The Politics of Perfection by Hale Kimberly Hurd;

Author:Hale, Kimberly Hurd;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Splinter in Utopia

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind speaks to the so-called utopian impulse in human nature. The utopian impulse is a way of explaining the consistent rise of political ideologies and philosophies that promise a perfect future. It is the belief that if only one thing were different, human life would dramatically improve.[47] In the modern era, this has often taken the form of a belief that technology can be used as a shortcut for painful, painstaking education, a belief that human nature can be overcome by human ingenuity. As discussed in chapter 1, utopian thought is characterized by the belief that if only one aspect of human nature or human society could be changed, the problems of humanity would cease. Utopian thinkers strive to identify the problematic element, and conceive of political or social policies that would mitigate its effects. Yet, Nietzsche is correct on this point. If we would have any moment for eternity, we must accept all moments for eternity. Anything less is perilously close to self-destruction. Lacuna’s clients come to believe that one memory of an event or person is responsible for their suffering. Their memories are treated as various elements of the whole person. If they can rid themselves of the problematic memory, suffering ceases.

Utopian thought is closely connected to traditional utilitarianism. Utilitarian thought endorses the idea that individual rights should be subordinate to policies that promote the greatest benefit to the collective society. Citizens are transformed from a collection of individuals into a general public. Political leaders make decisions to promote the welfare of the public, rather than protecting the rights of individual citizens. In a utopia, the utilitarian calculation becomes more ambitious. Better or worse is replaced with perfect or doomed. As Grau argues, any debate about whether the type of memory-erasing technology found in ESSM should be used must first grapple with utilitarianism.[48] Utilitarian philosophy mandates belief that the correct moral decision can be determined by weighing the greatest amount of happiness for each choice. In the case of memory erasure, one must contemplate the pain of the individual desiring to remove a memory against several possible benefits. First, the individual might benefit from the painful memory: as discussed, wisdom perhaps comes primarily through suffering. Second, society may benefit from the painful memory: for an extreme example, the wrenching personal accounts of Holocaust survivors have enhanced the collective horror with which reasonable society views that dark period of history, and have enhanced the wariness with which totalitarian movements are viewed. In almost all cases, then, the utilitarian response would mandate that the memory be retained, and would call that retention a moral mandate.

One the other hand, Grau passionately argues that

a person crippled by memories is a diminished person; there is nothing ennobling about it. If we as a society decide it’s better to keep people locked in their anguish because of some idealized view of what it means to be human, we might be revealing ourselves to be a society with a twisted notion of what being human really means.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.