Good news! Utopia has been declared and you are invited to join! A cozy farmhouse in a green valley full of rolling fields, shady forests, and gently flowing streams is yours! The land will provide plenty of food without too much labor, and you can devote your time to your hobbies, painting or reading or hiking, for example.
Now, obviously such a wonderful setting can’t be blighted by fast food wrappers and heavy metal music, so only the finest things are available. All the food is home grown and made from scratch, all the books classics of literature, the music played by you or your neighbors live or on an old fashioned record player. It goes without saying that there’s no television or internet. Maybe limited radio.
What do you think? Is this a utopian idyll or a prison?
I don’t mean to fight the hypothetical, but I have a few questions:
Do I have a phone to keep in touch with family and friends?
Can I leave to visit family and friends?
Can I get newspapers or magazines delivered?
You say all the books are classics of literature, but what about non-fiction? Any books on politics, history, or science?
If I can leave to visit family and friends, and if I can get newspapers and non-fiction books in a variety of topics, and if my limited radio includes NPR, I think I’d be good. Lots of good food, quiet, and time to read and write sounds pretty good!
If I have to be totally cut off from loved ones and current affairs, then it’s a No from me.
It’s just a well known fact that 90% of everything is crap. When you picture a perfect place, you don’t include your neighbor blasting music you hate or riding a loud motorcycle at six am. If we create a place where only the best, most worthwhile art and music and literature and so on is allowed, do we make a better place or a worse one?
I would be very happy with that - even now I almost never eat at restaurants and have no desire for fast food, the entertainment options suit me fine, and I loathe cities - except you left out the most important thing - the warm salty surf that gently laps the sandy beach.
I would also likely soon side with a rebel crowd that will stand up to whatever edict declares that I can’t build a fast food joint or listen to headbanger music if I want to.
The cost of civilization is that you have to limit yourself to not annoy your neighbor too much, and that you have to tolerate some level of annoyance from him.
The more you make the world a better place for you and you alone, the worse you make the world for a greater and greater number of people.
In this so-called utopia, what about my body? Do I have the body of a healthy 18yo, or the far-less-than-perfect one I have now? If I have to live with all the infirmities of old age, it sucks, regardless of where I live.
No rock and roll? No movies? No booze, no parties? Fuuuuck that!
Also, how is this enforced? Can I listen to Johnny Cash? Neko Case? The Beatles? Yes? What if I smuggle in some Jim Butcher novels? Some comics? What sort of tribunal do I face? This sounds like an appalling authoritarian dystopian nightmare.
I live in a nice rural area. I have a nice house that basically runs itself. I don’t have to work. My pets are fairly easily handled. I could stay here for weeks and never need anything. I have one problem; shit just keeps happening to me to cause me to have to leave. Mostly medical related. Utopia is a myth. I’ve tried it. Won’t work. Peeps will be running, within days. Running away from that place.
What if one is allergic to some of the plants in the fields? Are antihistamine pills available?
Are there hot guys? Do they wear Amish clothes or speedos or something in between? Do they have access to a gym? (Will they even go to the gym if there’s no Instagram to show off on?)