Why Utopias Are Not Desirable
By: Ethan Chua
Tags: Society, Philosophy, Existentialism, Books, Life Lessons

The Utopic Contradiction

Even if this issue could be resolved, there is a fundamental contradiction in the concept itself. Since a utopia promises perfection and flawlessness, it also promises stability. The cost of a utopia addressed above assumed that stability was desirable, which would be a natural inclination.

It must be made clear that when talking about the stability of a society, the equation would be made that our lives in that society would be eternally stable as well. We will not meet with obstacles that cause us pain, we will not endure the suffering that comes with imperfection. However, as much as pain, suffering, and instability are viewed negatively, its eradication can prove fatal as well to our fundamental human nature.

Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist in the 20th century who was brought to the Nazi concentration camps in World War 2. He became prominent after documenting his experience and attaching it with his philosophy in his book Man’s Search For Meaning. Viktor Frankl remarked:

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”

The thing is, we do not actually want lifelong stability. The beauty of life is in the struggle, and that is what makes our goals worthwhile. The pain and sadness and suffering have a place. The vicissitudes of life add spice to an otherwise bland and boring existence. Even in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, the Controller stated:

“But that’s the price we have to pay for stability. You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We’ve sacrificed high art.”

When stating this, he was making a reference largely to Shakespeare’s plays, which were often experimentations and explorations of the human condition. By removing pain and ensuring only happiness, the human condition itself seems to have been removed, leaving no opportunity for what we call high art. A utopia, although often idealized as the perfect state, prized for its stability and guaranteed happiness, is surprisingly foreign and far detached from raw human nature.

That is not to say that pain, suffering, and sadness are desirable. An abundance of the negative aspect of life can result in disastrous consequences. Where is the beauty in only struggle and suffering?

But as petty as it may sound, stability is boring. With a utopia, we will have lost the ups and downs of life that make us human. If we only have ups, what value do they still hold?

With a utopia, we will have lost the success and failures in life that make us human. If we only succeed, what value does it still hold?

With a utopia, we will have lost the beauty of the struggle and the joy of overcoming it. How can we celebrate the overcoming of an obstacle when there is no obstacle to overcome?

Not only is the absence of negativity in existence contrary to our primordial nature, but it also dilutes an otherwise beautiful and illustrious life. It removes the meaning of all our achievements because we do not have failures to compare them to. We cannot value our pleasure, no matter how intense, because we do not know pain.

“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” — Carl Jung

In a perfect state, we remove ourselves from an even more wondrous world simply because that world includes aspects that are undesirable. To achieve a utopia, we will have to lose the bad and the good. We will have to lose what makes life worth hating, but also what makes life worth living.