The next utopia will simply be a new way of life—a “new world order” if you like. It will guarantee the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people through progress and pragmatic solutions. Moral considerations will not apply.
While living in the UK, I observed a curious difference between the New World and the Merry Old England. Their advertising was different.
In America we were constantly told that a product was “New and Improved.” More scoops of raisins were forever being added to the raisin bran. The peanut butter was always crunchier than ever. Every year the cars were sleeker, safer, more luxurious, had more gadgets and were cheaper to buy. Nearly everything, from sandwiches to skyscrapers was constantly being updated, improved, renovated and re-styled. New was always better.
In the Old Country, it was the reverse. Rather than advertising a product as “New and Improved,” it was likely to be billed as “Old Fashioned.” Labels were printed in Ye Olde English style. Traditional British images of Big Ben, Tower Bridge, crowns and coronets were everywhere. If you want to sell something in England, put it in an old tin box with a picture of a thatched cottage on the front.
One of the favorite advertising tricks was to get a royal warrant for your product. If Her Majesty the Queen would only purchase your waxed jacket, your marmalade, shoe polish, or pickles, you could print the royal coat of arms on your label and (let’s say you produced strawberry jam) you could brag, ”Purveyors of fine conserves to the Royal Household. Since 1972.”
When I lived in the damp lands, the English seemed to be suspicious of progress, and my instinct is to be on their side. I like old fashioned better. However, the idea that something is good or bad merely because it is new or old is ridiculous. The basic assumption in the modern world that progress is both inevitable and good is the seventh head of Hydra, and I’m afraid even the English have now been seduced by the concept.
Progress or Progressivism?
Like the other “ism’s,” progressivism is not a belief which is stated explicitly, nor does anyone attempt to undermine it. Whether it is the field of medicine, domestic comfort, transportation, entertainment, technology, or most anything, we simply assume that “new” must mean “improved” and therefore “better.”
It’s pretty hard to avoid that conclusion because we really have made progress—especially over the last 100 years. If you go to this webpage[1], you can see how good it gets. To give just a sampling: worldwide infant mortality is plummeting. Maternal survival of childbirth is zooming upward. Abject poverty is disappearing. More people than ever are literate and receiving higher education.
More people have access to electricity, clean water, computers, and the internet. Fewer people live under dictatorships. More people can travel and enjoy freedom and democracy. Despite the claims of environmentalists, the water and air quality worldwide is better than it has been for decades. Because of medical advances, more diseases are being eradicated for more people worldwide. People live longer, experience less pain and enjoy a better quality of life for a longer period than ever before.
So, you might ask, why you are you being such a pessimist? Look at all the good things science, technology and progress have brought us!
But to be the pebble in your shoe, I should point out that the last one hundred years have also brought us a long list of other things that were new: Auschwitz was new. Communism, the Gulag, the enslavement of Eastern Europe, Stalin’s starvation of the Ukrainians, Mao’s slaughter of millions, and the killing fields of Cambodia were new. The atom bomb, Nagasaki and Hiroshima, millions of unborn killed through abortion, the sale of dead baby body parts, genetic engineering, internet pornography, gender re-assignment surgery for teens…all of these, and so much more, were also new.
We may be enjoying unparalleled individual freedom, health, wealth and opportunity in our society, but broken homes, loneliness, alcoholism and drug addiction and suicides have also skyrocketed.
It’s obvious then, that just because something is new does not mean it is good. Just as we don’t have a problem with science, but we do have a problem with the ideology of scientism, so we don’t have a problem with progress, but we do have a problem with the ideology of progressivism.
The Myth of Progress
The idea that progress is always good springs from the enlightenment thinkers of the eighteenth century. Voltaire (d.1778) believed science and rationalism would inevitably bring about material progress. Immanuel Kant (d.1804) was less optimistic, but believed humanity was involved in a long, gradual struggle upward.
The philosopher Hegel (d.1831) saw progress in terms of a struggle between opposing forces. There was a proposal—what he called a “thesis.” This was countered by an opposing idea—the “antithesis.” The advocates of the antithesis clashed with the proponents of the thesis and out of the conflict came a new solution—a “synthesis.”
Later in the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin (d.1882) applied Hegel’s ideas to his observations in the natural world. The fittest survived the clash of species. The English thinker Herbert Spencer (d.1903) grabbed the baton from Darwin and ran with it. He applied Darwin’s ideas on evolution to human society. Spencer saw the theory of evolution as a model for a great, inevitable forward movement not only the natural world, but also in the human mind, culture, and history.
According to progressives, it is this clash within nature and human society which is inevitable and (despite some pain) always creative and positive. Furthermore, true progressives believe it is legitimate to intentionally create the clash in order to bring about the synthesis—the desired new order— because the synthesis that comes out of the clash is something new and that’s “progress” and progress is always good, right?
This assumption accounts for the unbelievably naive and resilient optimism amongst progressives. They may witness umpteen revolutions and racks, guillotines, gas chambers, gulags, imposed famines, torture chambers and firing squads, but they shrug their shoulders. “It’s just the survival of the fittest. That’s the way nature works. It’s okay. There are some bumps in the road, but we’re always moving onward and upward!”
If a myth is a fantasy story that gives meaning to the world, then this is the myth of progressivism. Notice also how this myth is a substitute for belief in divine providence. Instead of history being “His Story”—instead of seeing God’s mighty hand in all his works, the overarching story of progressivism is that of the noble upward surge of humanity forever driven forward by the mysterious forces of Life itself!
But this is a complicated lie interwoven and derived from the other heads of Hydra, and like the others it is an assumed foundation of our society.
Brave New Disney World
I’ve joked that America is “one great conspiracy to make you happy” and there is no place that sums up the dream and the drive for happiness than Disney World. The Magic Kingdom stands as a symbol of all that is wonderful and happy for all. In all its pristine wholesomeness, Disney World seemingly combines fun, family values, harmless entertainment and education with truth, justice and the American way.
When I was living in England, the local aristocrat decided to take his family on vacation to Disney World. This surprised me because he was the sort of fellow who, I imagined, went to Scotland on vacation, camped out in the family castle, and tromped across the moors in tweeds and welly boots to shoot grouse before heading home to change into his kilt, sporran, and those knee socks with little knives in them. But no, he was headed off to Fantasyland.
On their return I asked Lord Blythering what he thought of Disney World.
He lifted an eyebrow, took a sip of his sherry and said, “It’s amazing what you Yanks can do with plastic.”
Like all good jokes, it reveals the truth. Disney World—as a symbol of every Utopia mankind has ever dreamed up, is plastic. It’s artificial. It’s not real. St Thomas More was the first to play with this idea with a pun. He wrote the book Utopia, and the word means both “good place” and “no place.”
So why do we, despite all the dystopic novels and movies, still have such a hankering after utopias? Why after the crushing horrors of communism and socialism do we still fall for the plastic promises of the social engineers? Whether it is the call on the small scale of some dreamy religious cult, or a large scale national or international plan for a global utopia, what is this strange, human obsession with not only making the world a better place, but making the world a perfect place?
Progress toward Utopia
Utopianism—the eighth hydra head is a direct product of the first five “ism’s”.
If Utilitarianism is the practical theory that comes from Materialism and Scientism, then Utopianism is Utilitarianism in action. Utilitarianism (because it is a practical theory) longs to be put into action. “The greatest happiness for the greatest number” demands a society in which direct action is being taken to ensure the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
A master plan must be devised, and it must be put in place as soon as possible! “Everyone will be happy when we have established communism. Don’t you understand? Everyone will be happy when the Master Race is established, and our nation is great again. Everyone will be happy. Do you hear me? And if you refuse to be happy, we will take you out and shoot you, and that will mean there are fewer unhappy people, and that means more happy people.”
As Albert Camus observed, “The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.” [2]
The Tyranny of Happiness
Consequently, as history shows, utopianism must lead to tyranny. The utopian dreamers always wish to bring about the greatest good for the greatest number, but in the process they will have no qualms about using arrest, imprisonment, torture, and murder to compel the lesser number.
It is easy to condemn Nazism and Communism—the obviously totalitarian utopian regimes of the twentieth century while overlooking the utopianism, which is an assumed aspect of American twenty first century life. Remember, the key point to remember about all these heads of Hydra is that they are the foundation of our present society. They are already firmly in place. They are the air we breathe. They are not part of the culture. They are the culture.
As Americans, we pride ourselves on individual freedoms, but think how our freedoms have already been whittled away by powers that are driven by the low level utopianism that dreams of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
We have handed our children over to them to be educated. We have handed our money over to them through the financial services and insurance industry. They control the flow of information and shamelessly censor and manipulate the news cycle. They bombard us with their propaganda through advertising, education, publications and social media. Already we are afraid of them, and our freedoms have not been taken from us so much as we have yielded them without a bleat of protest.
In an essay on the possibility of progress, C.S.Lewis observes, “The modern state exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or to make us good—anyway, to do something to us or make us into something. Hence the new name ‘leaders’ for those who were once ‘rulers’. We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them. ‘Mind your own business.’ Our whole lives are their business.”[3]
Creeping Utopia
The utopian plans for the future are unlikely to be introduced through a radical, violent revolution like the French, Russian, or Chinese revolutions. The new utopia is also unlikely to involve an omnipresent military, an oppressive secret police, or a uniformed nationalistic leader.
Instead, the next utopia will simply be a new way of life—a “new world order” if you like. It will be a living fulfillment of all of the “ism’s.” Being totally materialistic, it will be totally interlocked with science and technology. It will guarantee the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people through progress and pragmatic solutions. Moral considerations will not apply.
This is what I call a creeping utopia or totalitarianism by stealth. Given a long enough run in time, armed revolution will be unnecessary. The frog will be boiled by turning the heat up slowly, and the utopia achieved will last longer and be more effective because nobody realized it was taking place, and the vast majority of people will be more than happy to be enslaved because being happy was what it was all about all along. Right?
The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now.
[1] “Human Progress: Not Inevitable, Uneven, and Indisputable,” The Cato Institute, October 30, 2013.
[2] Camus, A., “Homage to an Exile” (1955), in Camus, A. Resistance, Rebellion, Death. Translated by Justin O’Brien. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961, p. 101.
[3] C.S.Lewis, “Is Progress Possible?”, in God in the Dock (Eerdmans, 1970, pp.349-350).
Editor’s Note: This essay is an excerpt from chapter 4 of Dwight Longenecker’s new book, Beheading Hydra.
The featured image is courtesy of Pixabay.
So many points, Fr. Longenecker, that I could embellish, find fault, contemplate and follow into the rabbit holes that you reveal. So rather than attempt to do all those things with a response, I shall simply thank you for your thoughts here, as I am sure to carry them with me throughout the day. (This is nothing new, as it is often how I respond to your brilliant writing!)
As I read this, I was saying, “Yes, yes, yes,” to the various points because, I’ve been talking about this with others (though not as eloquently). And I’d like to print this out and post it everywhere as a warning but…not many will listen or agree. And so I pray but, what do I pray, and how do I pray? I pray as Jesus instructed us, “Father, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Mind-opening text, and thank you for that. Just one thing; Darwin never said ‘survival of the fittest’. He said ‘survival of the one most adaptable to change’, which is actually completely diffent in its implications.