218 réponses à ce sujet

[Christoph Gasser]

I think a "perfect" society is impossible to build by humans. Perfection can be aspiered but it is very hard (if not impossible) to reach. Humans, i.e. the "building blocks" of society, are imperfect. They tend to make mistakes. Therefore, the institutions of society and the decisions that people in power make are prone to error.

If you ask if it is possible for humans to build a society were everybody could be healthy, educated, and have housing and not know hunger, I would say yes. As soteria already pointed out there are some Western European countries that come close to fulfilling these requirments, i.e. have health care for everybody, public schools that provide good education, emergency overnight accommodations, welfare and so on. However, they are far from making no mistakes or bad decisions, i.e. far from beiing perfect.

[DigitalOrigami]

I used to believe that one day it might be (too much Star Trek as a kid). As I got older, I still clung to that idea that it could happen, but with the caveat that it would take Star Trek's idea of nearly destroying ourselves in another world war to make us smarten up. Now, I'm old and cynical and bitter and I know that it won't happen as long as society stays the way it is. That is to say, it'll never happen because there is no profit in it. And profit drives everything today. As long as the game is still "Whoever dies with the most toys, wins." it'll never change. The people making the profit won't let it.

[Nighteye2]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Nighteye2 wrote...

Sure, it's possible. But would it be enjoyable? I imagine it'd be a very dull place, that perfect society...

It reminds me very much of Nietzsche's Last Man

I do not want to live in a perfect society - I find the path towards perfection much more interesting, detours included.

i am sure that the multitude of people who have to endure the suffering as a result of that path would disagree with you.

Even suffering serves its purpose. You cannot see light without darkness. Knowing what it is to suffer makes it easier to be happy, easier to appreciate what you have when you have it.

[Amberyl Ravenclaw]

i am sure that the multitude of people who have to endure the suffering as a result of that path would disagree with you.

Even suffering serves its purpose. You cannot see light without darkness. Knowing what it is to suffer makes it easier to be happy, easier to appreciate what you have when you have it.

Sorry, that sounds an awful lot like the argument for the "spiritual goodness of poverty" to me. I can't help but think that those who evoke this sort of argument for the most are looking on the situation from a distance, and not putting themselves directly in the shoes of people who are having to live in constant deprivation, pain, fear, and suffering that they had never wished upon themselves in the first place. While there may be some educational value in there, it sometimes seems to be that some people (not you, Nighteye2) can have the gall to adopt a holier-than-thou approach which trivializes and glamorizes a problem that has the potential of diverting intention away from the task of actually fixing it. Just my brief two cents.

Modifié par Amberyl Ravenclaw, 20 octobre 2009 - 11:52 .

[Punahedan]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Hawkeyed Cai Li wrote...

Human curiosity cannot be satisfied,

a static society - one with enough resources and technology and thus no inherent need to develop further - cannot survive because any attempts to make art or do science would result in an imbalance. 

those two statement are actually contradictory.

either it cannot be satisfied, OR all art and science will be repressed in favor of balance.

personally, i think that there is no such thing as a static society. i think that were there a perfect society, it would remain dynamic in terms of art and science, but would still lack major conflict. the two are not mutually exclusive, which seems to be what you are claiming.

and even if they were mutually exclusive, i think the lack of politically and socially fueled art would be small price to pay in exchange for all of this oppression, starvation, destitution, corruption, and needless death.

My point was that it's not possible for a perfect society to exist while still having a thriving pursuit of art and science, but because it would be entirely against human nature, humans cannot abandon creativity and curiosity and emotion. Thus, a perfect society cannot exist. A perfect society is static (that is, there is no development in the areas of science or politics or social situations, or anything, good or bad), and there is no such thing as a perfect society, and thus no such thing as a static society, and vice versa. Assuming we can get to a point where all people can live comfortably, it will be ruined almost instantly as someone attempts an experiment, or creates a piece of art that people find inflammatory.

Aside from works of nature, try and think of works of art - literature included - that were not at least partially influenced by conflict at the time - social, religious, political, etc. As humans, we are finite, and thus cannot grasp the entirety of an infinite subject, like divinity. That's in part why religions exist (never mind any later uses of religion for power)...to explain the absolute, the infinite. Literature and paintings and music are little trips that also question the absolute and are often religious (consider the plays written in honor of Dionysius every year that gave birth to tragedy), as well as political, educational, and emotional, among other things. Emotion is just as much a cause of conflict as oppression (and there is no guarantee that a perfect society would not be oppressive. That is, after all, the general premise of a dystopia). People can still be corrupt. Emotion isn't something we can abandon.

A perfect society, if it could exist, may still have art, but methinks it would be repetitive, boring, and monotonous. Art reflects the state of mind of a society. If the society does not change, the art does not change. But the society is always changing, so art and politics and science and people are always changing.

[the_one_54321]

Hawkeyed Cai Li wrote...
A perfect society is static (that is, there is no develoopment in the areas of science or politics or social situations, or anything, good or bad)

i stopped here, because at this point i believe the line of reasoning became a fallacy.

i do not think that a society being perfect implies that the society must be static.

Modifié par the_one_54321, 21 octobre 2009 - 12:01 .

[Ravenshrike]

Read Ringo's Council Wars series for an explanation as to why even with effectively infinite resources, there will never be a perfect society. Technically speaking my sig also imparts the reason, assuming you read between the lines.

Modifié par Ravenshrike, 21 octobre 2009 - 12:01 .

[Tyrax Lightning]

No chance of a perfect society for the simple reason that NOONE will ever be able to agree on what a perfect society should look like. Easy as that.

[the_one_54321]

Tyrax Lightning wrote...

No chance of a perfect society for the simple reason that NOONE will ever be able to agree on what a perfect society should look like. Easy as that.

someone just agreed with me on, i think it was page 2. :innocent:

[Icid]

A perfect society is not possible without a specific and clear deffination. Everyone has a different deffinition as to what they believe a perfect society would be which makes it impossible to give a specific and clear deffinition.
Without a deffinition how would you know you've managed to attain perfection?

If a society thought that killing puppies was their deffinition of a perfect society and they went around doing that, then yes, it would be a perfect society. It may not be your perfect society, but it would be a perfect society.

[M_arc]

This totally depends on your definition of perfect.
I reason that humans aren't perfect, not even near, so a perfect society can never be reached,
because that's what a society is like, a bunch of people.

Modifié par M_arc, 21 octobre 2009 - 12:33 .

[Linarc]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Linarc wrote...

And you find it possible?

I didn’t say that.

nor did I. It was a genuine question. Do you?

If this were a situation where everyone in society were 15-years-old and society fired a gun and they all scrambled after their dreams, I could understand your worry. Not everyone will reach their hopes and dream, some people will modify them along the way. What makes the society perfect isn’t that everyone achieves, but that people has the chance and the support. Their excellence is encouraged, and hopes are not trampled on.

Well, if you set people's hopes to high, they'll probably be unhappier if the result don't go as planned than if their hopes weren't too high to begin with, so in the end would be more unhappy people, although we would have people incredibly satisfied with their achievement, the contrast would be greater than in the society we live on,at least in my opinion; even it they aren't 15 years old. Neither my father not my mother achieved their dreams (being an engineer and a veterinarian), they are ok with it, but if someone started saying to them they needed to go after their dreams and fight for it, they could be worse now, or ,maybe, they'd achieve them, I suppose we'll never know... But what I'm saying is that if they were encouraged to do it, it would be harder to give up on their dreams after it.

If something is perfect, it is complete and without defect. A society only a mechanism for those within it. As long as it fulfills the obligations of society completely and without defect, then it’s a perfect society. I think some people are confusing ‘perfect society’ for ‘world where everything is perfect.’

A perfect society would still have mental illness. People’s dogs would still get loose, a car might hit them, and it would be sad. People would still argue and compare what they have to what their neighbor has. These things are defects, but not with society.

Maybe there is some confusion about it, yes, because a perfect society gives the idea of being without flaws, and societies in general involves people a lot, since it's based on them, thus giving the idea people shouldn't have flaws too. I think your view of society wouldn't make it perfect, just imperfect in a different way, but it's a matter of opinion, some reasons listed above. Conflict and agony usually lead to a break in the society itself, if it is in a large scale or against the society itself, prejudicing its estability and its capacity to fulfill obligations, hence making it imperfect.

Modifié par Linarc, 21 octobre 2009 - 12:59 .

[Punahedan]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Hawkeyed Cai Li wrote...
A perfect society is static (that is, there is no develoopment in the areas of science or politics or social situations, or anything, good or bad)

i stopped here, because at this point i believe the line of reasoning became a fallacy.

i do not think that a society being perfect implies that the society must be static.

If a perfect society is defined as one that has enough resources to have everyone live comfortably and has advanced enough technology (with no information on government or social situations), there would not be incentive to do anything because there's nothing to be done.

[Sornin]

A perfect society is only possible if it is composed of persons who all have the exact same standard for perfection. This condition is well beyond unlikely so no, I do not think it is possible.

It is more interesting to discuss what can be done to improve the societies we are in than the lofty premise of an unobtainable ideal. Let's start by fairly distributing resources and much of the rest will follow.

[Critical Miss]

Under the conditions stated by the original poster, a perfect society cannot exist without universal truths and universal moral codes based on honour of the individual.

[dubsaves]

Yes and No. The problem lies in people, and their falibility, and since people are prone to failure a "perfect society" is expected to fail since it is of course created by the notion of the people.

I think it is possible for a society to last several millenia. Look to the Egyptians and the Aztecs for cultures that have lasted many generations. Possibly even the First Nations people of North American, if allowed for arguement sake a certain level of prewritten history.

I think a perfect society is possible today. But there needs to be motivation. So much motivation that it lasts forever.
Would it be a collective group of scientists, philsophers, artists, intellectuals, cultural theorists all working together for some sort of transhumanist goal? To be more "human tha human?"

Well they all have to eat sometime. And they probably aren't the best cooks. And what if someone wants a Big Mac?

The Republic seems states that it is the grandest intellectual ideal, but nothing more than that. Its an ideal, not achievable by any means.

The Matrix is a solid perfect society. Machine takes care of Man, and when Man breaks the bond of Machine he/she is simply returned to that virtual prison/harvesting farm that they all really desire anyways. Except when someone gets it in their head that this isn't a great idea and destroys/changes the whole thing and the system is broken.

I'm not saying that a perfect society need to be circular in nature, just there comes a point of keeping people there forever. Even through external forces.

Or take the Brave New World notion. We create classes of people, in a lab. Dehumanize most things. Well then people aren't really people and we're getting away from the initial topic of a perfect society with people.

What if perfect we mean terrible...some sort of mass Darwinism situation where people kill people. Un-enable people to form a collective, but must survive and reproduce for the necessity of themselves. A sort of Hunter Gatherer throwback. Pre-irrigation and all of that. Very boring though. Again people aren't really people, and someone might actually win.

My final thought for the night is what if people are constantly forced to work together for something that is naturally and commonly known to be right, like a very terrible disaster. The only problem with that is that people will eventually get bored/tired of those situations.

Any other ideas?

[wrexingcrew]

Thought experiment answer: sure. I can conceive of a perfect society, based upon my values and with those conditions. And for the record, Maria and others, the term "thought experiment" isn't (properly used) pejorative - it's a methodological term, not an assignment of value. Rawls arrives at some rather famous conclusions about justice from a thought experiment, so there's a strong recent tradition of using thought experiments to suggest policy prescriptions. I think the_one was entirely correct.

Can we achieve a "real-world" perfect society? Dialectical materialism would suggest...yes. Wrexingcrew and historical materialism would suggest...maybe.

So for me, question 1: at what point does it become sufficiently painless for wealthy societies to address resource distribution issues, thus bringing us to Maria's initial premise? I'm a bit surprised by the dearth of technoprogressivist perspectives here.* If anything, the prevailing attitude in the thread seems to be that technology is irrelevant to the creation of a perfect society. I'm not sure I agree. I doubt that technological advancement could solve all of our problems, but reducing the obstacles to resource-gathering and distribution makes Maria's premise much easier to arrive at. We could eradicate any number of social ills now by devoting sufficient resources, yes, but a less daunting cost for the privileged builds political will for taking those steps. I think technology has moved us or is close to moving us beyond the Malthusian catastrophe scenario (population growth putting an unsustainable strain on resources, or economic growth in later formulations). If the skepticism relates to technology's role beyond establishing Maria's premise, I understand.

Question 2: Maria's question, slightly modified. What changes would it take for, say, the United States or another country to become a perfect society? Is nationalism and the idea of the nation-state generally incompatible with a perfect society, a requirement for it, or neither?

*I don't mean to throw words around - that's just a perspective I expected from the internet-/technology-literate intelligent people that Bioware attracts.

[SpankyV]

edit:

In a pefect society this post would not have failed!

Nevermind...

Modifié par SpankyV, 21 octobre 2009 - 02:36 .

[the_one_54321]

Hawkeyed Cai Li wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...

Hawkeyed Cai Li wrote...
A perfect society is static (that is, there is no develoopment in the areas of science or politics or social situations, or anything, good or bad)

i stopped here, because at this point i believe the line of reasoning became a fallacy.

i do not think that a society being perfect implies that the society must be static.

If a perfect society is defined as one that has enough resources to have everyone live comfortably and has advanced enough technology (with no information on government or social situations), there would not be incentive to do anything because there's nothing to be done.

the insatiability of human curiosity would be enough to drive inovation.

[the_one_54321]

Bio-Boy 3000 wrote...

If I created a poll right now asking, "What fruit do you prefer, apple or orange?" and one person answered different either or, than a perfect society could not exist. Simple.

now this. this is a text book example of a fallacy.

[soteria]

wrexingcrew wrote...

Thought experiment answer: sure. I can conceive of a perfect society, based upon my values and with those conditions. And for the record, Maria and others, the term "thought experiment" isn't (properly used) pejorative - it's a methodological term, not an assignment of value. Rawls arrives at some rather famous conclusions about justice from a thought experiment, so there's a strong recent tradition of using thought experiments to suggest policy prescriptions. I think the_one was entirely correct.

Can we achieve a "real-world" perfect society? Dialectical materialism would suggest...yes. Wrexingcrew and historical materialism would suggest...maybe.

So for me, question 1: at what point does it become sufficiently painless for wealthy societies to address resource distribution issues, thus bringing us to Maria's initial premise? I'm a bit surprised by the dearth of technoprogressivist perspectives here.* If anything, the prevailing attitude in the thread seems to be that technology is irrelevant to the creation of a perfect society. I'm not sure I agree. I doubt that technological advancement could solve all of our problems, but reducing the obstacles to resource-gathering and distribution makes Maria's premise much easier to arrive at. We could eradicate any number of social ills now by devoting sufficient resources, yes, but a less daunting cost for the privileged builds political will for taking those steps. I think technology has moved us or is close to moving us beyond the Malthusian catastrophe scenario (population growth putting an unsustainable strain on resources, or economic growth in later formulations). If the skepticism relates to technology's role beyond establishing Maria's premise, I understand.

Question 2: Maria's question, slightly modified. What changes would it take for, say, the United States or another country to become a perfect society? Is nationalism and the idea of the nation-state generally incompatible with a perfect society, a requirement for it, or neither?

*I don't mean to throw words around - that's just a perspective I expected from the internet-/technology-literate intelligent people that Bioware attracts.

Technology is helpful but only up to the point that it produces sufficient resources for everyone.  I'm skeptical that increased technology will change human nature.

[DeviantJoker]

I don't believe a perfect society needs perfect people so I believe, yes, there can be a perfect society under Maria's premise. Just stretched beyond it would need the elimination of extreme acts of prejudice and greed as I think that prevents societal functions in being utilized to their fullest. After that, as long as society provides you the means (through personal-responsibility) to achieve what you wish - that is my ideal society.

To me, though, a Utopia and a Perfect Society are not one in the same. One is more describing the people in the structure and one describes, solely, the structure and the foundations of it.

Modifié par DeviantJoker, 21 octobre 2009 - 04:32 .

[Vaeliorin]

The question Maria raises is an interesting one. However, even given Maria's later stated definition of what she would consider a perfect society, I'm going to have to say no.



In order for society to remain stable (and thus perfect, assuming we do reach the point of a perfect society) I think it is required that people are, at the very least, satisfied with their lot in life. Unfortunately, even with all their needs met, and every opportunity, there are going to be people (and I would say a great many) who are dissatisfied with their lot in life simply because they don't have the inherent abilities to achieve their goals (at which point, all the opportunity and encouragement in the world simply becomes frustrating and anger-inducing.)



These people who aren't happy with their lot in life are going to eventually become a problem within the society, as their disgruntlement leads them to acts that are harmful to society, if only so that they can make other people as unhappy as they are. It seems inevitable that from a small beginning, there would be a growing discontent that would eventually lead to the overthrow of society (in fact, I feel the only thing that prevents the overthrow of society every few generations is the threat of overwhelming force wielded by those who are happily members of the mainstream.)



In essence, I think that it might be possible to form what people perceive to be a perfect society, but not to maintain it, thus rendering the society imperfect.

[RedShft]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Let us assume that a group of humans exist that have enough resources to so that every member of the society *could* be healthy, educated, and have housing and not know hunger. Imagine whatever technology level you desire, but there is a way for those resources to be used in a sustainable manner.

Let us also assume that this group of humans is free from outside danger, and only experiences the normal amount of natural disasters.

Given these conditions, is it possible for this group to create a perfect society?

Not *likely* but possible?

If you think it’s possible, tell us what form you think this society might take.

If you think it’s impossible, tell us why.

yes.