#utopian

My husband is not American. He was born in Brazil, where he grew up under a filthy, corrupt dictatorship. In his twenties, he moved to Europe, where he lived for a while under various socialist democracies. He spent a few years on a kibbutz in Israel, living out a utopian experiment in communal existence. ↗

— Elizabeth Gilbert

#born #brazil #communal #corrupt #democracies

Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian. ↗

— Emma Goldman

#been #change #conditions #daring #every

I can't think of anyone who is up on evolutionary psychology and related areas who is deluded enough to be called a utopian. ↗

— Keith Henson

#areas #called #deluded #enough #evolutionary

I think of an intellectual as just being bookish, being interested in history books, utopian ideas, that kind of thing. ↗

— Richard Rorty

#books #history #history books #i #i think

Where utopianism is advanced through gradualism rather than revolution, albeit steady and persistent as in democratic societies, it can deceive and disarm an unsuspecting population, which is largely content and passive. It is sold as reforming and improving the existing society's imperfections and weaknesses without imperiling its basic nature. Under these conditions, it is mostly ignored, dismissed, or tolerated by much of the citizenry and celebrated by some. Transformation is deemed innocuous, well-intentioned, and perhaps constructive but not a dangerous trespass on fundamental liberties. ↗

— Mark R. Levin

#gradualism #utopianism #nature

Jews do not have to be Christians. Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism, but too utopian, too hopeful, too unrealistic a turn. ↗

— Michael Novak

#christians #hopeful #jews #judaism #too

Hunger and sex still dominate the primitive mammalian side of human existence, but at the present time it looks as if humanity were within sight of their satisfaction. Permanent plenty, no longer a Utopian dream, awaits the arrival of permanent peace. ↗

— John Desmond Bernal

#awaits #dominate #dream #existence #human

Utopianism also finds a receptive audience among the society's disenchanted, disaffected, dissatisfied, and maladjusted who are unwilling or unable to assume responsibility for their own real or perceived conditions but instead blame their surroundings, 'the system,' and others. They are lured by the false hopes and promises of utopian transformation and the criticisms of the existing society, to which their connection is tentative or nonexistent. Improving the malcontent's lot becomes linked to the utopian cause. Moreover, disparaging and diminishing the successful and accomplished becomes an essential tactic. No one should be better than anyone else, regardless of the merits or values of his contributions. By exploiting human frailties, frustrations, jealousies, and inequities, a sense of meaning and self-worth is created in the malcontent's otherwise unhappy and directionless life. Simply put, equality in misery -- that is, equality of result or conformity -- is advanced as a just, fair, and virtuous undertaking. Liberty, therefore, is inherently immoral, except where it avails equality. ↗

— Mark R. Levin

#malcontents #utopianism #equality

Also by my earliest days, I was fascinated by a utopian vision of what the world could be like. I've thought that science could be the basis for a better world, and that's what I've been trying to do all these years. ↗

— George E. Brown, Jr.

#basis #been #better #better world #could

And the annual meetings of the League's Assembly are in effect official peace congresses binding on the participating states to an extent that most statesmen a quarter of a century ago would have regarded as utopian. ↗

— Hjalmar Branting

#annual #assembly #binding #century #congresses