Ameritopia_ The Unmaking of America - Mark R. Levin [6]
Utopianism’s authority also knows no definable limits. How could it? If they exist, what are they? Radical egalitarianism or the perfectibility of mankind is an ongoing process of individual and societal transformation that must cast off the limits of history, tradition, and experience for that which is said to be necessary, novel, progressive, and inevitable. Ironically, inconvenient facts and evidence must be rejected or manipulated, as must the very nature of man, for utopianism is a fantasy that evolves into a dogmatic cause, which, in turn, manifests a holy truth for a false religion. There is little or no tolerance for the individual’s deviation from orthodoxy lest it threaten the survival of the enterprise.
In truth, therefore, utopianism is regressive, irrational, and pre-Enlightenment. It robs society of opinions and ideas that may be beneficial to the human condition, now and in the future. It stymies human interaction, including economic activity, which progresses through a historical process of self-organization. Adam Smith, a towering philosopher and economist of the Scottish Enlightenment, referred to it as a harmony of interests creating a spontaneous order where rules of cooperation have developed through generations of human experience.11 The utopian pursuit, however, commands the imposition of a purported design and structure atop society by a central authority to arrest the evolution of the individual and society.
As Popper noted, “[T]he power of the state is bound to increase until the State becomes nearly identical with society.… It is the totalitarian intuition.… The term ‘society’ embraces … all social relations, including all personal ones.”12 The power, according to Tocqueville, is “immense and tutelary” and “takes upon itself alone to secure” the people’s “gratifications and watch over their fate.” “That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild.” “Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself.” “It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd.” (II, 318)
Utopianism’s equality is intolerant of diversity, uniqueness, debate, etc., for utopianism’s purpose requires a singular focus. There can be no competing voices or causes slowing or obstructing society’s long and righteous march. Utopianism relies on deceit, propaganda, dependence, intimidation, and force. In its more aggressive state, as the malignancy of the enterprise becomes more painful and its impossibility more obvious, it incites violence inasmuch as avenues for free expression and civil dissent are cut off. Violence becomes the individual’s primary recourse and the state’s primary response. Ultimately, the only way out is the state’s termination.13
In utopia, rule by masterminds is both necessary and necessarily primitive, for it excludes so much that is known to man and about man. The mastermind is driven by his own boundless conceit and delusional aspirations, which he self-identifies as a noble calling. He alone is uniquely qualified to carry out this mission. He is, in his own mind, a savior of mankind, if only man will bend to his will. Such can be the addiction of power. It can be an irrationally egoistic and absurdly frivolous passion that engulfs even sensible people. In this, the mastermind suffers from a psychosis of sorts and endeavors to substitute his own ambitions for the individual ambitions of millions of people.
Legislatures are capable of democratic tyranny by degenerating into a