create a "Science of Man." We must become
Neo-Utopians. Neo-Utopian thought can find support in a New Science of Man based upon new
developments and insights in the biological and cosmological sciences and from genetic
research giving us ever-increasing knowledge about life itself.

RECOGNIZING THE THREAT

Secular humanism, an outgrowth of the Renaissance, the scientific revolution, and the
Enlightenment, has been one of the foundation blocks of Modernist ideology. But its growing
spiritual inadequacies, such as its lack of certainty about the future, have led to the
radical moral relativism of New Age Postmodernism on the one hand and a return to the
bedrock certainties of religious fundamentalism on the other hand.

Both these extremes feed off of one another, and both, together and separately, are very
dangerous for the future of human society. Only a Neo-Utopianism can offset this double
trend and reinvigorate the secular humanism that is the necessary meta-ideological
underpinning of constitutional democracy.

Three Views of Utopia

Utopianism/Modernism

* Reason can make human society more just
* Objectivity; values neutrality
* Individuality
* Material progress and moral progress are the same
* Heroic Model: Scientist

Anti-Utopianism/Postmodernism

* Reason is a Western ideological construct
* Subjectivity; moral relativism
* Multiculturalism
* Material progress does not lead to moral progress
* Heroic Model: Hacker

Neo-Utopianism/Neo-Modernism

* The new Science of Man accepts uncertainty and recognizes the role of values
* Pluralism
* Realism, values provide framework for scenarios
* Pluralism
* Material progress and moral progress should be balanced in a democratic society
* Heroic Model: Futurist

Utopianism meets our fundamental need to improve things, to believe in the improvability of
life. Is the United States better off because academic research has "proven" that the
"American Dream" was a manipulated myth? Is Israel better off because intellectuals have
"proven" that the "Zionist Idea" was flawed at its very inception? Is anyone better off
because radical Greens have" demonstrated" that human beings are basically pests infecting
Mother Nature?

Neither individuals nor societies can function efficiently and flourish in an atmosphere of
declining self-esteem. Human beings are not just economic beings or cultural beings or
social beings. They are first of all heroic beings, who require a heroic image of their own
future in order to stimulate and sustain the energy capable of bringing out the best of
their being.

This is the task of Neo-Utopianism; not a blueprint, but a vision of what things could be
like and should be like.

THE VALUE OF NEO-ROMANTICISM

Let us describe the new mood--the yearning for a heroic image of the human future-as
Neo-Romanticism. A Neo-Utopianism would want to change the focus of Romanticism. It would
want us to be romantic about the future-not about the past.

Romanticism is that literary genre which sees the human being as a heroic creation and
deals with human life as it ought to be, in light of heroic human nature, and not as it is.
Romanticism contrasts with Naturalism, which views and even celebrates life as it is.

Futurism is, in a way, a realistic Romanticism. It does not deal in fantasy or wishful
thinking, but in the rational organization of empirical fact in order to assist us in
constructing positive alternative visions of our future.

Rather than an idealized nostalgic attachment to the past, let us cultivate a Romantic
attachment to the possibilities of the future. We will live in the future and not in the
past; therefore, the future is more important than the past, and if we are to love our own
lives we must learn to fall in love with the future.

Let me be clear and precise: The call for vague visions and Romantic attachment does not
justify mushy and impractical thinking. The challenge must be clearly and precisely
formulated and must reflect reality, not wishful thinking. The challenge must be long term,
but not so long

term as to be inconceivable. Any vision that transcends 100 years in the future is usually
in the realm of fantasy and science fiction-interesting, but essentially useless.

GETTING THERE FROM HERE

I will formulate a possible NeoUtopian challenge as a question, hoping by doing so to avoid
the totalitarian tendency of positivist utopianism. The question is: "How can we create, by
the year 2100, a planetary human society composed of 12 billion people with an American
standard of living with one-tenth the negative environmental impact that present human
society has on nature?"

What research and development policies, international trade policies, tax policies, space
exploration policies must we pursue in order to achieve such a vision? This is a practical
question that will engender numerous alternative possible answers. The debate, therefore,
will be utopian, but pluralistic and nontotalitarian.

By clearly defining the challenge, we will have avoided the imprecise, wishful thinking of
New Age Postmodernism. A Postmodernist would meet this challenge by calling to lower the
world's population from 6 billion to 2 billion within the next century and to "educate" the
remaining 2 billion to adopt the way of life of a European village before Charlemagne. This
is neither clear nor moral thinking, its immorality being a direct consequence of its lack
of clarity. To attain such a goal, we would have to exterminate a few billion people,
forcibly sterilize a few billion more, and reeducate the remainder, in the
Rousseau/Robespierre tradition of "forcing people to be free"-a chilling oxymoron that
began with the guillotine and ended with the gulag.

Most people want a clean environment, not so much because of theories about human-induced
global warming, but because of much more banal and selfish reasons. People do not require a
grand theory of global warming to be in favor of a clean environment. We favor a clean
environment because we do not want to breathe, drink, or eat befouled air, water, or food.

Whether the theory of human-induced global warming is correct or not is beyond the point;
any future vision of society that includes a clean environment must argue its case on the
basis
of the interests of real human beings living real lives in a sophisticated technological
society.

Most human beings have no intention of giving up their technological lifestyle, and
billions more aspire to a technological lifestyle. Frantic, self-righteous calls by
neurotic dropouts to give up soap and hot water and live in teepees are not likely to have
wide appeal.

NEO-MODERNISM: A BETTER APPROACH

A practical utopian ism would not require people to give up modern dentistry in order to
save the environment.

http://ghandchi.com/iranscope/Anthology/bisk_files/image004.jpg

Indeed, modern dentistry might be the greatest justification for the inherent human
morality of the Industrial Revolution. When you go to a dentist, you are giving sanction to
the metallurgical, chemical, electronics, and pharmaceutical industries, as well as to
industrial civilization in general, which has provided both the technical means and the
surplus wealth to train the dentist.

The Modernists were right: The Industrial Revolution was the greatest event in the history
of humanity. In 1750 in France, 70% of children died before the age of 5, the life span was
less than 40 years, most people were toothless by their late teens, and only a minority of
the population could read and write. How many sane people would want to return to such an
era? Yet it is this very gloomy "utopianism" that we are being offered in some
anti-modernist quarters.

A practical utopianism would be based upon a Neo-Modernism that accepts the Postmodern
critique of the hubris of Modernism but rejects Postmodernism's radical relativism and lack
of coherent vision. Embracing science and reason, Neo-Utopianism would have a good chance
at being relevant and offering positive direction for human civilization. It would enable
us to once again instill human society with purpose, rejuvenating human culture around a
coherent, yet pluralistic, framework of ideals and values. This would be utopianism come of
age.

About the Author

Tsvi Bisk is an independent Israeli educator, social researcher, and writer. He is founder
and CEO of the adult education Web site www.adultdegree.com and of the Strategic
Educational Planning (STEP) Institute, 15/13 Alterman St., Kfar Saba144228, Israel. E-mail
bi...@adultdegree.com.

He is collaborating with Moshe Dror on a book entitled Futurizing the Jews for
Praeger/Greenwood Press. This article draws from his chapter in Utopian Thinking in
Sociology, edited by Arthur B. Shostak (American Sociological Association, 2001), which is
available from the Futurist Bookstore for $20 ($17.95 for Society members), cat. no.
B-2393.

A longer, earlier version of this article appears on the World Future Society's Utopias
Forum

http://www.wfs.org/utopias.htm