Utopophobia and Other Freedom Beefs

Note that the paper says at the top “DRAFT: Please do not cite or distribute.” You might want to ask Estlund whether he wants it linked.

Are you saying that mathematics isn’t a “model-railway/fanfic”-type activity? It often feels that way to me.

I want to read this again more slowly, but a couple of thoughts:

– “Utopia” sounds especially childish now that SF has become popular

– Anti-utopian ideas were an important part of US anti-communist liberalism in the 1950s: developed at length and also opposed by leftists like Norman Mailer and the New Left, taken up in large part by neoconservatism. These ideas are now part of the culture but they might not form a coherent theoretical whole.

– As anyone who’s spent too much time giving credit to NRO’s The Corner knows, there’s the whole “immanentizing the eschaton” thing, which all utopias are supposed to be, which is supposed to be bad and unconservative. Pretty obviously, this is a theological, Christian idea–yet, its badness doesn’t seem to be important to Christians–and my guess would be that its something non-Christians are sometimes asked to take account of, in order to be inclusive, but is a distinction that’s actually mostly only theoretical. In any case, I don’t know what it actually means (it obviously doesn’t describe, say, the Left Behind books, because conservatives don’t reject those).

Sorry if this goes into too much detail on stuff most people find boring.

Rawls is giving us semi-concessive ideal theory

I’ve not read Eslund’s piece, so maybe he discusses this. But, I’m curious if you think that, in Rawls’s account, this is so _other than_ the restrictions put in place by the “circumstances of justice” stuff- moderate scarcity, real but moderate altruism, etc. Those parts are in the open in the account, it seems to me, and not at all implausible. Do you think there are other significant “concessive” elements?

Are you saying that mathematics isn’t a “model-railway/fanfic”-type activity? It often feels that way to me.

Can you think of any areas of mathematics without practical applications? I can’t — the idea that there is “pure” mathematcs, unsullied by the gross demands of the world, might have been sustainable in Hardy’s day (c.f., A Mathematician’s Apology), but it’s not any more. Even the most apparently abstract and unworldly bits of mathematics (algebraic topology, say) have deep and wide connections to fields like physics, statistics, and computer science.

“I’m not an idealist, I just think individual liberty should always take precedence over every other value.”

This strong, almost instinctive revulsion at the very notion of ‘utopia’, as inherently ethically inauthentic, is a pretty complex cocktail. It is, to repeat, an ethic of authenticity; in part an ethic of pluralism (the ‘best’ is undefined); in part it’s an impulse that ‘I have a right to do wrong’.

I wouldn’t think that a belief in a (idealized) clean sectioning off of politics from ethics is concessive, and therefore non-utopian. By which I mean: it’s not concessive to acknowledge that there are wrongs that are merely ethical wrongs and not political wrongs at all. (Intuitively all political wrongs are ethical wrongs.) Nothing is conceded by the acknowledgment that justice is a good distinct from, and attainable apart from or before, other goods. The thesis of the disunity of virtue is not, by itself, concessive. So, in a political utopia you will have things that you won’t in an ethical utopia: people destroying themselves or good things in politically non-relevant ways, etc. Thus, I don’t see how aversion to Brave New World motivates aversion to political utopia, unless it’s also coupled with something like a thesis of the unity of virtue/good, or the thesis that the Just cannot be cleanly separated from other goods.

As an undergraduate, I was always tempted by this strategy: give an ideal theory of justice, but build into it some room for moral failure – a reasonable (if vague) rate at which it is acceptable to do wrong (by the lights of the theory) while still being just. As stated, this would apply to assigning praise or blame to moral agents for the corporate whole of their deeds; but I figure it can be worded, mutatis mutandis, to apply to regimes. This comports with a strong intuition a lot of us have that justice is more than the limit condition.

Maybe it’s a sort of virtue ethics in that it could be said to assign praise and blame for habits and practices as opposed to individual acts or “basic structures”. I don’t know enough about virtue ethics to say any more on that score. I also remember thinking that such an approach could hybridize realist/objectivist and expressivist/subjectivist theories: The justness of acts are determined by the facts, but our standards for praising and blaming individuals are conventional.

In any event, what I wonder is this: is there any substantive difference between starting with an ideal theory of justice and building in room for human frailty, and starting with a concessionary theory but leaving no room for error? Or is the distinction superficial?

In short, Rawls implicitly concedes that people won’t care enough about justice (as opposed to their own gain) for us to get justice.

It would certainly be convenient for Cohen’s position to assume this, though it would be question-begging, and I thought the discussion on the blog (and in lots of critiques of Cohen, as well) showed that he wasn’t entitled to this conclusion. So, I don’t think this is shown, at the least. (I’m pretty sure that Estlund doesn’t agree with this claim, given his own quite strong critiques of Cohen on this sort of point.) It’s probably not worth going over it all again on the blog, but I do want to insist that this its far from obvious that Rawls’s version of the difference principle is vulnerable to this objection, if it means something more than that we have limited altruism. But if we don’t work withing the circumstances of justice, the the theory might be more “ideal” in a sense, but one that makes it pointless- like working out a theory of justice for people who can’t be harmed physically, say- a fun exercise in shmess (or whatever Dennett’s term was for the game just like chess, except the king can move two places), but not something to care much about.

Neel Krishnaswami @9
Agreed, but I don’t think that makes the doing of it any less model-trainy (at least for many of us). Building a model train set might it self conceivably have applications (say for transport planners) but that’s not typically what’s on people’s mind doing it. I think it’s often the same in maths: define your construction, play around with and see what it can do, all just because it’s interesting. Often those constructions are flexible enough that if you choose the right example it can model something real, but even then it’s not rare to be more interested in maths thrown up by doing the applications than the actual models.

It seems to me that (1) to say that one society is more just than another implies that we have a metric of justice, that (2) we can’t calibrate that metric without examining the extreme cases, and that (3) since we aren’t in fact perfectly just, it’s particularly important to contemplate cases that are more just than we think possible. Otherwise we may give ourselves more slack than we deserve: “Slavery may be wrong according to some abstract theory of perfectly just beings, but in the real world we need a theory of just slave-holding.”

On revulsion at the very notion of ‘utopia’: to me this is tied to the fact that most utopian novels, whatever their merits as arguments, are terrible novels. (“As you know, Bob” for hundreds of pages.) On the other hand, Le Guin’s The Dispossessed is a pretty good novel. Perhaps that’s because it’s concessive in that the folks on Anarres have all our human flaws; on the other hand, no prisons, no armies, no mountains of wealth.

Certainly my own hope is that people a few generations from now will think of prisons and armies and mountains of wealth the way we think of slaves and slave-holders.

John-18,

As you profess to be a ‘late’ Wittgensteinian, you’ll understand that you need not propose that there is a dichotomy for you to basically play a game based on that dichotomy. More directly: you’re conceeding too much to Utopianism by using the terms ‘concessionary’ & ‘aspirational’. Non-utopian thought need not be measured along the dimension proper to utopian thought. It is precisely in doing this that, whatever realism is added, the intrinsic fallacy of utopianism will be (and is, as far as the traditional ‘left wing’) institutionalized.

Even shorter: the dichotomy between utopian and non-utopian thought is helpful.

Other than that, yes, it still makes sense (after discarding utopian thought) to do as you propose (& it was an interesting post). After all, even Rawls’ theory is a self-professed ‘ideal theory’ – and in any non-utopian thought, some utopian elements will (unavoidably?) be present. Is that bad? Not necessarily, as long as we don’t dogmatize the utopian elements thus reverting to a standard utopian (‘fundi’) theory with some pragmatic (‘realo’) concessions.

It is interesting that Marx and Engels tried to give legitimacy to their own theories by disparaging supposed “utopians” and that the National Review (basically Christians who believe in pie in the sky) are now doing the same thing.

harold,

Just for the record, or in case unwarranted inferences are culled from your comment, both Marx and Engels had a deep if not abiding appreciation of “utopian socialists” like Owen, Fourier and Saint-Simon (e.g., in 1874 Engels wrote that Marxism ‘rests on the shoulders of Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen’) although their disenchantment with “utopian socialism” as such was more a result of their eventual involvement in working-class politics of a kind and corresponding dissatisfaction with the (‘subjectivist’) politics of the latter-day disciples of these early socialist visionaries as well as their comparative neglect of grand history or at least (‘objective’) historical movements or tendencies (largely Hegelian in inspiration if not substance):

“[A]lthough the originators of these systems were, in many respects, revolutionary, their disciples have, in every case, formed mere reactionary sects. They hold fast by the original views of their masters, in opposition to the progressive historical development of the proletariat.”

Nonetheless, it is true, as Vincent Geoghegan has explained, that “their desire to stress the political distinctiveness of their own stance led [Marx and Engels] to be less than fair to their ‘utopian’ predecessors.” Hence, not surprisingly, “Marx and Engels’ ambivalent relationship [to put it mildly if not feebly] to Owen, Fourier and Saint-Simon haunts their mature work” (as both Paul Ricoeur and, earlier, Ernst Bloch well appreciated).

In addition to Geoghegan’s treatment in Utopianism & Socialism (1987) from which the above quoted material was taken, there’s a compelling portrait sketched and a persuasive assessment drawn by Michael Harrington in his chapter “Socialisms” in Socialism: Past and Future (1989).

Matt Heath @ 21

I agree that many mathematicians don’t care about the practical implications of their work. However, the work itself usually does have those implications, which makes the analogy John H. talks about in his second paragraph somewhat problematic — you can’t say “X does not necessarily have immediate practical applications, but then neither does higher mathematics,” when every branch of mathematics we can name does have immediate practical applications. What’s really interesting, though, is that this is an analogy that used to work, but doesn’t any more.

Seventy years ago, when Hardy wrote A Mathematician’s Apology, there genuinely were fields of mathematics, such as number theory, that had no obvious applications. Today, however, there aren’t — science and engineering have grown vastly more hungry for mathematics since then. For example, number theory, once “useless”, now provides the foundations of secure electronc commerce via cryptography.

It depends on how narrowly you want to define field, but there are fields of mathematics with no applications, and most other fields have maybe 1 application that is related to 5% of the research. Number theory is an example: a small part of it is useful in cryptography, but that part is unrelated to what 95% of mathematicians in that field work on.

When we are talking about fiction, the distinctions between utopia and dystopia can work very well. But once these Utopian enthusiasms leave the pages of novels, films, etc., the meaning of Utopia becomes Dystopia.

We have enough data on the fates of Utopian programs never to go one near one again.

JoB

I’m not sure how ambiguous the Chinese, Russians, East Germans, Cambodians, Romanians, Polish Jews found the reality of the mid 20th century.

Jock,

I think you’re wrong (for some of the reasons outlined in the references found in no. 12 above).

In any case, utopias and “utopian programs” are two very different things (cf., for instance, the work of Ernst Bloch on utopian imagination; it’s rather clear that the there is nothing ‘progammatic’ about the non-literary material whatsoever) and it’s the failure to make or appreciate the distinction that often (although not invariably) leads to troubling if not nefarious consequences. I find Galston’s normative description of utopian thought more than plausible:

“Utopian thought attempts to specify and justify the principles of a comprehensively good political order. Typically, the goodness of that order rests on the desirability of the way of life enjoyed by the individuals within it; less frequently, its merits rely on organic features that cannot be reduced to individuals. Whatever their basis, the principles of the political good share certain general features:

First, utopian principles are in their intention universally valid, temporally and geographically.

Second, the idea of the good order arises out of our experience but does not mirror it in any simple way and is not circumscribed by it. Imagination may combine elements of experience into a new totality that has never existed; reason, seeking to reconcile the contradictions of experience, may transmute its elements.

Third, utopias exist in speech; they are “cities of words.” This does not mean that they cannot exist but only that they need not ever. This “counterfactuality” of utopia in no way impedes its evaluative function.

Fourth, utopian principles may come to be realized in history, and it may be possible to point to real forces pushing in that direction. But our approval of a utopia is not logically linked to the claim that history is bringing us closer to it or that we can identify an existing basis for the transformative actions that would bring it into being. Conversely, history cannot by itself validate principles. The movement of history (if it is a meaningful totality in any sense at all) may be from the most desirable to the less; the proverbial dustbin may contain much of enduring worth.

Fifth, although not confined to actual existence, the practical intention of utopia requires that it be constrained by possibility. Utopia is realistic in that it assumes human and material preconditions that are neither logically nor empirically impossible, even though their simultaneous co-presence may be both unlikely and largely beyond human control to effect.

Sixth, although utopia is a guide for action, it is not in any simple sense a program of action. In nearly all cases, important human or material preconditions for good politics will be lacking. Political practice consists in striving for the best results achievable in particular circumstances. The relation between the ideal and the best achievable is not deductive. [….]

Thus, the incompleteness of utopia, far from constituting a criticism of it, is inherent in precisely the features that give it evaluative force. As has been recognized at least since Aristotle, the gap between utopian principles and specific strategic/tactical programs can be bridged only through an inquiry different in kind and content from that leading to the principles themselves. If so, the demand that utopian thought contain within itself the conditions of its actualization leads to a sterile hybrid that is neither an adequate basis for rational evaluation nor an accurate analysis of existing conditions.”

There is no logical or necessary connection between the Tolstoyan idea of “Heaven on Earth” as it were and a teleological belief and commitment to its utter materialization. It is possible to keep in mind and appreciate the importance of the ineluctable gap between socio-political vision and imagination on the one hand, and a kind of practical idealism on the other, the latter entailing concrete programs of political action. Utopian models need not–and by definition should not–be seen as definitely realizable conretions. The gap is analogous to that between the theories and models of science and a hard-headed (or unqualified) realism about the “unobservable” world (hence our theories are like maps and cannot avoid recourse to analogies and metaphors; or as Sophie Allen has explained, ‘we do not know, in a broad metaphysical sense, what is really there,’ there exists a gap between the ‘terms of our theories’ and ‘really existing entities;’ science in theory and practice being more ‘metaphysically flexible’ than realist ontology simpliciter).

JoB,

Your references to Islam (or things ‘Islamic’) here seem rather gratuituitous, tendentious and simple-minded.

Patrick, maybe, but please explain why. Anyway, in your city of words, it is against the utopian programs I argue and against the easy way out of the utopia without program – which is in my city of words just a thought experiment, science fiction or imagination.

Patrick, Oh! Quite the reverse was intended. It was against a de-Islamizing Utopianism, a brand of right-wing Utopianism in which everybody is and/or beliefs the same. But, I will not defend that my cursory reference was clear in that regard.

bianca steele@5 & 6:

Eric Voegelin wouldn’t have found it boring. :)

If Islam is “Utopian” then so are all the other major world religions. Calling Islam utopian cynically dilutes the meaning of the word.

I rather suspect, like judging a religious tradition in toto, that calling Islam or any other religious worldview utopian or dystopian makes no sense. Instead, we might speak of a Muslim, or group of Muslims, or an Islamic treatise, (perhaps, for example, Al-Fārābī’s The Virtuous City [al-MadÄ«nah al-fādilah] etc., as utopian (or dystopian)….

Or Augustine’s City of God, which is sublime.

Patrick

Hamas’ character, existence, and motivations do not begin and end with its 2006 parliamentary election platform(s), which you do appear a little ignorant or naive about.

As for sharia and caliphate these are hardly arcane words or concepts. There would be few educated people anywhere on the globe of any faith, ethnicity, or language group who was not comfortable when these words enter a discussion.

And to give a sense of how very ordinary they are, let’s read it from the course; Hamas itself. In case, you are not familiar with it, the passage is from the Hamas Charter, an absolute hoot.

If you still think things are “vague” let me know. There is soooooo much more.

Part III – Strategies and Methods

Article Eleven: The Strategy of Hamas: Palestine is an Islamic Waqf

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it. No Arab country nor the aggregate of all Arab countries, and no Arab King or President nor all of them in the aggregate, have that right, nor has that right any organization or the aggregate of all organizations, be they Palestinian or Arab, because Palestine is an Islamic Waqf throughout all generations and to the Day of Resurrection. Who can presume to speak for all Islamic Generations to the Day of Resurrection?

This is the status [of the land] in Islamic Shari’a, and it is similar to all lands conquered by Islam by force, and made thereby Waqf lands upon their conquest, for all generations of Muslims until the Day of Resurrection. This [norm] has prevailed since the commanders of the Muslim armies completed the conquest of Syria and Iraq, and they asked the Caliph of Muslims, ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab, for his view of the conquered land, whether it should be partitioned between the troops or left in the possession of its population, or otherwise. Following discussions and consultations between the Caliph of Islam, ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab, and the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, be peace and prayer upon him, they decided that the land should remain in the hands of its owners to benefit from it and from its wealth; but the control of the land and the land itself ought to be endowed as a Waqf [in perpetuity] for all generations of Muslims until the Day of Resurrection. The ownership of the land by its owners is only one of usufruct, and this Waqf will endure as long as Heaven and earth last. Any demarche in violation of this law of Islam, with regard to Palestine, is baseless and reflects on its perpetrators

http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/documents/charter.html

Really?

Jock,

As more than a few of the relevant analysts and experts have noted in some detail, for all intents and purposes, Hamas has in many respects ignored and even regretted the wording of its Charter. It’s clear you have not read any of the well-known and representative studies of Hamas: by Tamimi, and by Mishal and Sela, for instance. For further works, see the the titles under “Culture, Economics and Politics,” pp. 80-102 (among other sections) of my bibliography for Islamic Studies: http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/2009/06/islamic-studies-bibliography.html

As Mishal and Sela note, “Hamas’s victory can be explained by social and economic considerations of the Palestinian electorate rather than ideological identification with the Islamic movement’s political agenda.” And: “Hamas is well aware that it had not been elected on the basis of its Islamic Charter and its hostility to Israel as much as the hope that it would deliver its promises in the election campaign for better government as well as improved social and economic life for the population in the Palestinian territories.” Finally, despite its ideology, which has clearly adapted to circumstances and evolved over time, “the movement has adopted a policy that [is] more pragmatic than dogmatic and more reformist than revolutionary.”

Or cf. Tamimi: Since Hamas’ Charter was published in August of 1988 “less than nine months after the foundation of the movement,” “it has hardly even been quoted or referred to by the Hamas leadership or its official spokesmen.” Indeed, those who quote from the Charter most frequently are non-Muslims looking to confirm their overweening ignorance about and biases against the organization and social movement. As Kahlid Mishal has said, “the text of the Charter does not reflect the thinking and understanding of the movement.” And there has been belated recognition of the fact that this may constitute “an obstacle, or a source of distortion, or a misunderstanding regarding wht the movement stands for.”

For a better description of what motivates Hamas and the principles that underpin their strategy, see the statement issued by Dr. Abd al-Aziz al-Rantsi just ten days prior to his assassination by Israelis found in Tamimi’s Hamas: A History from Within (2007): 147-148.

Finally, I did not say the conceptions of the caliphate and shariah were arcane, but their meaning has varied and they’re both eminently “contestable,” particularly the latter notion. I would qoute my entry on the latter from my study guide to illustrate this for you but it is far too long (I can send it to you if you’d like). Again, for the relevant literature, you may want to consult the section on “Jurisprudence” in the aforementioned bibliography, pp. 31-39.

That otherwise fairly well educated people can speak about the caliphate and shariah with appalling ignorance and confidence at the same time (as you have done here with Hamas) is commonplace and hardly surprising to anyone who works in the fields, say, of Near and Middle Eastern Studies or Islamic Studies.

Belief that the (Flying-Spaghetti?) Market will always provide is another kind of belief in Providence — dating from the (pre-Darwnian) time when people thought evolution always proceeded in a positive direction.

Darwin most definitely didn’t believe, let alone demonstrate, that evolution “always proceeded in a single direction”. Darwin didn’t like the term ‘evolution’ – which literally means ‘unfolding’ & implies progress from lower to higher forms – and avoided using it, for exactly that reason; what he wrote about was descent with modification through natural selection.

Utopian programs are like treason. For if they prosper, conservatives don’t dare dismiss them as “utopian”.

(unless they’ve first arranged for them to stop prospering)

I think the point Belle and I are making is that the idea of evolution predated Darwin, & was explicitly an idea of progress. The idea was very much one of the progressive evolution – unfolding – of a potential for higher (or greater, or wiser, etc) being which had been implicit in Life from the outset; a process which culminated in the human race, of course. Darwin didn’t just deny Creation, he deconsecrated evolution. Hence Darwinians getting a bit jumpy when people talk about evolution (as we now use the term) having any kind of direction.

I believe there is always some ‘-est’ notion implicit in Darwin

I don’t – to me natural selection is all about getting the edge on the next population along (or, to some extent, the next individual along) within a given ecological niche. (I’m not a biologist, btw.) Roll forward a few thousand years and what were previously adaptive features may have become maladaptive, and vice versa. The only ‘best’ is ‘best fit to a particular niche’, and that’s only really another way of saying ‘better than the others around at the time’.

Phil, I can see where you’re coming from but I think you’re reducing the ‘-est’ a tad too much. Darwin clearly talks about competition and those organisms that won out (were most numerous) at some point in time having an edge over others. He also speaks with care about the ‘perfection’ of some features (like the eyes). He gives examples of how a retreat into some previous climatal environment wouldn’t lead to the reappearance of characters that dominated in the previous time. All of this is not coincidental following his theory and, in fact, the deconsecacration you rightly mentioned requires this drive towards ever more competitive organisms (and an implciit comparison over times that you seem to deny). On his view – nothing can be perfect because everything will always modify through descent to something ‘perfecter’ still.

Anyway, a pity you’re not a biologist – but a pleasure to exchange views nonetheless.

Pre-Darwinian evolution: Lamark, Goethe, Burke (society is organic), Hegel, Spencer — to name a few.

Biologists today often talk about variation in order to avoid the implication of “progress” in evolution.

As for progress. There is progress and there is regress. These are relative terms.