Stages of Utopia: Is Perfect Society Possible?

[maximus]

as i walk through the the city streets of sacramento i wonder to myself: is a utopia possible? can humanity ever succeed in creating a perfect (or as near to it as we can get) society?
to answer this question i had to classify civilization. (primarily western civilization and the different stages we went through)
i came up with a hierarchy of civilization. stage one being our most primative and the last being the closest we can get to perfection.

stage one:
chaos. no governmental order or system. looting and division.

stage two:
"evil" monarchy or dictotorship. by which i mean that the people are controlled with an iron fist and restricted in their thinking.

stage three:
tribal setting. this promotes a sense of unity but pits you against other tribes.

stage four:
"good" monarchy or dictatorship. there is a singular ruler but he promotes goodness and morality.

stage five:
current democracy. we have a fairly egual and unbiased lifestyle but we are greedy and culturally sick.

stage six:
"fictional" democracy. a democracy like ours but in which the original values (like the ones in the constitution) are held up by everybody. greed does not exist. morality is commonplace.

stage six:
eutopia. now, for utopia i see two aternative possibilities, each with its own debatable flaws. one scenerio is the everybody helps everybody idea where every person in a community produces his share of his trade and gives off the excess freely. if everybody gave and received freely and took only what they needed, everybody would be in abundance. right? the second possiblity is that proposed by the mind of Ann Rand: objectisism. everybody looks out only for themselves and gives nothing away. no charity or sympathy. if everybody did this, wouldn't everybody get along? (except of course those with disabilities)

note: when choosing the order of the ranking i had to take into account several factors.
1) does this society support all of its members?
2) does it support them equally well?
3) does it promote a sense of unity and peace?
4) does it create a sense of hostility against other societies?

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am i right? did i miss anything? did i misplace something? is my list of morals missing anything? should anything not be there? are these utopias possible?

 

[q-nought]

hehehe... a biased approach to Utopia, well maybe there is no other approach.

Your first Utopia sounds suspiciously like Marxism. Your second Utopia (ala Ayn Rand) could work with a small enough population or a large enough environment. People with disabilities would not be excluded from such a Utopia, only people without ambition. While Ayn did not touch on cases of people with disabilities (or birth defects or mental desease or etc) I assume she did not think they would be cast aside by society. I assume they would be cared for with love and compassion like any civilized society would do. People that abuse the system would not be tolerated though.

 

[wuliheron]

You left out meritocracy, rule by the good-deed-doers, and technocracy, rule by the technocrats.

Kurt Vonnegut once speculated on a future meritocracy. A computer was fed all the information on who was qualified, and then randomly selected one to be president. One of the critical qualifications for the job was that these people did not want the job, but would knuckle down and do it if chosen.

Considering how many problems people have had with governments and societies, it may be in the future we will just let the machines do everything. It only makes sense, when you start talking about organizing six billion people or more its obvious the task is beyond human comprehension. Of course, some say the future of humanity is as zoo specimens for artificial intelligence.

 

[drag]

Greetings !

First, there will be no Utopia as long as at least two different
people need to co-exist with their different wishes, desires,
needs and other differences.

Second, your Utopia appears to be aimed at humans only.

Live long and prosper.

 

[Another God]

I think the computer idea is most reasonable. At least they will be 'fair'. But then of course, people aren't interested in fair...people want what's best for themselves.

 

[plus]

Originally posted by Another God
I think the computer idea is most reasonable. At least they will be 'fair'. But then of course, people aren't interested in fair...people want what's best for themselves.

How would this be fair? On which set of rules. The writer of the rules would have the most power of all. Being a president probably requires such a large amount of effort that only those who really wanted to do it would be capable.

And a very simple definition of rule of utopia does not lead to it necessarily.