Quote Originally Posted by Laughing Man View Post
Define what you mean by "recent."
In this case, sixty years ago at most.




Such sacrifice is voluntary. No one is compelled to do it. If you want to persuade others to sacrifice "for the greater good," then I wouldn't be so aggressive in my statements. Yet you say "must" and with so many idealists who want to make the world a better place, they often turn to compulsion because persuasion isn't always effective or as effective as they would like.
Of course it is voluntary to raise your children. But if one was asking how to have a happy family, I would say that you 'must' raise your children instead of abandoning them to an orphanage or foster home. If somebody is asking about Utopia, I would say that one 'must' be aware of what is good for the whole and what is not good for the whole. I see that you took that to mean some kind of fascist authoritarian statement and I am sorry for perhaps coming across that way. Part of my idea of a Utopia is anarchy. In this case there is no authority to lay down laws rather than the whole deciding through council what it wants for Utopia.

As far as the peasant thing goes, peasants are a product of the class system, which capitalism depends on. Capitalism needs peasants. So only some people are able to have the leisure to philosophize while others are needed to toil. This is also rather recent in terms of human history. Organized religion being at most 10,000 years old while humans have been around for what? At least 300,000 years? Tribal societies are extremely artistic and religious, although their religion is not an organized one where there are priests who interpret the scriptures for the iliterate. Everyone shares the work and the leisure.

The Native American Indians were/are extremely skilled artists and craftsmen. Native American leather being the finest tanned leather in the world. Look at their pottery. Look at the Indians' philosophies of democracy which is more sophisticated than the Greeks. It was the Indians, and not so much the Greeks, who inspired the American forefathers regarding democracy. Too bad it ain't a democracy anymore. In tribal societies, it is not the rich who get the leisure time to do what they will with, it is the elderly and the young children.

Now, don't get me wrong. My idea of Utopia is not living in teepees and hunting and gathering and tanning hides. But I think that we should be aware that we all have that as our history, and that is the default mode for a natural human, not this society based on economics (which is a false ecology). Looking at how happy tribal people are consistently, and how much of our happiness and leisure we have sacrificed for progress and technological dogma, we can become aware of how to enjoy an enlightened technology with the enlightened social/political aspects of tribal living.

When I think of Utopia I see greenhouses, wind/wave/solar powered energy generators. I see no waste, nothing to throw away. No harmful bi-products. I see lots of fruit trees and nut trees. I see polyhedron domes for buildings. I see less people. I see more animals. I see more forests and pristine nature. I see people living in harmony with their ecology. I see all people being equal and enjoying the same rights. I see people deciding on their village's rules being decided by an open council. Rules such as "don't build a house in the watershed" or "do what you want as long as it doesn't violate anyone else's freewill" etc....

But how to create a global Utopia?

The injustices experienced now is not justification for their existence. Many people's rights are aggressed against in the world today, but that doesn't make aggression acceptable.
yes, and...? Of course the decision to live in a Utopia is voluntary as long as there is another option. But if you are harming people (the greater good) say by cutting down trees in the watershed and building your house there and dumping your shit in the water, I don't think that it is fascist for the community of people who depend on that watershed to go remove that person and show him an acceptable place to build his house. This is what I am talking about when saying that people need to sacrifice their personal desires for the good of the community. The desire to build your house in the most beautiful place and that place happens to be where the presence of your house will endanger your community, then that is a personal greedy desire and not part of any Utopian vision besides maybe the rich elite whose vision of Utopia might be that of two classes: the rich and the peasants (or the slaves).


And for the last time, capitalism only increased leisure time for the elite class at the expense of the rest of humanity. Perhaps your vision of Utopia includes an elite class of rich people that do all the thinking and art making while the rest toil to make ends meet. try living with a tribal society and see how most of the time people are hanging out enjoying each other's company while making works of art and occasionally going on a hunt while it takes only a few people an hour a day of gathering the plants to eat. Any and all tribal societies have this in common. Even the Inuits, who arguably may have it the roughest still enjoy a high degree of happiness and more leisure time than the "civilized" do today.