Simon O’Connor
Husband, step-father, and longtime student of philosophy and history. Also happen to be a former politician, including chairing New Zealand's Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Committee.
After writing last week about the place of stigma in society, it got me to thinking about another aspect of perfectionism. In this case, utopianism.
Are we humans perfect?Simon O’ConnorIs stigma in society a good or a bad thing? If you are a progressive or leaning more towards the ‘woke’ side of things, you would say every stigma is bad – an imposition upon you by others. For the more moderate through to the conservative side of ethics,Read full story
As I noted last week, we can divide thinking about our human nature into two camps. Progressives who believe that – ‘I am perfect, and so everything that goes wrong in life is due to outside influences’ – view of the world. Then conservatives, like me, who reference the C S Lewis view of the world, that we are born flawed and that it is the blows of the hammer (life’s experiences, the wisdom of others, etc) that make us perfect.
I thought, though, how does this view work in the wider political world? It is one thing to think of individuals in our society who run about demanding everyone agree with them. But does this also operate at a communal or political level? Well, the simple answer is yes. It is known as utopianism.
Utopianism is the belief that we can create a perfect society here and now. It is what has fuelled many social and political movements. Alas, for those who like utopias, the history of humanity is littered with both failure and many deaths. Think of communism throughout the 20th century, with almost one hundred million deaths, or the French Revolution with tens of thousands of who literally lost their heads.
In modern day New Zealand, and other Anglo-Western countries in particular, we are seeing a new utopianism developing. Progressives are so morally certain they are right, they feel quite content to silence and cancel people – all in the name of democracy, ironically.
How then do these progressives reconcile their call for a utopia and democracy? A call for a unified, almost singular, view of how society should operate – despite democracy being filled with many different people, culture, ethics, and views?
For the progressive, democracy exists to help them create a utopia – hence all the laws, regulations, rules, guidelines, codes of conduct, ombudsmen, and other pseudo-judicial bodies – to mold people into their way of thinking. It is why we have all the various education programmes, from the Treaty to anti-racism, consent training to sexual education, and everything in between where the state (or academics and others in positions of influence) seek to impose their view of things.
This move away from pluralistic democracy (a range of competing views) to one of utopian uniformity can attributed to the influence of philosophers such as Rousseau, Locke, and before them, Hobbes. Put very crudely and simply, the likes of Rousseau and Locke saw humans as perfect, yet society changes us for the worse – hence we need to reform society. For Hobbes, he started with the idea that we are flawed and living in chaos, but again, that we need rules (government etc) to ease and control the chaos.
Now, there is much nuance in all of this – as you would expect for matters of philosophy! But taking just Rousseau a little further, his view is very much the mindset of today – that we are all perfect yet it is the state (and other external entities and influences) that limit us. As you recall from last week’s Substack, progressives love the idea of being perfect and that anything that goes wrong for them is always due to outside influences, including via shame and stigma.
Ironically for Rousseau, he believed in some general will or consensus that we could all agree too. How exactly he distinguishes this consensus from government is a discussion for another day.
But it is to Rousseau that many progressives look too, often without knowing. If only we could all just come to a shared view, conclusion, will, and consensus then all would be well with society. If only we all had the same worldview then we would have a utopia.
You see practical expressions of this in our own parliament. Things are only democratic when it works for progressives. When they win elections, they celebrate. When they lose, they tend towards violence and protest. Now this is obviously not exclusive, for we also can think of examples such as January 6 in the United States. But look across the globe, and most of the time post-election protests are from the progressive left.
More recently, think of when Julie Anne Genter stormed across the floor of parliament to confront a National Minister who did not agree with her, or those in the Green or the Māori Party who ‘toss their toys’ when they don’t get the result they believe is their right. So certain are they in their view, that it is inconceivable that anyone could disagree with them. If only we could understand their utopian view, then all will be well in New Zealand.
This all translates to the society we see around us today. Democracy is not the competition of ideas – of flawed individuals seeking the best for them and their families. Instead, to progressives, democracy is a vehicle to their singular view of perfection. Everyone is to vote, but importantly, to vote the same way. It is why I mentioned at the start the plethora of education programmes and various commissioners to guide the way you think and act. As Jacinda Ardern said several years back, they (the government) are the “single source of truth”; why various groups claim ‘the science is settled’; or how you must undertake various government-endorsed training programmes or lose your job. Even in the non-government realm you will see examples – you will wear this lanyard; you will repeat the agreed phrases on the Treaty; you will accept gender ideology. It is also why you see a near obsession around hate speech and the desire to regulate social media. Democracy is not about variety, but singularity.
You will comply.
Finally, I am reminded of the quote from the wonderful book, A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M Miller Jr. It is profound and something that influenced me during my time in parliament and continues to do so today:
To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law – a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.
