Why We’re So Drawn To Utopian Dreams

And why radicalism will only die when modernity does

It’s no secret that fanaticism, radicalism and utopianism are on the rise. Politicians who wouldn’t have had a half a chance in hell to hold office just a few elections cycles ago have, as we all know, seized the highest offices or come unbelievably close since 2016 or so.

I don’t really think it’s that the Overton window has shifted one way or another. I think it’s that, as it’s become clearer that moderate politics can’t fix any of our most dire problems, the window has widened to include more of all kinds of beliefs considered too radical to say aloud even five or ten years ago.

But is this phenomenon really as new as we think? Or is it a constantly running stream beneath the thin ice of modernity, only revealing itself when the appeal of moderate politics thaws?

I’d argue the latter — that utopianism is a natural product of the alienation of the industrial era and will not end until said era ends — and here’s why.

Humans evolved to live in a stable state. From the dawn of life — not from 100,000, 200,000, a million or ten million years ago, but really, from the dawn of life itself — our ancestors, with very few exceptions, lived in relatively stable states of existence. Every generation did more or less what the generation before and after them did. Progress was not just a foreign concept, but no kind of concept at all. Even fast forward to the last Ice…