>Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 10:58:02 -0800
>From: KMO <kmo@c-realm.com>
>Subject: Re: virus: Building Utopia
>
>Reed Konsler wrote:
>
>> I have a question. If you had never suffered any frustation, would you
>> value art?
>
>I don't know...if I'd never encountered any frustration in attempting to
>communicate an idea by putting lines on paper...
Interesting. But what I meant was: if you never encountered frustration in life. If, from cradle to grave you never experienced an unmet desire...would you feel any need to create art? My belief is that expression is a way of creating that which we lack...we experience a frustration in life and fulfil that need, in a metaphorical way, elsewhere. In a primitive way, a man might kick a dog after himself being beaten. In a more sophisticated way, Kafka might write books of revelation in protest against an alien mechanized world.
But can there be "art" without frustration...and would you frustrate people that there might be more art. How highly do you value <art>? Above people? Above <happiness>? These are the questions which arise to my mind when I think of BNW.
>The inhabitants of BNW are content. Their needs are met (with the
>exception of the need for self-actualization) and their minds are kept
>occupied with trivialities, but I think you'd be hard pressed to
>convince Plato that they're happy.
Is <self-actualization> missing? Inhabitants of BNW live in the world of the moment...they a programmed to. They don't have to meditate to become self-actualized becuase nothing ever separates them from their desires. In a sense, they aren't ever born...they are decanted, but they never experience any pain. Isn't that what we want? We treat AIDS because people are in pain, yes? Doesn't that human suffering make your heart bleed? Isn't the sharing of pain the heart of compassion? of empathy?
If you could, would you be infinitely compassionate? Wouldn't that be very like the Brave New World?
Or would you choose to confront, to strike out, to allow people their modicum of pain that they might understand you better? If you had the power, would you protect people from themselves?
As for Plato...was he happy? What did Plato ever say about happiness?
>As I recall, the island mentioned in Brave New World was an experiment
>to see what would happen in a society composed entirely of Alpha's. They
>started a war, and the experiment was terminated. By the time the events
>in BNW took place, there were no such island enclaves for the
>dissaffected.
You misremember the book. There was such an experiment on Crete (or Cyprus). At the time of BNW disaffected citizens were isolated on various islands around the world...placed in golden prisons and kept seperate from a society which could not understand them.
>And the result is that an enourmous number of college freshmen, given
>their first oportunity in 18 years of life to make they're own
>decissions, who drink themselves into oblivion and flunk out or drop out
>of college in their first semester. At MU, the first semester dropout
>rate was over 30%. That was fine with the administration however, as
>they required all freshmen to live in the dorms and to pay for tuition
>and room and boar up front, and after the first month, none of that
>first semester's fees are refundable, so the university gets paid for
>instruction never received and room and board never provided.
Interesting. I agree that it's not a good trend...well, unless the state exercises so much control that there is never any opportunity for people to make they're own decisions. Again, though, this seems to be leading me to conclude that, sometimes anyway, compassion and empathy are exactly the thing not needed. We have to let children experience the consequences of their actions and, if we find ourselves in positions of authority, we need to step up to that responsibility and smack them silly (metaphorically...even literally?) from time to time. Or maybe not?
To be honest, I'm confused. BNW is a utopia where everyone gets what they want. You say this is a bad thing, perhaps an impossible thing. As a scientist, I bet I can make it happen, though. Should we try? If not, it seems like we are accepting that discord will be with us forever...that you and I might even be required to meet out punishment for violation of collective mores or laws. In other words, in the interest of <freedom> we might have to dispassionately bomb innocent civilians at times. Can you help me out of this ethical quagmire before I become a Republican?
>> It strikes me that this general trend (do you agree with my perception?)
>> is indicative that, while we might recognize our own taste for the
>> perverse, we try to make the lives of our children less so.
>
>I recognize the trend, but leave KMO out of "we," cause he thinks it's a
>bad plan.
But is there a better one?
Reed
Reed Konsler konsler@ascat.harvard.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------