On the idea of Utopia

Among my generation (somewhere in the middle of millenial and Z) there is a great deal of optimism for the future and what it may bring if progress continues to be made. “We have to be more equitable” they say. “If only we were more empathetic” they say. I don’t disagree since these things are true in that if we were collectively more charitable and kind to one another things would be better in many ways. We would have less homeless, less poverty, less division and so on. However, it denies one central aspect of humankind that will perpetually hold us back from that ideal: sin.

It denies the reality that people will take advantage of one another to get ahead. The rich exploiting the poor by undercutting labor costs or the poor exploiting the charity of their benefactors. The class struggle is not unilateral, as the desire to to take what isn’t your own is universal. The tendency to lie, cheat and steal inherent to us is too often overlooked. It is seen as something that can be overpowered through sheer will, ultimately culminating in the belief that we can become perfect and self sufficient on our own.

That ideal is heavily eroded if I even glance at the state of the world and the history of mankind as a collective. There is nothing but bloodshed, misguidedness, and folly. There is so much destruction of human life, and of life in general. Some of this is justified as in the case of survival, but other historical events detail injustice and iniquity so gratuitously inflicted that it is hard to simply think of them as anomalies, giving me the impression that there is a trend of evil that befalls every human being in past and present. What makes us think we can do any better than the ancestors who lived millenniums before us?

If you take the intrinsic nature of mankind to be one that is variable, tending toward good or evil, depending on environment as well as choice, you have to admit to the possibility that there is a direction that every individual must follow to make their impact on this earth a positive one rather than a negative one. I would assert that the impossibly deep dearth of love and fulfillment is what causes us to seek self-glorifying things, like status, wealth and fame. If we were content with what we were and what we had, we would not seek for more, as it is too often that we have all our needs fulfilled but are left still wanting for more. Only through the feeling of being fulfilled, not in a state of constant want, can we even begin to fixate our full attention to improving the lot of others. The greatest commandment in the New Testament is as follows (Matthew 22:37–40)…” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Most people would wholeheartedly agree to the 2nd part of that commandment, the golden rule, but object to, out of a lack of understanding or in direct opposition, to the first. This is again due to the downplaying of the self-centeredness that characterizes our fallen nature, attributing that as merely something to be changed, malleable through the proper education and upbringing. This divorce from the need for God, or blatant disregard for the possibility of such a need causes undefined amounts of suffering, both from the lack of comfort that would otherwise be offered to the oppressed, and to the additional suffering and injustice caused by self-centered conduct. Suffering befalls both believers and non believers, but only the adherents of the faith can attribute some higher meaning to the suffering, and despite the pain press on wholeheartedly. Those without God, driven only by the material world, will externalize and begin to blame everything and everyone as the root of their suffering, because they see their own pain as unjustifiable. They will begin to hate those that have more than them, or even those that have the same as them but behave in a manner that is characterized by gratefulness rather than one of indebtedness. They will begin to wish upon a utopia, that can only be achieved through a rapid change of the status quo.

Utopia, where everything is plentiful and every need is fulfilled, is fantasy, and the many attempts to reach it have resulted in nothing short of catastrophe, as shown by authoritarian governments by both the fascists and the communists in the 20th century. It takes immense conscious effort and constant maintenance to establish an effective government that protects it’s citizens without trampling on individual rights, but such governments are always a couple of steps away from a complete dissolution to anarchy or tyranny. In general, everyone seeks good and mean well, but whether or not their actions reflect their intentions is another story as there are an infinite number of ways to make things worse, but only a couple to make things better.

And even if every material need was met, who is to say that we would be any better off? Suicide shakes countries, both poor and rich, and some could argue that mental illnesses like depression and anxiety may be more prevalent in the more affluent countries. Material wealth will not solve the spiritual and emotional emptiness, which if fulfilled would make any external circumstance negligible. Even if everyone had full bellies, and a place to live, without God we would still be miserable wretches.

If there is no reason other than a lack of effort or empathy stopping us from creating an utopia, than the only conclusion is that humanity as a whole has to keep chasing progress. And chase as it will, human suffering and sin will persist as it always has(in both the faithful and the faithless). This is not a discouragement from making life on earth better, but a warning that it is impossible to do such a thing in it’s fullest glory without God. Notice the order in which it states the commandments, only stating to love yourself and your neighbor after loving God. To love your neighbor as yourself is hard enough if you love God, it can only be an insurmountable challenge if you skip the prerequisite step. That great equality that we all seek, in the treatment of the self and the neighbor can only be as great as our fundamental love for God.