tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post4476278712284077406..comments2024-03-28T00:11:33.489-04:00Comments on bensozia: American UtopiansJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-29660909399189120602017-09-04T12:29:59.339-04:002017-09-04T12:29:59.339-04:00There is rigor, repetition, drudgery, and group th...There is rigor, repetition, drudgery, and group think in the cult too, probably more so, and there is less free will. There doesn't have to be a hierarchy in control. Social pressure fills the void quite nicely -- de facto enforcement of unwritten rules, what's proper behavior and what's not. And it can be quite unforgiving. I've never understood cults except as a social mechanism to escape personal responsibility, to escape making difficult decisions, and to escape worrying about what the future holds. How boring. Yes, you can leave at your leisure, but while there you are essentially trading your free will for a deterministic way of life. Try a retreat instead.Shadowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05353532874773316117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-2121624465501456722017-09-04T12:00:34.889-04:002017-09-04T12:00:34.889-04:00Actually, it seems to me that the MAGA movement is...Actually, it seems to me that the MAGA movement is, in some sense, a utopian one. So, to the extent that those thrown of work by manufacturing decline, or those who feel threatened by it, populate MAGA, MAGA is partly an economics-inspired utopian movement.<br /><br />I guess my original point was that utopianism, escapism, self-exile, etc., all represent in part responses to a perennial and fundamentally unsolvable human condition, as much as they are responses to any particular system or circumstances (economic or otherwise). You can't design the society or reform the economy or whatever to such a pitch of perfection that no movement will dream of escaping it (or tearing it down, etc.).<br /><br />Also I just rebel against pat explanations like, "Oneida was about people threatened by the new capitalism." Not that you were trying to make such an explanation, but Lewis seems to be.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08993570411881726772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-68589059463820411792017-09-04T09:56:39.744-04:002017-09-04T09:56:39.744-04:00Certainly in our own time it does not just come do...Certainly in our own time it does not just come down to economics; the people interested in these utopias are not the ones being thrown out of work by manufacturing decline. In our time this has more to do with moral dissatisfaction than money. Many educated Americans are unhappy that they have to choose between throwing themselves into the capitalist meritocracy and clawing their way to a good slot, or trying some other path and ending up feeling irrelevant and left out. People are looking for a system that feels both more fair for everyone and less corrupting for themselves.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-17833132087704920242017-09-04T08:58:05.342-04:002017-09-04T08:58:05.342-04:00To think that all that ingenuity and bizarreness r...To think that all that ingenuity and bizarreness really just comes down to economics is pretty dreary. And doesn't explain the separatist and utopian communities that spring up in non-capitalist societies.<br /><br />It seems to me that part of this is about escaping the rigors of human social existence--interpersonal competition, the need to manage a cross-cutting web of social obligations, the requirement to conform oneself to the unspecified, unwritten, ever-shifting expectations of others (or to master and change them by interpersonal competition), the possibility of failure and demotion--that obtain in any social setting, and not just the problems of a given economic system as such. The tragedy of such groups is that mortal life, and the internal contradictions of the human psyche, do not permit the kind of security they are seeking.<br /><br />In terms that First Things might appreciate, one could say that Lewis is writing from an Aquinean perspective, and I'm writing from an Augustinian one.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08993570411881726772noreply@blogger.com