Stan Giess: Nature, Nurture and other thoughts about Utopia
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Why won't world leaders, that so eagerly fund weapons programs, invest in peace programs? I'm sure they consider many of their investments to be in the interest of peace. A few programs might even be serving the goal of peace, but not enough of them and with only a fraction of the resources that are put into preparing for war. The leaders of nations have no problems funding weapons programs, sometimes to the degree that amounts to looting the nation's treasury and bankrupting it. It is unrealistic to expect leaders to cancel all weapons programs and pour all of their resources into researching peace, but wouldn't you expect at least a few of them to see the wisdom of budgeting at least a modest amount for peace?
I'm sure that any recent American president that would have seen an opportunity to be instrumental in bringing peace to the Middle East would have pursued this goal with great energy. The resulting prestige and guarantee of a favored spot in the history books would be nearly irresistible to most politicians. Given that political leaders (along with most of humanity) thrive on glory and admiration, they should think big. America's president John F. Kennedy is often remembered admiringly for initiating the creation of the Peace Corps. Imagine the glory and admiration for making a decision leading to a blissful existence for the entire human race for the rest of history.
I suppose the potential ridicule for proposing to create and fund something called the Utopian Institute (or Utopian Society Agency, or maybe Utopian Society of Sociological Research), might outweigh the chance at reaching a status close to divine. Of course, Kennedy was able to propose the fantastic goal of sending men to the moon and returning them to Earth without allowing potential ridicule to quash the dream. I think political leaders should keep the words of Anatole France in mind: "Without the utopians of other times, men would still live in caves, miserable and naked."
Approximately the first half of this essay consists of discussion of things that I think must be understood to plan or design a society. A society is composed of people so it is about people, specifically our nature or whatever it is that leads us to do the things we do. I guess you could consider it to be amateur social psychology.
Then in the second half I try to give the ideas more relevance to a Utopian society and begin using a vaguely described society as a device for showing how the ideas might be used in a society. Although I try to give a little substance to the society and describe the nature of some of it, it is neither a society that I am recommending or predicting. I feel there are just too many variables to make meaningful guesses about the details of a future society.
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