Human Nature

Utopia

Human nature is imperfect, and it is unchangeable.  The failure of the naive to acknowledge and accept those two simple, yet elemental facts leads inevitably to grief.

But grief does not discourage idealists; when their schemes fail they see only error in planning and execution, never questioning the possibility of -- nor their own faith in -- achieving a perfect end-state.
 
Utopian Dreams
The belief that men are capable of creating a perfect society is an old one, attested in Biblical writings and in Plato's vision, articulated in his Republic.
That vision echoed through the Middle Ages and persisted, with growing momentum, into the current era.  Along the way it found expression in Thomas Moore's Utopia (most famously), in the writings of Rousseau and in the early codification of communist socialism by Marx and Engels in reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism. [1]



It seems very probable that men have always sought to improve their lives and their societies.  And surely, when they had made things better, they still found imperfections leading them to imagine and strive for the perfect.  Nothing wrong with that, but we can imagine that repeated experience revealed their own limitations -- limitations they were willing to accept.

The Enlightenment, the scientific revolution and the sustained improvement in living conditions substantially raised expectations.  In the 18th and 19th Centuries (as now, perhaps) things once thought impossible became fascinating, then novel and then routine.  The spectacle of human progress made all things seem possible.  The application of scientific principles to human behavior created the belief (most often illusory) that humanity itself and human society could be shaped into something quite different and infinitely better than was then the case.  In this connection two figures were of particular importance to utopian visionaries.

Charles Darwin
Though fallacious in its application, Darwin's evolutionary theory has become a fundamental meme of utopians.  Wrongly drawing an analogy from biological evolution, utopians imagine that social, political and economic forces act upon men and their societies in ways that will somehow improve them.  That view reflects the millennialist orientation of utopians.  An evolutionary camino real -- a (philosopher) king's highway -- to paradise.  unnoticed is the fact that in biology evolution may lead to extinction as well as survival.  Utopians seem to imagine that if man is compelled to observe their "high" social standards of behavior, given time, the behavior will become instinctive.  Human nature remade. [2]
In any case ideas of social or cultural Darwinism that posit man's and society's perfectibility have gained traction and currency in the institutions of the Marxist Left.  It is a useful meme for statists.

Sigmund Freud
Freud's work is instrumental in both supporting the philosophical roots of utopianism and their deployment in society.  In Freud Karl Marx found a natural ally, as did the Frankfurt School.  I see three major contributions of Freud to the utopian quest that found its best known expression in Marxism -- , materialism, secularism and the methodology of manipulating public opinion.  Here, it is important to note that in Freud's time socialist utopianism had been transformed from Platonic ideals and the musings of Thomas Moore to an emergent, organized and aggressive political force. 
Materialism, the belief that all causes and effects are purely material, that nothing exists save matter and the energy that animates it diminishes human consciousness and spirituality, regarding them as epi-phenomena of the material world.  Darwin's views on biology lent considerable weight to materialist thought.  It was useful to the spread of socialism to assert that man was simply "along for the ride" and subject to economic determinism.  Minimal human agency.
Secularism, narrowly, the separation of religion and government, has the effect -- given the power of the state -- of suppressing and ultimately discouraging religion.  Since socialism is collectivist (anti-individualist), it has little tolerance for religion.  In particular Judeo-Christian religions which are the font of individualism.
Finally, from Freud's work was derived the methodology of manipulating public opinion, most notably developed by his nephew, Edward Bernays.  Owing to negative connotations acquired in WWII, Bernays avoided the word, propaganda.  By whatever name, he used it effectively on both political and commercial fronts.  Influenced by Bernays, the late columnist Walter Lippmann arguably set the model for today's MSM manipulation of opinion and emotion.

Darwin and Freud are prominently cited in this essay because they are important figures that readers will be familiar with.  But a significant number of French, German and English thinkers contributed to the body of thought that would, in the hands of Marx and Engels, become a coherent and innately coercive form of utopianism.  Frederic Bastiat, writing well before 1850 was already feeling the pernicious effects socialist influence in politics, and he clearly understood its philosophical paternity. [3]  Speaking of laws that exceeded their natural mandate -- justice in the protection of person, liberty and property -- he said,

...if you attempt to make the law religious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial, literary, or artistic—you will then be lost in an uncharted territory, in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse, in a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and impose it upon you.

Utopian Marxism
Marx and Engels, in my view of history, were primarily important because they synthesized a strengthening current in intellectual, political and economic current of history that had begun to coalesce in the late Eighteenth Century.  Because they articulated a coherent philosophy of many parts.  Materialists, they believed world communism would be the inevitable outcome of the tension between labor and capitalism.  But, when inevitability seemed to falter, they laid the plans to impose their scheme, by whatever means necessary, on society at large.

There is a deal of confusion in arguing definitions of socialism, national socialism, Marxism, communism, but they are largely exegetical quibbles.  Since Marx articulated the fundamental precepts of socialism writ large, I have come to refer to the modern Left simply as Marxist.  At their core, under whatever appellation, they are utopian dreams of an impossible heaven-on-earth that depend for their realization on deception, strict regimentation, de-humanization and -- ultimately -- violent coercion.

The great genius of the American Founders in designing our general government, it seems to me, lay in their keen understanding of human nature.  As best they could, they devised restraints on the accumulation and exercise of power in the national government.  The idea of  dividing power among three branches was meant to insure that no single branch (or pairing) became too powerful.  Designed as a zero-sum enterprise one branch could increase its power only at cost to another.  Checks and Balances.[4]  Rather than imagining a triumph of virtue, the Founders acknowledged human weakness and tried to work around it.  And they understood the seductiveness of power.  Which brings me to the major point of this essay: those governments (democratic republics) and economies (capitalism) that account for and cope with human nature, rather than denying or suppressing it fare best.  They create incentives for virtue and sanctions against error.  Utopian systems are predicated on the belief that men are perfectible, or that government can force them to be.

Utopian dreams are not, in themselves, dangerous.  They can be enchanting (...just Molly and me... in my Blue Heaven) but to predicate action upon them will lead to disappointment, at best.  Human nature, flawed though it certainly is, constitutes the reality of life.  To deny it is to perish.  Molly and I will have our differences.  Should I accept that, or kill her out of despair?  That rhetorical question sums up things nicely.



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1,  Plato's philosopher kings were imagined to he enlightened, wise and virtuous men, which tells us two important things about the nature (self-portrayed) of today's utopian political and economic advocates.  First, they are sincere in their pursuit of a perfect society; secondly, the perfect society is to be ruled by elites.  In regard to motivations the modern reality is somewhat more messy.  The ruling class is divided between the starry-eyed idealists (useful idiots -- princes, not kings -- eventually to become sacrificial lambs) and a tiny group of altogether cynical manager kings corrupted by the lust for power.
A good, concise intellectual history of socialism (indirectly the subject of this essay) can be found here.
2.  I said in the opening paragraph that human nature is unchangeable.  Though both history and our own experience provide ample evidence to support the claim, I have to admit that the assertion is dogmatic.  It is conceivable that, say, man's aggressive impulses, might be "bred out" or minimized, if for some reason there occurred changes in the genome consistent with survival.  In the same way, as we are told, that our docile canine companion evolved from the wolf.
3.  Of all the writers who championed liberty -- to include some of our Founders -- I can think of few whose clarity of thought and rightness of judgment can exceed Bastiat.  He is entertaining to boot.  To read him, making allowance for the period prose, he seems contemporary.  I cannot recommend him too strongly.  His work is in the public domain and can be downloaded in audio (LibriVox) or text (Gutenberg Project).
4.  The system reasonably well for a time, and some vestiges of it work today.  But not very well.  Eventually the separate branches discovered they could all prosper if they worked together.  What would have prevented such cooperation (a corrupt bargain), as it did for a time, was the sovereign power of the states.  As a consequence of the Civil War and the passage of the 17th Amendment, the power of the states to correct the general government has all but disappeared.  State 10th Amendment initiatives, though, offer some hope of regaining -- at least some -- state sovereignty.