There is one hopeful sign in the Thinker hook, and that is the chain. It is blue, the color of renewal. On one end is the human heart and on the other the human figures, tugging for all their might. It is a chain of renewal. The renewal of the human heart is what is suggested, though the chain is presently held fast by the forehead of the Thinker. If existing sciences are an instrument of bondage, the future science of utopia may he the way to renewal and to the heart. If there were a scientific solution to the difficulties that press us all towards war, the nations might accept it. The scientific method is one thing they all have in common. A science of values could be the chain of blue. It should be the function of philosophy to found value sciences, as it has founded the other sciences. The process is not completed. Half-done is worse than not started. I wish to offer a few basic principles of the science of utopia, to provide the essence of scientific method in the value sciences. 1. All questions of value are questions about community action, or they are nothing at all. 2. Considered and experienced feelings are the concrete values which play the same role as facts in other sciences. "How we feel" about something is the popular expression for a concrete value. 3. The method of justification is the same in all branches of science, including value sciences. Find the one solution to the problem that so far withstands testing. Hypotheses can be refuted but not proven. 4. Citizens (responsible individuals 8 or older) are those capable of participating in a community act, either passively or actively. Most community actions involve all citizens and those that do not tend to break down community. 5. If you wish to know how an institution works, consider the feelings (motives) of all participants. That is the failing of most of the Utopias of the Thinker. They are blueprints based on assumptions of how people ought to behave, rather than actual knowledge of concrete values. 6. Every community action must take into consideration the actual feelings of all participants. This requires some investigation. In the present world crisis, for instance, the Russians make certain assumptions, and the Americans make certain assumptions. But has anyone really investigated the actual hopes and fears on both sides? We shouldn1t simply assume there is no solution. There has to be a form of world community which both sides would prefer to nuclear war. Any community action which violates principle 6 weakens the community and eventually all suffer. This is usually done in the name of some dogmatic belief about good and evil (Americans good and Russians evil, alcohol good, drugs evil, and so forth). 7. Reciprocity is the basis of community and of all social institutions. Work for pay. Responsibilities for freedoms. Obligations for rights. Something given for something returned. 8. Rights are created by communities, by placing an obligation upon themselves. People do not, and should not take this lightly. Rights are not 'divine', nor metaphysical. They can be given and taken away by community decision. There are no innate human rights. A community should examine its reasons for offering rights to one another. The only difference between legal and moral rights is the means of carrying out or enforcing the obligation. Moral rights are created by the community wide tradition of instilling certain unconditional do's and don'ts into the personality. At their strongest, as among the Zuni, it becomes psychologically impossible to break the tabu. Such tabus are the foundation of every community, primitive and civilized alike. But the content and the strength of this 'conscience' varies from one community to another. The right to life is offered in order to receive it back. This is the essence of the social contract, the first law of value science to be discovered (by Hobbes and Locke). We may extend rights to criminals, animals or fetuses (none of which can or will return the favor), and include inessential items such as sexual mores, but this only serves to weaken the essential purpose of every moral code, which is to prevent murder. There is no other way of preventing murder. 9. The proper study of value science is that which is universal, to wit, the dozen or so basic institutions whose functions are essential in all societies, and the five universal feelings upon which they are based. These five universal feelings are fear, frustration, hunger, discomfort/pain, and boredom. The most human motive is boredom. The animal motives exist only until some lack is made up, but boredom is always with us. Thus, in a well-run society, economics, and politics become invisible, like the public waterworks, and aesthetics (in its broadest sense) comes to the fore. 10. Every institution that has survived serves some purpose, and relates to one of the universal human feelings. Sometimes this purpose can be found from history. The stages of government can be traced in Europe (or in Pioneer America). It has progressed from medieval clans constantly at war (remember Romeo and Juliet) to the city governments of Machiavelli, to the modern European state (England, France, Germany, Italy) to the twentieth century empire-nation (USA, USSR, United States of Europe). Each level of evolution was difficult to achieve, and perhaps few believed the next stage would ever happen. The drive to unite is fed by the devastation and the pointlessness of the endless wars between unconsolidated communities (in late Chou times, or Republican Rome, or modern Europe). The need for further consolidation still exists, and the solution remains the same. 11. A community is a living thing. I mean this literally. It is not a 'social structure'. That is a machine idea, implying that it can be torn apart and built back up and will run. Living things must grow from other living things of the same species. We may be gardeners, but not 'social engineers'. The failure of social engineering is the reason many utopias become authoritarian, as their leaders make a desperate effort to preserve the dream and refuse to learn from its failure. You can take any controversy in 'ethics' or 'morals' and analyze it with these principles and use them as a starting point for an empirical investigation. It is possible to form hypotheses and test them, either historically, anthropologically, or through intentional communities. It does not matter if you agree or disagree with my own utopian hypotheses. What is important is that all recognize that there is a species of truth here, that there is a science of peace, as well as a science of war, and that it is not a mere matter of opinion as to the way to solve the world's crises. |