Comments on: In defense of pragmatic ‘real utopias’

By: Øyvind Holmstad

Øyvind Holmstad — Thu, 26 Jan 2017 19:29:51 +0000

Isn’t a “pragmatic, real utopia” actually an eutopia?

“Noun

Eutopia ?(plural Eutopias)

A place of ideal well-being, as a practical aspiration (compared with utopia as an impossible concept).”

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Eutopia

By: Reed Kinney

Reed Kinney — Sun, 22 Feb 2015 04:31:30 +0000

Dear Michel Bauwens,

Thank you for allowing me the benefit of the doubt. I apologize that some people were offended by my assertions. I do not understand why you would upload the “Commons” lectures as if they represent a viable option to the world crisis when that organization is causing that same crisis. We are in a “hard ball” world. Youngblood makes a good assessment, See: http://www.secessionfromthebroadcast.org/2013/10/29/secession-broadcast-internet-crisis-social-control.

By: Michel Bauwens

Michel Bauwens — Sat, 21 Feb 2015 21:43:04 +0000

After different complaints I have decided to delete the comments by Reed.

By: Michel Bauwens

Michel Bauwens — Sat, 21 Feb 2015 19:31:32 +0000

Just for the record, there is no “central bank” that is owned by zionists. This is factually incorrect. I would normally not accept comments of that nature, but since Reed stresses that his comments are not meant to be anti-semitic, we will leave them as is.

By: vera

vera — Sat, 21 Feb 2015 18:43:41 +0000

@Reed, I don’t do twitter. But I’ll leave you a message at your blog you linked to above. Looking forward to our conversation.

By: vera

vera — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 19:14:37 +0000

@Reed; the first utopia (though it was not known by that word) was Plato’s Republic, and it was pretty totalitarian. Utopias are what the utopians wants them to be. I understand that your own utopia is not like that; nevertheless…

“For the people to monitor and control the executive functions of societal organization is a structural challenge.”

Ha! The understatement of the century. 🙂

By: vera

vera — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 23:06:46 +0000

I am delighted my post has spurred on so much discussion. Perhaps it came off my keyboard too hastily: I was fuming against all those people who feel so certain of their “vision” and who also succeed in getting the power to do it, that they then proceed to impose it on us all, regardless of objections, regardless of feedback, regardless, indeed, of the reality they *actually* create. Let Frank Gehry’s flipped finger — it’s all over the internet — be the symbol of this way of creating “better” worlds. Let all the leaking roofs, crumbling concrete, ugliness, destruction of public spaces, and general inhabitability of modern architectural creations underline the point I am making.

Now back to utopia. In my post, I said that I am all for literary utopias, where speculation runs rampant and new vistas open up to human imagination. What I am against is taking that speculation and trying to hoist it upon the hapless humans that happen to be within the utopian’s power orbit.

As a consequence, I cannot get excited about a project (I took a peek at Real Utopias) that churns up policies to hoist upon people to change their behavior in the direction of the utopian’s desire. That has been called “social engineering” in some circles, and aptly so. It essentially tries to manipulate people in the direction the utopian manipulator wants them to go, and through top-down methods no less.

That, my friends, is not autonomy. That’s not freedom, nor is it respect. That’s not the right algorithm for getting there.