Have you found Utopia?
Asked by
ASoprano (
109
)
September 11th, 2009
If so, would you care to enlighten us?
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17 Answers
Nobody has and nobody will.
Only in my personal life. I now have everything I ever wanted when I was a child, and while growing up. That would be considered Utopia by some people.
However, the fact that I still live and and must deal with the rest of the world detracts from the overall effect. For instance, we have insurance agents to consult with, yard workers who don’t show up, patio installers who disappear and never return, and dogs that hurt their foot and have to take to the vet.
If you watch Mad Men you might recognize this quote:
Don Draper: Utopia.
Rachel Menken: Maybe. They taught us at Barnard about that word, ‘utopia’. The Greeks had two meaning for it: ’eu-topos’, meaning the good place, and ’u-topos’ meaning the place that cannot be.
(YouTube clip of the scene)
Perhaps you could define what you Utopia means to you in order to shed light on the question…
@ASoprano Nah, I’m just a minor deity. The big guy doesn’t like his minions to double guess him and his intentions.
@mattbrowne Psst. That link is broken because it adds ’&tag=fluthercom-20’ to the end.
Even then, colonising a new planet wouldn’t give us utopia. It’d just give us more planets for us to spread the plague of humanity on.
Perhaps you want to know why I said what I said, @ASoprano. I said that nobody has found utopia and nobody will because the concept of utopia involves a perfect society/community where there are no problems. Unfortunately, we’re such a problematic race and wherever we go in more than one, we’ll bring our inherent flaws and problems along with us. People have tried to create utopia, they failed miserably (Mao Zedong tried to create an agricultural utopia through his Great Leap Forward, resulting in the death of 20 million peasants).
Heck, even one person can never be totally happy, what more of a community of ten? A hundred? A thousand? The problems will just increase exponentially.
I like @timtrueman‘s explanation of the term utopia, which is supported by the etymology of ‘utopia’ found on wikipedia.
Yes, I have. Been there plenty of times.
It is off the Union Turnpike on long Island, NY.
Yup, but unfortunately, you can’t get there from here.
Perhaps. It’s Earth, itself. But then, I don’t think it could be utopia without problems. Without pain and problems, we’d be nothing. I think life is utopia no matter how awful it is—even if you are willing to give it up voluntarily.
@ChazMaz Despite the name, Utopia Parkway ain’t all that special.
This is true.
I guess Utopia is what you make of it. :-)
Of course I’ve found it. It’s on the same continent as The Fountain of Youth and a stones throw away from Atlantis. For a price, I’ll tell you where El Dorado is too. On second thought, no I won’t. I can’t enlighten anyone on the locations of these fabled places because to do so would be a breach of national security and we can’t have that.
My Utopia differs from time to time…mostly it is someone else’s utopia in book form.
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