I remember reading Moore’s Utopia many years ago about how to reach some kind of equilibrium in our political, social and ethical lives. And we all know the stories of the ‘perfect place’ that litter our cultures from Shangri-La to the Garden Of Eden. There is a definite belief amongst people that what we have is wrong in some way, that what we experience is misguided to some degree.
But also in these stories and ideas is the belief that there may be somewhere that is better except it is hidden or we have lost it, or that somehow there was a golden age way-back-when which we need to regain.
It isn’t hard to see why such stories have such a hold on us: we find life difficult, emotionally tragic and we all die. None of these things endear us to the social or political systems we live within because those systems have no answer for them. And religions give a hope of an answer and make a virtue of the pain as some kind of cathartic ticket to meet with god.
Atomic theory tells us that the atoms in us rarely get broken up, and the particles in our bodies have been here forever-and-a-day. And if you look outside the sunshine and fertile Earth is still there, she just has this ridiculous wallpaper of economics plastered all over her.
It is city life that makes utopia so important. Here in the countryside every breath taken is rewarding.