Tag: utopia

It was a fight broke out over apples and oranges which led to the law of One for One. The old saying went “Don’t mix apples and oranges,” as though they were two different things. But really isn’t fruit; apples, oranges, bananas and pears, just fruit?

Anyway Bill and Tom came to blows because Bill looked down on oranges and thought Johnny Appleseed was a “Saint and Prophet.” And all Tom had to defend oranges was Anita Bryant. Bill wanted five oranges for three apples. So Tom socked him one and broke three fingers. This is the time when before this time everyone did their fighting vicariously through Hollywood or video games. When you sock someone in the real world, it hurts.

Anyway this brought up the notion of value. In the New World of Shit Town, we struggle with the very quintessence of civilization. Why is gold more valuable than strawberries?

Right wingers and liberal Democrats both love to say that I advocate for some kind of nebulous utopian dream.

 from The Progressive Dilemma in the Diary What to do now? by tahoebasha3

The terms Utopia and utopian are often used as terms of disparagement, and not without reason. Massive social experiments based excessively on theory or reason have wreaked social havoc from The Terror during the French Revolution to the Maoist Great Leap Forward in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet one of the most dramatic Utopian experiments was never so labeled. The fact is that both Classical Economics and Neo-Classical Economics were/are utopian systems. In this sense Adam Smith predates Classical Economics. He was more practical and descriptive. Benthan, James Mill and Ricardo were prescriptive and axiomatic. And the economic system they created was, in fact, utopian, but of the dystopian flavor for all but the very wealthy. The 20th Century extension of Classical Economics — Neo-Classical Economics — retains all of the original utopian features despite the problems it has been shown to exhibit. Between them, Classical and Neo-Classical Economics as applied in the UK and the USA constitute the longest running Utopian experiment of which I know. We need to understand this history, which has been actively shunned, in order to understand where we are and where we are headed, unless we can change direction.  

Here I briefly wish to examine the idea of “utopia” for its contribution to progressive ideals, specifically w/ reference to Thomas More’s Utopia.  Conceptually, “utopia” is composed of “utopian ideals.”  Utopian ideals are ideals which appear to us to be impossible to achieve in full, and which for us represent the difference between what our society is and what it could be.  They thus prompt the activity of utopian dreaming, which is the engagement with these ideals.  This forms a starting point for the proper critique of our world and for action to create a better world.

(also available on CD and tape at Orange)

Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian.

                                                                                                      — Emma Goldman

This will be a historical look at the art of mind-changing.  The political reality of the day requires that a lot of people change their minds about political realities, and especially about what is and what isn’t “on the table” in terms of permitted political action.  

So, what we need to do is understand what it takes to change people’s minds; then, when we’ve figured that out, it’s time to change some minds, and change the world.  This essay will examine a number of historical figures who are relevant on the topic of mind-changing; and then it will surface for air by discussing the political platform it set up at the beginning and asking its reading audience: “what would change your mind?”

(crossposted at Big Orange)