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UTOPIAN_BERLIN
July 26, 2012
Scialabba argues well against
Isiah Berlin, who liked to score SCIALABBA
rhetorical points using a cartoon
version of utopian visions.
Scialabba's quotes Berlin's "The
Decline of Utopian Ideas in the "Agonies", on p.111 of
West" (from _The Crooked Timber of "What Are Intellectuals
Humanity_), commenting that Berlin Good For?"
"tries to make mere repetition or
enumeration do the work of detailed SCIALABBA
analysis":
"Broadly speaking, western Utopias tend to contain the same
elements: a society lives in a state of pure harmony, in
which all its members live in peace, love one another, are
free from physical danger, from want of any kind, from
insecurity, from degrading work, from envy, from
frustration, experience no injustice or violence, live in
perpetual, even light, in a temperate climate, in the midst
of infinitely fruitful, generous nature. The main
characteristic of most, perhaps all, utopias is the fact
that they are static. Nothing in them alters, for they
have reached perfection: there is no need for novelty or
change; no one can wish to alter a condition in which all
natural human wished are fulfilled."
Scialabba responds (formatting mine):
"In short, the Garden of Eden minus original sin.
But consider perhaps the five most influential
utopian fictions in English:
More's _Utopia_,
Bellamy's _Looking Backward_,
Morris's _News from Nowhere_,
Wells's [sic] _A Modern Utopia_, and
Ernest Callenbach's _Ecotopia_.
No characteristic from Berlin's list applies categorically
to all five, or indeed, arguably, to any of them. All
members of all these utopian societies are liable to some
danger, want, frustration, envy, violence, insecurity, and
tedious work, however insignificant compared with
present-day levels. They are cooperative, egalitarian,
technically advanced commonwealths, not idylls of static
perfection. _Pace_ Berlin, no 'metaphysical' theories of
human nature are required to accept them (with whatever
reservations) as inspiring models or programs only a lively
and discriminating work of imagination."
Utopia returns later in Scialabba's
discussion of Russell Jacoby,
"Puny Expectations" -- p.193
(some breaks added, with
non-standard quoting):
"What explains the eclipse of
utopianism? In a sense, the answer
is obvious: utopia lies buried in
the rubble of Communism."
"As Jacoby points out, Cold-War
thinkers consistently equated
utopia with totalitarianism and
liberal pluralism with democracy,
and they carried the day."
"There were undoubtably
counterarguments: in particular,
that Stalinism was not in the This is true enough:
least a utopian experiment but the example of Soviet Russia
was more like Czarism plus need not discredit every
electricity." attempt social design.
" ... There is a rational It does however, work fairly
kernel within the shell of well as an inditement of
anti-utopian prejudice. social designers: many a
It is simply this: we all left-wing intellectual has
want to see the plans." had trouble shaking the idea
that the Soviet system was
on their side, a flawed but
noble "experiment".
REDS
Scilabba, p.194:
"Utopia, then, is in the
_future_. ... Revolutionists
and abolitionists, utopia's So Scialbba believes in
false friends, insist that it gradual reform-- he goes He's critical
can be constructed out of on to discuss Shaw's of Jacoby's
present materials through a defense of gradualism in contempt for
heroic act of will. This is the "Fabian Essays". small steps.
to underestimate recklessly
the depth and subtlety of the Though I share Scialabba's prejudice
necessary changes and the for gradual change, I suspect that
intricacy and inertia of the reformer sentiment can also be
every moral culture." used to postpone change indefinitely,
and that actual reform often happens
after it's prompted by revolutionists
and abolitionists.
INSIDE_AND_OUT
MOVING_TARGET
What is Scialabba's left/liberal dream,
how far is he willing to go toward "utopia"?
From Scialabba's prerequisites
for Utopia, I think we can see
the clearest statement of his
goals; this is his conception
of Utopia:
"Utopia is impossible unless, among
an overwhelming majority, solidarity WORLD_OF_HEROES
and trust are nearly insitinctive;
responsibility, self-reliance,
initiative, honesty, and other civic
virtues are practiced much more
widely than now; and democratic
habits of self-confidence, candor,
and tact are far better developed.
Channels of communication and public
information are as yet rudimentary."
Or more succinctly, on p. 195:
"The whole society, more or less, must
see the light, or it isn't utopia."
The free-market libertarians
have a similar attitude, but
completely different ideas
about goals and process.
Scialabba, p. 195 (additional breaks, mine):
"The foregoing would be a counsel of despair if
the human race were only going to last for a few
generations. But utopia's enemies must, if
they're logical, deny that such changes are
possible in _any_ number of generations; must
assert, in essence, that humankind has already
attained its farthest point of moral development
and that our present level of social virtue
cannot be substantially improved on _in saecula
saeculorum_. This is even more implausible than
revolutionism."
"The wisdom and generosity of the corporate
boardroom and the _Wall Street Journal_
editorial page may be the best we can do in
1999. But by 2500? Surely it's more likely
that we'll all be as gods by then than that
we won't have evolved beyond Robert Bartley
and Steve Forbes. ... "
"Moral progress is not inevitable, but it
is not impossible. It is slow, painful,
and uncertain; this is another way of
putting the tragic view of life. That I'm glad to hear Scialabba
view is noble and true, but it is not the assert that his gradualism is
same as the lazy, self-serving assumption not opposed to radical
that things can never be radically better change... but I wonder if it's
and so there's no point racking one's not much more than just an
brains to come up with any possible steps assertion. There may not
in that direction." ultimately be much difference
between the conservatives
excuses for dodging change and
the moderates arguments for
very small changes.
Resting comfortably on one's
tragic view of life, and
keeping the blinders on for
any hope of revolution.
Scialabba's tragic view is essentially ESSAY_ON_THE_UNDERGROUND
that "the transmission belt of
culture" is indeed broken, and a new
dark age is upon us. The left-wing
intellectual can expect to have no
influence on the world at large in
it's present condition, all that's
left is to record and preserve and Very similar to the
package up what we know in a "sealed rationale for the
envelope" to be passed on the later Encylopedists of Asimov's
generations in hopes that they'll be Foundation, but if
able to do something useful with it. Scialabba ever reads
anything but approved
And this is really his Serious Literature,
answer to the question he shows no sign of it.
"what are intellectuals
good for?"
But then, while Scialabba's obsession
with respectable lit may sometimes
seem like it might be a weakness, I
think he does better starting with
Isaiah Berlin then I have starting
with a weak issue of a Marvel comic book.
UTOPIAN_BLOCK
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