[Asirah]

Everyone in this forum has a vision of a perfect world..

that is to say, the way things should be.

What's your utopia?

[SlackAli]

I think you've made a rather large assumption with your first sentence A lot of people on this forum seem to inhabit a nightmare world, but are probably quite happy with it

My vision of utopia is the US in the 1950s. Probably has no basis in fact, but there you go.

[thecoalman]

Being turned into a fish with a fish tank full of beer and sausage flavored food.

[WarC]

This is an interesting thread.

I've always thought that conservatives and liberals have remarkably similar ideas about what a "utopia" existence would look like. However, I think they get there by different means.

The conservative vision:

*I am here* |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| *I want to be here* (Utopia)

^-I need to deal with these obstacles first, inorder to get there.


The liberal vision:

*The world is here* |||||||||||||||||||||||||| *I want to be here* (Utopia)

^-If it weren't for these obstacles, I would be there.


The inherent difference here, I think, is that conservatives want the same things as liberals, but have much different ideas about the nature of the obstacles that prevent us from getting "there", and who/what is responsible for those obstacles.

The liberal already sees the end of the obstacles, they have the vision of being at that utopia stage already. This is why I think they heavily discourage human conflict, the military, gaybashing, religion, etc. I think it explains many of the typically liberal stances. The liberal has a hands-off, goal oriented view.

The conservative has very similar ideas about what being "there" means. Yet the conservative is typically more apt to acknowledge that being "there" is a long road full of more of the same human struggle. I think this is why conservatives are more willing to support wars, more open to religious values, and other things which generally make a conservative literally "conservative". They typically have a more short-sighted, step-by-step procedural view of getting "there", and what that means in terms of working THROUGH those obstacles. The conservative therefore has a more hands-on approach.

I think these opposing styles of looking at the world truly go hand-in-hand, and the best "option" is a comfortable mix of both styles...Moderates I think have varying degrees of both types.

I know that my ideas on this might spark some heated arguments to the contrary, and I am open to having this criticized and analyzed. I could be dead wrong about this stuff, but this seems to be how liberals and conservatives tend to view the world's issues.

[SlackAli]

WarC:

I took a quick glance at your post and thought you'd started early on the bong or the water pipe. But on re-reading I see what you're getting at and understand your points.

But I'm not sure I agree with you. Part of this difference is around the perennial problem of this term 'liberal'. In one sense it can mean egalitarian/communal etc; but it also means libertarian, which when applied to economics equates to the free market with minimal regulation (but that's the subject of another thread).

But I think you're right in the way you conceive liberal in the way that we use it commonly here: liberals (and Marxists) tend to have a teleogical view of society, in that they know what the end vision is and then concentrate on the ways to get there. Fine if you take human nature out of the equation.

I was going to state I don't know what conservatives think, but given the nature of my first post here, extolling the virtues of a probably mythical America in the '50s, that might be contradictory.

In some ways it is far easier to imagine a dystopia than a utopia - and we're probably heading for it!

[teengeekgrrl]

My utopia was the later part of my 8th grade year.

Except I don't know how long I could do that before I got bored.

In my true utopia, I wouldn't get bored. But that wouldn't be a utopia in the sense most people think of.