At the end of part 3 I suggested:
ActualisationAnswer: the answer to Meanlife is that each human should aim for self-actualisation- they should develop themselves and strive to achieve their potential.
In Part 4 I argued that the best thing we could do is to generalise the ActualisationAnswer - to make it possible for everyone to achieve self actualisation. In this post I'm going to go more deeply into what I think such a world would look like as well as well as articulate my plan for helping achieve this world.
What is an Utopia?
The word Utopia describes a community or society that is ideal or perfect. The term itself is meant to be ironic and means 'no place'. It was originally coined by the author Thomas Moore as the name of his 1516 book. The term is usually said with connotations of being unrealistic or imaginary. When utopias are depicted in literature, they are often shown to be only perfect on the outside, and deeply flawed within.
I'm a bit of an optimist so I would like to take the challenge head on - I'd like to live in a world that is utopian or at least in a world that is much improved from our current. The first step I think is to discuss what it means for a society to be ideal or perfect. I've already argued previously that a society should be there to improve and make better the lives of its citizens. To make it better - I think - should be connected to the ActualisationAnswer - the society should help its citizens achieve their potential.
Now, I've indicated previously that I think actualisation is an important part of being happy, and I think one could quite easily argue that a utopian society is one in which everyone is really or even maximally happy. This of course requires us to assess the concept of happiness more deeply.
For brevity, I'm going to refer to the three kinds of theories of happiness as described by Derek Partfit in his book Reasons and Persons.
1: Hedonism: happiness is about having more pleasure and less pain.
2: Desire fulfilment: happiness is about having one's desired fulfiled
3: Objective list: there exists a list of things that are good or bad for people, and happiness is about having the good things and not having the bad things.
The third kind is a little bit vague, so let me describe two common types of things that might be on this objective list. The first (call this 3A) is of course the Aristolean concept of Eudaimonia - broadly connected to self actualisation, but focussing heavily on the development of virtue. The second (call this 3B) is a more buddhist notion that focusses on ridding oneself of the three causes of unhappiness - aversion, craving and ignorance.
I do think that each of these positions have their own problems, but I also think that these positions are somewhat consistent with one another and that a world that properly addresses all such options could be validly described as Utopian.
To give an idea of how this analysis might work, let's discuss a few cases that I would describe as non utopian because they fail.
Perhaps the easiest example is to talk about Nozick's experience machine. Imagine there is this machine that is able to simulate experiences perfectly, and that you could programme it to provide really enriching, pleasurable experiences. While this machine clearly maxes on hedonism and arguably desire fulfilment, it fails on 3A. If we are using the thing we are merely experiencing, but not actually doing something or having something. We aren't actually being virtuous or flourishing - we are just feeling like it. One could also argue that it fails 4A - we're fully buying into craving and we are living an ignorant life (depends if we recognise that the machine experiences are false).
Another example is to consider a world in which I have complete freedom and can do whatever I want. Suppose now that I have the desire to harm or kill others and I actually do so (thus meeting desire fulfilment). Should we consider myself as happy? This of course has the side effect of thrusting a negative freedom on others. Or suppose my desires are a bit more mundane - I might be an incredibly talented mathematician but instead I decide to sit at home and sleep my days away. My desires might be fulfilled but I'm failing on my actualisation. I think this also shows an important distinction when discussing happiness - the distinction between the state of being (e.g. I feel good) compared to the leading of a valuable life (e.g. I am doing good things).
A final example to consider is perhaps to consider the life of an army veteran that has saved many people but is actually the war. He might have achieved the best that he can do, thus reaching eudaimonia. Yet he might also experience PTSD and frustration that the war is ongoing. We could argue that he has failed the 1 (lack of pleasure), 2 (desires not fulfilled) and 3B (ongoing aversion of the mind).
What would a utopia that broadly satisfies these four definitions involve?
This will be tricky as although the four definitions are broadly consistent, it's a lot to discuss for each.
Let's look first at what I've previously discussed - Eudiamonia. I think there are some problems that need to be solved:
1) One needs the money to be able sustain their life as well as make purchases required to pursue their activities of choice.
2) One needs the time to be be able to pursue their dreams, passions and so on.
3) They need to be able to have the motivation and there needs to be no distractions.
4) They need to be able to identify what their dreams and passions are, and such activities need to be available in society.
I think normally one would expect the first problem to be solved by getting a job. Unfortunately, jobs are the single biggest consumers of time (as well as the most miserable activity of the day). So I'd expect in such a society there would need to be a way for jobs to be optional. One way of doing this would be for the government to provide resources unconditionally - either via a form of income or otherwise. That's a tall order because there needs to be a way for the government to make the money / resources - things that normally come from a functional economy where people have jobs.
An obvious solution to this would maybe be the leveraging of AI to generate economic surplus. We would somehow have AI replace people's jobs and use the technology to generate income and resources. I think we're still quite far from such a future and no doubt there will be various issues in leveraging this.
The third problem is interesting. Some people will already have the motivation and we can perhaps hope that given the time and resources, people will be able to follow it without distraction. For others this might be more difficult and the government might need to help them. This could be in the form of enrichment centres, guidance or so on. Possibly we could also just let people do as they wish, even if it involves traditionally 'waste of time' activities.
The fourth problem could be solved through government guidance. Maybe an enrichment advisor? Or maybe just a culture that really promotes pursuing one's dreams. One issue I anticipate is that some dreams and passions require a society we have now, but the changes in society might remove these options. For example some people might dream of a certain job, and this kind of utopia might not have those jobs. I think certain jobs still need to be available and they should be rewarded - we just need it to be in some sense optional. We're really catering for the individual who wants to pursue music but is forced into a corporate job. We assume that given enough money they can follow their music passion, even if they don't have the most glamorous life.
There's also the problem of competition. Many of these dreams and passions are considered valuable because they are difficult or are the best. I think we need to retain these somehow - we need our achievements to be genuine, only then do we feel like we have achieved actualisation.
The other definitions
1: Hedonism
So with hedonism I've argued previously we need to have a balanced take. Certain pleasure is good and certain pleasure should be considered bad. For example we might argue that pursuing a life of drugs or 'induced pleasure' is problematic in some way (although maybe we want to give people the option of it still). The options for pleasure should be available in this ideal society, but we need to consider which ones.
I think at a basic level by providing money we ensure that people always have enough resources to survive and meet their minimal requirements. I don't think anyone is arguing that people should be starving. I don't necessarily think people should have superfluous money (as I suspect its not economically feasible and also takes away the joy of accomplishment), but they should be able to enjoy certain luxuries. I mentionde that some jobs should still be there - I think people there should be ways for people to 'earn' more luxuries if they want to have even more pleasure.
2: Desire fulfilment
I think the important thing is that people are given the autonomy and freedom to do what they want and at least attempt to fulfil their desires. Naturally some desires will be easier to fulfil than others - this will depend e.g. on how it influences and freedoms of others but also the nature of competition. I think having some kind of challenge is important - desires should be possible to fulfil but not trivially.
3B: Enlightenment
I'm focussing as before on the buddhist notion here. I think people should be given training on how to control their mind (and definitely research is needed here). They should be supported via e.g. mental health services and be able to live a calm and peaceful existence. People should live genuine lives, not artificial ones.
What's next?
I've articulated this world now and also mentioned various issues with it. I think it is likely that such a world is still quite far out, and many changes - cultural and material - are required to achieve it. I expect progress to be gradual, and likely turbulent.
I propose going for a double attack, addressing the cultural as well as the material changes required to get to this world.
First on the cultural - currently society is engrained with certain notions of success, and there is an expectation that you have to 'work for a living'. People are still largely obsessed with external, capitalistic notions of success. I argue that this does not provide genuine happiness and that we require a shift. We want people to take control of their lives and have freedom and autonomy, for them to be encouraged to pursue their dreams and passion.
Writing this blog is one very small way to change our culture, but I think broader influence is needed. A few keys way stand out to me:
- Academic
- Media
- Personal
Academic influence is via writing and research. This could be in terms of books but it could also be living in the pop-academic space and talking about these issues.
Media is focussed on the use of social media to achieve change. Blogging counts of course, but also things like youtube, instagram and so on. One should become a popular figure - an influencer - and push forwards these ideas to the world.
The final is personal, and I think this has limited impact. We talk about what we're doing and we try and encourage change in others. Hopefully this change spreads throughout the world.
Now on the material side there are a few key policies I think that are needed. The one's I'll discuss are the following:
- Work reform, including Universal Basic Income
- Job automation, including what happens to the unemployed
- Happiness based policy making
- AI governance and proper use of technology
First on work reform, we obviously need to change the role of jobs in our society. We need a way for people to be able to fund their passions and experiences.
On Job automation, the vision I've described makes jobs optional because we're hoping to get economic surplus via other means (e.g. AI). I think it's already happening but we need to discuss what the impacts of job automation are, how it affects the unemployed and how we will support them to do other things.
In terms of happiness based policy making, this is a shift in government and society to do things that improve people's wellbeing and lives. Government currently focusses more on economic effort and it will take an internal shift to be able to change the purpose of policy making for the better. This is a more meta area.
AI governance is important because this future world likely relies on technology (largely AI?) to be able to sustain itself and ensure that individual people have the freedom to as they wish. We need to make sure we are careful with what we are doing and make sure that everything is still in line with our interests.
Conclusion
I've articulated what I think a utopia looks like and different dimensions that we need to target it. My goal is to target both sides - I want to be an influencer and change our cultural views on this topic, but I also want to target the material side and actually exact change. I think doing both simultaneously is challenging but should be rewarding as it gives one the perspective on society as well as intellectual credibility to change the world.
That's my vision for now, let's see how it goes!
