When people talk about a "utopia" in politics, they usually imagine a state or a community in which a better human coexistence is possible.
In 1516, Tomas More wrote one of the most important political works of modern times, the novel "Utopia".
Thomas More presents the ideal image of a social state and at the same time criticizes the existing forms of government.
The novel is about a sailor's report on the island of Utopia, where ideal social conditions prevail.
The navigator was harshly critical of the aristocratic societies of Europe and advocated early socialist, partly communist ideas.
In particular, he criticizes the fact that kings and princes do not care about the common good and that this leads to war and poverty.
In his travelogue about the island of Utopia, he unfolds the dream of a dignified life without pride, envy and lust for power.
In Utopia, all people are equal and willingly subordinate themselves to the interests of society.
Private property and the money economy are seen as the root of all evil and have therefore been abolished.
Utopians derive pleasure first and foremost from the desire to fulfill their duties: all members of society work and put their energy at the service of the community.
Utopia reveals Modus's liberal attitude, which would cost him his life many years later when he refused to obey King Henry VIII.
In parts, his utopia is not so far removed from the scenario that the Danish former environment minister Ida Auken described in 2016, exactly 400 years after Morus, on the website of the World Economic Forum formulated. The title of her article was: "Welcome to 2030 - I own nothing, have no privacy and live has never been better". Your article can no longer be found on the WEF website. But you can still read it here via the Internet's Waybackmachine.
Auken is a member of the left-liberal party Det Radikale Venstre.
Since both utopias and dystopias have occasionally come true in human history, it is also of interest to hear Aldous Huxley in the original. You can hear his statement from 1958 with a German translation below.
Aldous HuxleyAldous Leonard Huxley, (born July 26, 1894, Godalming, Surrey, England - died November 22, 1963, Los Angeles, California, USA), English writer and critic who was gifted with a sharp and wide-ranging intelligence and whose works are characterized by their wit and pessimistic satire. He is best known for his novel "Brave New World" (1932), which served as a model for many later dystopian science fiction novels.
Listen to Huxley's audio statement here:
Blurb: The English writer Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) is a household name for many readers. His novel "Brave New World" (1932) was a world classic whose title soon became a catchphrase. The warning of a technological dictatorship remains virulent. Uwe Rasch and Gerhard Wagner provide German readers with the first comprehensive information about this influential writer and thinker. They describe Huxley's serious eye disease, his advocacy of pacifism, the drug experiments, the Hollywood adventure and finally the founding of the Esalen Institute in California. Krishnamurti, Stravinsky, Yehudi Menuhin and Charlie Chaplin were his close friends. He met Thomas Mann in exile, and Adorno dedicated an essay to him. Huxley is sometimes a biting sceptic, sometimes a committed humanist, and his extraordinary significance for a globalized world is striking.
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"In fact, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the greatest danger to mankind is not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer, but man himself, for the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics, which are infinitely more devastating than the worst natural disasters." CARL GUSTAV JUNG
Please believe that this pandemic has a purpose, there are no coincidences. It is not the virus and its makers that are the problem, it is a global call to everyone to wake up. Visualize the world you want to live in peacefully and step out of the illusion you believe to be true. Wait and see what happens - it can't be long before all this madness comes to an end. Believe in the universal power of love, which Einstein once described as the strongest power, because it is unconditional and infinite. It is above EVERYTHING.
When John Cleese was asked about his opinion on Brexit, his answer was: "Well, Europe is a wonderful continent with wonderful people. With the EU, we have made a failed and ineffectual attempt politically. But what the hell is stopping us from doing better next time?
Transferred to the galactic perspective of Mr. Langemann: where is the comet that will give the earth a reset as a chance for a more successful civilization.
How good that I was brought up to be a loner, so I have a healthy gut feeling and a clear mind. Sure I use the computer , but I am cell phone free ! I rarely watch TV etc . and I switch off the radio when corona nonsense is announced . In conversations with other dog owners I try to inform people and make them think about the senseless measures and above all the useless vaccinations! If it doesn't help , I say quietly : Go get vaccinated you don't deserve it any other way !
Little fable (Kafka)
"Oh," said the mouse, "the world is getting narrower every day. At first it was so wide that I was afraid, I ran on and was happy to finally see walls in the distance to the right and left, but these long walls are rushing so fast towards each other that I'm already in the last room, and there in the corner is the trap I'm running into." - "You have only to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it.
I was out yesterday after a long time. Without exception, I met happy, grateful people. I was proudly shown QR codes on smartphones as a sign of vaccinated, responsible solidarity and new freedom. I felt like a leper when I said that I wasn't vaccinated and had no intention of doing so. I don't like walls. They take away the air I breathe. I'd rather fall through my own fault than be led into a last room by someone else. All those mice scare me. Grateful for the walls, because they supposedly provide support, these mice end up jumping into the mouth of the cynical state cat with joyful excitement.
I had the following dystopian association with Huxley's thought-provoking comments: What is the mindset of a powerful person who is responsible for a large company? His 10,000 employees are also a cost factor. If necessary and in order not to jeopardize the "big picture", this factor must be "slimmed down" from his point of view. From his point of view, he is doing something responsible and good when he lays off 5,000 people. Trade unions, democratic co-determination rights of "employees", the suffering of the people made redundant? Disturbing and often only exist in theory.
And now I think of the Schwabs and Gates of this world, who have achieved an economic and political power that is a few levels higher than in the example mentioned. People who have attained a level of power and hubris that even states cringe at. People who see the entire world as a company that needs to be "saved" in a visionary and pragmatic way. People who have achieved everything in life and don't have long to live. The steadily growing overpopulation mentioned by Huxley on the one hand, scarcity of resources and other problems on the other. How does such a person think, feel and act when, in a frenzy of power, he sees the whole world as a company that needs to be saved?
There is often discussion in the forums of this world about whether Gates and co. are psychopaths or do-gooders? My humble opinion? Both. In reality the former, in their self-perception the latter.
Hello Mr. Löcke,
"Ever since the mouse saw the cat in a rat trap, it has been planning the revolution..." said Brecht, I believe...
And: "how long it will take to build the New Jerusalem," says the spider and takes an exhausted break from building the net in the basement of the Empire State building...
Greetings, Verena
Hello Verena,
Both quotes would fit Brecht, but unfortunately I am not familiar with either of them.
The quote from the Threepenny Opera "First comes the food, then comes the moral" has stuck with me.
I have to think about that all the time in this age of moralism and truths without alternatives. Most recently during the flood disaster. If someone picks up a shovel and actively helps me without paying attention to whether a camera is rolling, then I don't really care about their political views. Then I'm grateful.
I am cautiously optimistic that Brecht was not a right-wing extremist conspiracy theorist.
Have a nice weekend and best regards
Then came the Third Reich with its terrible, "scientific" dictatorship and the GDR with its disgustingly perfidious Stasi - which did what Huxley had announced. And China? The Chinese 1-child policy?
Unfortunately, there are still dictatorships on Mother Earth...
May enough people be awake and democratic enough to never allow such excesses in this country again.
The "lateral thinkers" are being criminalized, the "approvals" for new vaccines to be brought to market quickly are running at a rapid pace, "vaccination" is apparently the only way out of the pandemic worldwide. I don't see any promising resistance anywhere. This ship is simply unstoppable. The masses are on board. The best thing to do will be to come to terms with the way things are. The fight is hopeless, resistance is certainly honorable but futile.
At least that's my summary of this evening.
The ship may be almost unstoppable. But a ship, no matter how powerful it may seem, can also be stopped by leaks. A small leak here, a leak there, and the ship ultimately becomes unseaworthy and sinks.
Plants can drill their way through concrete and "constant dripping wears away the stone".
If some people can show tenacity, we can do the same, can't we?
Dear Mrs. Krieger,
Unfortunately, my personal tenacity is pretty much gone. At the moment I'm hoping to be rescued myself one day...
"I don't see any promising resistance anywhere" That's exactly how I see it. The world government is on a good course and "the masses are on board".
But I think it would be fatal to "come to terms with things as they are", the fight is not hopeless. Resistance is called for and "honorable". This is exactly what makes a "defensive democracy"! There is no pandemic with "what do I know ..... deaths. Just take a look at the statistics, but obviously hardly anyone wants to deal with math anymore.
I recommend reading the fantastic book by Mr. Friedemann Willemer: "The Failure of Representative Democracy"
It will happen. We can only try to make our interests those of the new arrivals or, at best, enjoy the freedom of court jesters. We don't know exactly what will happen. I have the vague hope that we can at least help shape it. I cannot and do not want to imagine that all the enlightenment and any resulting social progress and the bloodshed that preceded it should have been in vain.
Yes, an impressive contemporary document and at the same time it also shows the predictability and transparency of the processes.
That is reassuring for me to know, because it means I am always ready and don't fall for these crude but also perfidious manipulations of the human family.
I am speechless
Huxley's FORESIGHT is materializing.
Quite a c t u a l .
You can feel 'such a rummaging' in your stomach...
"It" feels 'not comfortable'...
Grabs you 'somehow dark'...
People are silent, staring.
Stays with itself....
Really, my 'insides' are shivering.
The 'breath' of disaster... already 'dampens the neck'.
Thoughts float on in a negative cloak of goose bumps.
"Shit too", we have to get up and get serious!
However f a t a l : The masses will duck.
Even scurrying, partly!
Serves itself - as ever:
Your own neighbor... shows you up.
The masses will serve 'the master up there'.
Not themselves - as ever.
"It"... materializes: probably inevitable.
Pessimism does not speak to me!
Only review in history & logic.
I can only say thank you!
This courageous journalism makes
(me somehow) strongly. I feel honestly (!) informed, if only because their statements are directly substantiated (proven); and because I have a different (my own!) attitude towards other media reports. Besides, it is always a
A feast for the ears to listen to her eloquence.
Best regards
monika dankert
Unbelievable, that's scary. So close to what happens. Huxley obviously had this system well figured out. Brilliant, absolutely great. Unfortunately, it's all far too true. Today, we may actually be too late to make positive changes.
to implement or enforce.
This man's foresight was fascinating and shocking in equal measure.
Aldous Huxley was a friend of the Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti and wrote the foreword to his book 'The First and Last Freedom'. Why do I say that? Because after years of studying the teachings of J. Krishnamurti, I can clearly see that they could not be more relevant and provide an answer to all our human problems. The extraordinary thing about it is that it is not about theories, but about our daily lives. If you change yourself, says Krishnamurti, you change the world, because the world is your own projection. True or not? You have to find out for yourself.
Very pleasant to read, not a lament, but an individual perspective on action that is in principle very easy to implement. In practical life, however, the feasibility of this perspective of action reaches its limits when a person does not know what to do with the concept of personal responsibility, or even rejects personal responsibility outright in the conviction that mummy and daddy will sort it out.
Thank you now also conditionally read Iceland as the positive counterpart!
What madness! What foresight!
We are already very close to the goals of the "dictators".
close.
Just read Klaus Schwab.
I am horrified.
i am always delighted, mr. langemann, at the pearls you fish out of the ocean of human thought. thank you.
...I can only endorse the apt comment! ...These are precious pearls that you have fished out of the literary depths of the ocean for us, Mr. Langemann! Many thanks for that.
Good morning, Barbara.E!
Erdal Akardy writes to you:
Found you in the comment 'room'.
My contact motif:
Your continuous lower case.
Impulse thought from this: "She's really non-compliant."
My rational 'attachment':
These should stick together.
Should form "Langemann islands".
Crystallization points...
Frighteningly realistic description of the status now. The forces behind the compliant politicians have decided to make us docile by degrading us. And a large part of us have already succeeded.
Yes, everything for "our own good" and at the same time arbitrarily over our heads; ideologically blinded and addicted to power.
Democratic participation was - if at all and only to a limited extent - yesterday. Today, we, the euro, the banks, the climate, heck, the whole world, have to be "saved" by centralism, the EUdSSR and NGOs - without being asked and without contradiction!!!