If dystopia helps to scare us into working harder on that project, which maybe it does, then fine: dystopia. But always in service to the main project, which is utopia.

it continually reiterates and refines what it asserts, in an ongoing recursive project of self-improvement.

humanity’s current technological expertise, are together such that it’s physically possible for us to construct a worldwide civilization—meaning a political order—that provides adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, education, and health care for all eight billion humans, while also protecting the livelihood of all the remaining mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, plants, and other life-forms that we share and co-create this biosphere with. Obviously there are complications, but these are just complications. They are not physical limitations we can’t overcome.

Besides, it is realistic: things could be better.

Dystopia has done its job, it’s old news now, perhaps it’s self-indulgence to stay stuck in that place any more. Next thought: utopia. Realistic or not, and perhaps especially if not.

“pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.”

It’s crucial to keep imagining that things could get better, and furthermore to imagine how they might get better.

In 1984 the government is actively trying to make citizens miserable

1984

The collective has to change, and yet there are forces keeping the collective from seeing this: thus dystopia now!

Things are bad, but also We are responsible for making them bad

This period we are entering could become the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history, and the first caused by human activity.

dystopia is some kind of call for revolutionary change.

that no one anywhere feels properly represented by their government, no matter which style of government it is.

Possibly more like indulgence, and creation of a sense of comparative safety.

“Or maybe we should just give up entirely on optimism or pessimism—we have to do this work no matter how we feel about it.”

fear as a cultural dominant.

One lens of science fiction’s aesthetic machinery portrays some future that might actually come to pass; it’s a kind of proleptic realism. The other lens presents a metaphorical vision of our current moment, like a symbol in a poem.

Possibly dystopias hope to kill the societies they depict.

There are a lot of dystopias around these days, and this makes sense, because we have a lot of fears about the future.

And reasonsuggests convenient items in a peace treaty that men maybe got to agree on. These items are the ones that in othercontexts are called the Laws of Nature.

But because in this the sovereignsuphold the economy of their nations, their state of wardoesn’t lead to the sort of misery that occurs when individualmen are at liberty ·from laws and government·

In this war of every man against every man nothing canbe unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice andinjustice have no place there. Where there is no commonpower, there is no law; and where there is no law, thereis no injustice.

until those who act know a law that forbids them;they can’t know this until laws are made; and they can’t be

Actually, neither of us is criticisingman’s nature. The desires and other passions of men aren’tsinful in themselves.

you do all this when you know that thereare laws, and armed public officers of the law, to revengeany harms that are done to you. Ask yourself: what opiniondo you have of your fellow subjects when you ride armed?Of your fellow citizens when you lock your doors? Of yourchildren and servants when you lock your chests?

Therefore, whatever results from •a time of war, whenevery man is enemy to every man, also results from •atime when men live with no other security but what theirown strength and ingenuity provides them with

This makes it obvious that for as long as men live withouta common power to keep them all in awe, they are in thecondition known as ‘war’; and it is a war of every man againstevery man.

The first makes men invade for •gain

discord

and any sign that he isdisregarded or undervalued naturally leads a man to try, asfar as he dares

because withoutthat, in a purely defensive posture, they wouldn’t be able tosurvive for long.

ecause of this distrust amongst men, themost reasonable way for any man to make himself safe is tostrike first, that is, by force or cunning subdue other men—asmany of them as he can

Competition·: This equality of ability produces equalityof hope for the attaining of our goals. So if any two menwant a single thing which they can’t both enjoy, they becomeenemies; and each of them on the way to his goal (which isprincipally his own survival, though sometimes merely his

Prudence issimply experience; and men will get an equal amount ofthat in an equal period of time spent on things that theyequally apply themselves t

Nature has made men so equal in their physical andmental capacities that, although sometimes we may find oneman who is obviously stronger in body or quicker of mindthan another, yet taking all in all the difference between oneand another is not so great that one man can claim to haveany advantage ·of strength or skill or the like· that can’t justas well be claimed by some others.

Newspeak

To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their onlyprivilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin ofnationalism.

4. No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical criticism. The critical spirit makesdistinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientificcommunity praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism,disagreement is treason.5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity. Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks forconsensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appealof a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.

Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime oneor more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism fromfascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still havethe Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism(which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celticmythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you haveone of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola

Fascism was philosophically out of joint, but emotionally it was firmlyfastened to some archetypal foundations

Fascism was a fuzzy totalitarianism,

philosophical weakness of its ideology

Nazism had a theory ofracism

behind a regime and its ideology there is always a way ofthinking and feeling, a group of cultural habits, of obscure instincts and unfathomable

has by now very little to do with the old fascism

The memory of thoseterrible years should be repressed, refoulée, verdrängt. But Verdrängung causes neurosis.If reconciliation means compassion and respect for all those who fought their own war ingood faith, to forgive does not mean to forget.

permanent warfare was the normal condition

General Badoglio,

FASCISM

Should we die for the glory ofMussolini

Civilized man has exchanged a portion of his possibilities of happiness for a portion of security.

Civilization has to use its utmost efforts in order to set limits to manȂs aggressive instincts

I once discussed the phenomenon that it is precisely communities with adjoining territories, and related to each other in other ways as well, who are engaged in constant feuds and in ridiculing each other ȯ like the Spaniards and Portuguese, for instance, the North Germans and South Germans, the English and Scotch, and so on.

ut I am able to recognize that the psychological premisses on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments, certainly a strong one, though certainly not the strongest; but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness, nor have we altered anything in its nature.

reaction-formations.

creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness

And there is a second commandment, which seems to me even more incomprehensible and arouses still stronger opposition in me. It is ȁLoveȱthineȱenemiesȂ

ȁLove thy neighbour as thy neighbour loves theeȂǰȱI should not take exception to it.

My love is something valuable to me which I ought not to throw away without reflection. It imposes duties on me for whose fulfilment I must be ready to make sacrifices. If I love someone, he must deserve it in some way.

It favours every path by which strong identifications can be established between the members of the community, and it summons up aim-inhibited libido on the largest scale so as to strengthen the communal bond by relations of friendship. In order for these aims to be fulfilled, a restriction upon sexual life is unavoidable. But we are unable to understand what the necessity is which forces civilization along this path and which causes its antagonism to sexuality.

The requirement, demonstrated in these prohibitions, that there shall be a single kind of sexual life for everyone, disregards the dissimilarities, whether innate or acquired, in the sexual constitution of human beings; it cuts off a fair number of them from sexual enjoyment, and so becomes the source of serious injustice

But if we want to know what value can be attributed to our view that the development of civilization is a special process, comparable to the normal maturation of the individual, we must clearly attack another problem. We must ask ourselves to what influences the development of civilization owes its origin, how it arose, and by what its course has been determined.

A love that does not discriminate seems to me to forfeit a part of its own value, by doing an injustice to its object

The tendency on the part of civilization to restrict sexual life is no less clear than its other tendency to expand the cultural unit.

The work of civilization has become increasingly the business of men, it confronts them with ever more difficult tasks and compels them to carry out instinctual sublimations of which women are little capable. Since a man does not have unlimited quantities of psychical energy at his disposal, he has to accomplish his tasks by making an expedient distribution of his libido.

n which it does not renounce direct sexual satisfaction, and in its modified form as aim-inhibited affection.

but in spite of this it has not lost its attraction for a great number of people.

One may suppose that the founding of families was connected with the fact that a moment came when the need for genital satisfaction no longer made its appearance like a guest who drops in suddenly, and, after his departure, is heard of no more for a long time, but instead took up its quarters as a permanent lodger. When this happened, the male acquired a motive for keeping the female, or, speaking more generally, his sexual objects, near him; while the female, who did not want to be separated from her helpless young, was obliged, in their interests, to remain with the stronger male.*

This replacement of the power of the individual by the power of a community constitutes the decisive step of civilization.

Foremost among those ideas are the religious systems, on whose complicated structure I have endeavoured to throw light elsewhere. Next come the speculations of philosophy; and finally what might be called manȂs ȁidealsȂȱȯ his ideas of a possible perfection of individuals, or of peoples or of the whole of humanity, and the demands he sets up on the basis of such ideas.

We soon observe that this useless thing which we expect civilization to value is beauty. We require civilized man to reverence beauty wherever he sees it in nature and to create it in the objects of his handiwork so far as he is able. But this is far from exhausting our demands on civilization. We expect besides to see the signs of cleanliness and order

Today he has come very close to the attainment of this ideal, he has almost become a god himself

It is time for us to turn our attention to the nature of this civilization on whose value as a means to happiness doubts have been thrown.

It seems certain that we do not feel comfortable in our present-day civilization, but it is very difficult to form an opinion whether and in what degree men of an earlier age felt happier and what part their cultural conditions played in the matter. We shall always tend to consider peopleȂs distress objectively ȯ that is, to place ourselves, with our own wants and sensibilities, in their conditions, and then to examine what occasions we should find in them for experiencing happiness or unhappiness. This method of looking at things, which seems objective because it ignores the variations in subjective sensibility, is, of course, the most subjective possible, since it puts oneȂs own mental states in the place of any others, unknown though they may be. Happiness, however, is something essentially subjective.

If there had been no railway to conquer distances, my child would never have left his native town and I should need no telephone to hear has voice; if travelling across the ocean by ship had not been introduced, my friend would not have embarked on his sea-voyage and I should not need a cable to relieve my anxiety about him.

But they seem to have observed that this newly-won power over space and time, this subjugation of the forces of nature, which is the fulfilment of a longing that goes back thousands of years, has not increased the amount of pleasurable satisfaction which they may expect from life and has not made them feel happier.

he last but one of these occasions was when the progress of voyages of discovery led to contact with primitive peoples and races. In consequence of insufficient observation and a mistaken view of their manners and customs, they appeared to Europeans to be leading a simple, happy life with few wants, a life such as was unattainable by their visitors with their superior civilization. Later experience has corrected some of those judgements. In many cases the observers had wrongly attributed to the absence of complicated cultural demands what was in fact due to the bounty of nature and the ease with which the major human needs were satisfied.

This contention holds that what we call our civilization is largely responsible for our misery, and that we should be much happier if we gave it up and returned to primitive conditions.

We shall never completely master nature; and our bodily organism, itself a part of that nature, will always remain a transient structure with a limited capacity for adaptation and achievement. This recognition does not have a paralysing effect. On the contrary, it points the direction for our activity.

The sexual division of labor, for example, has created social groups of women and men in all known societies. Members of each gender have a· certain affinity with others in their group because of what they do or experience, and differ­entiate themselves from the other gender, even when members of each gen­der consider that they have much in common with members of the other, and consider that they belong to the same society.

n this chapter I offer some explication of the concept of oppression as I understand its use by new social movements in the United States since the