A few years ago, a mentor and friend of mine passed away. He’d been a professor of Sociology and his specialization was politics; he’s been described by many colleagues, students and admirers as a political historian. It would be a surprise to most people to learn that the primary way in which he came to study politics was by way of exploring utopian fiction.
The word “utopia” actually means “nowhere.” To me, that is the greatest inside joke, ever. People are constantly dreaming up models for what they consider to be the “ideal society,” but these are mostly “nowhere” as in impossible (with a stilted sense of what is reasonably to be expected of real human beings), and most such literary experiments often come prepackaged with what can be readily identified as their Damoclean dystopian counterpart.
My friend politically identified himself as a democratic socialist. His notion of a better world was one where the culture, morals and politics are shaped as a grassroots effort from below, from among the masses. This notion is not best served by the concept of direct democracy, but recognizes that a system that intends and proclaims fairness and equity to all must afford a great degree of representation.
We are, after all, currently living in a bureaucratic collectivist society, here in the United States. The constitution, upon more modern consideration, is logically intended to apply to all people, and those who run for political office have sworn to represent their constituents and uphold the ideas and ideals of the constitution. The fact that governance does not seem to currently serve that end is just cause for people to quite rightly ask, “Has democracy died?”
My friend’s personal credo was “No double standards.” He had been brought up in a family that tended toward socialism and progressivism. Socialist ideas were to be found everywhere in the United States. The Midwest, now so very conservative, was once a bastion of socialism, with support for labor, as well as a breeding ground for experimental programs and organizations that were designed to work in the public interest. Some may be surprised to read that, but it is true, despite the fact that socialism has been made a dirty word for such a long time. If you need proof of this, here is a link you can follow for a summary of the long, rich history of socialism in America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_socialist_movement_in_the_United_States
Transcendentalism, New Deal, labor unions, Dorothy Day, Catholic Worker Movement, Civil Rights Movement, Wobblies, the New Left – all these and more are aspects of what could be called the American Socialist Tendency, just another name for movements espousing a philosophy and politics supporting social education and programs to help bring people of all classes up.
These, along with many other leaders, organizations and movements, were reactions in large part to the negative role of rampant capitalism in society, the wage disparity and grinding poverty that was in such contrast to the high flying lifestyle of the very rich. Although the constitution is clearly meant to apply to all citizens, the fact that in every generation, any segment of society that could not be identified as “male landowners” has had to fight for recognition and rights under the constitution has been disappointing, to say the least. That laws have clearly, especially to the present day, been used against people who are powerless, many times for the benefit of people with power among the wealthy upper class, or for an empty, “state” victory, goes clearly against the framers’ claim for us all to have the experience of “Justice … domestic Tranquility … common defence … general Welfare … Blessings of Liberty,” etc.
No matter what some choose to believe, the values that our history of socialist tendencies represent are actually inextricably woven into the fabric of our administrative state, in every federal social program that still exists to benefit individuals in need.
The president’s oath of office reads:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, (so help me God).
One doesn’t need a Ph.D. or be an attorney to be aware that this oath has been broken in many more ways than one, and that partisan brinkmanship has set a course to unravel every progressive step made since at least the Haymarket Riot of 1886. The current administration is trying to bring to life Hobbes’ Leviathan, but probably not to protect the state, and certainly not to preserve the constitution. The interesting thing about twenty-first century capitalism is that it is global, and the war being waged on our shores has significant repercussions both here and everywhere abroad; it’s all about money and power, consolidating it for a self-interested, blindly unethical multinational oligarchic elite. Simultaneously, in other parts of that same global system, other countries are working at crossed purpose toward more ethical statesmanship, making capitalism toe the line.
Getting back to the utopias, I find it interesting that so many of them have top-down ruling classes, and so few have leadership from below, as if qualified people from every class should not be allowed to come together to form governance from where the people are. If it seems whimsical of me to make this observation, we have only to look at the daily news to see that we have reached a point in our Democratic Republic where there is an out-of-touch ruling class making decisions about a diverse populace that it neither understands, nor cares to do so.
The lack of any strong third party or even fourth party, the destruction of party membership, indulging in identity politics rather than cultivating coalition unity, the reduction of party conventions to a rah-rah rubberstamping event, instead of a platform building with caucus representation and ratification, these have contributed to the current condition. You see, what is gone is the representative part of our representative government – where we told the party what we wanted, what we needed, what was good for us, and they worked toward those goals. Those people we elect to office are supposed to vote according to our wishes and for our benefit, not in lockstep partisan obeisance to a petty, populist tyrant. Instead, those representatives are vetted and selected from party leaders to do what is good for them and to our detriment. The bipartisan brinksmanship has now been sown into every branch of the government that “checks and balances” were meant protect against. Don't think the leaders of your party haven't contributed to this state of affairs. It is almost like we don't have parties, at all; it could be the party of one, such as in the 1921 dystopian novel "We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin.
Choice, we are told we have choice. I see hundreds of bottles of different shampoos to choose from in the stores – none of which are good for my hair – but I don’t have the power to choose representatives that will vote for and protect my interests. Our economy is being driven forward so it can be carved out by the oligarchs, pushing more people to homelessness and destitution with stagnant wages and ever-rising, frequently falsely inflated costs. No one thinks about it, but that is a means of voter suppression, driving people out of homes and into the streets; that’s a species of gerrymandering, isn’t it?
So, here we are: UTOPIA! And, oh, isn’t it fun? The daily outrages are a laugh a minute.
What are we going to do? What can we do?
We must resist, and we can. Educate, organize, vote, and hold elected officials accountable. Public opinion is not enough to affect a referendum, but in this modern world of endless media and technological manipulations, public opinion might sometimes be the only tool in the kit. Protecting and subscribing to and reading real news is vital. Engaging in real and fair discussions is vital. Listening is vital, too. We cannot surrender to cynicism, but we must strive for and participate in rationality. We must obliterate lies with the truth.
My late friend’s widow, also my friend and an activist herself, has this quote by Margaret Mead at the end of each email message, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”
We must do everything in our power to make that true.
