NECESSITY

Utopian thought in general, and anarchist thought in particular, could be dismissed quite easily were it not for two factors. For one thing, as Moos and Brownstein (1977) pointed out, utopian solutions are now a necessity rather than a luxury.

For another, traditional anarchist accounts of human motives and social organization happen to mesh surprisingly well with recent psychological theory and with the data at hand. While most people assume the commune is impossible, the neighborhood dead, and the alienating existence of mass society here to stay, anarchists reasonably suggest as a long-range goal an “organized anarchy”–a decentralized society of federated autonomous communities that would be better able to deal simultaneously with both global and individual problems at their source. Refusing to consider anarchist perspectives and failing to question our own basic assumptions may ultimately lead to tragedies that could otherwise be avoided.

Psychology, Ideology, Utopia, and the Commons; Dennis R. Fox

If we think there is a victorious end game of possessing stuff, and we adequately spiritualize this, we will figuratively march right off a cliff, and we won’t be carting our possessions with us.

Leave a Comment

Filed under psychology

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *