Can we imagine utopia?

“‘My subconscious can’t, even imagine a warless world.’” (pg. 86 LoH.) Orr makes this short statement to Haber after Orr attempts to dream peace but instead ends up with a interstellar war with Aliens. On the surface it seems an almost comic mishap where Haber attempts to progress his humanitarian goals and Orr’s dreamed reality splinters in an unforeseen direction. Much like solving overpopulation with a hugely destructive plague. The ethics of such decisions are vastly enigmatic but more interesting are the very limits of human realization.

Our subconscious is arguable the most honest and genuinely human part of our being. It lacks the ability to lie or affect a moral stance and instead relies only on our true self for representation. Still, in this essentially open space there are limits. Looking deeper into Orr’s statement, the very heart of the utopian problem is revealed and questioned. Can we have a perfect world? Can we even rationalize a perfect world? Can flawed beings create utopia? Inherently it is a question of balance. Can we balance out the forces of progress and liberty, world suffering and personal happiness, the society and the individual? At every step forward it appears we lose irreparable some other part of our humanity.

A case study of this would be another attempt by Haber to correct a social “problem.” In a heartfelt reminiscing, Orr laments about his loss and society’s gain after an effective dream to end racism. “She was brown. A clear, dark, amber brown, like Baltic amber, or a cup of strong Ceylon tea. But no brown people went by. no black people, no white, no yellow, no red... They were gray.” (pg. 129 LoH). In ending racism, Orr ended race. In gaining racial homogeny, society lost the richness and flavor of racial division. The obvious good is curtailed by the loss of identity. It is for this reason that Orr, in commenting on the changed reality, opens with what the change cost. The women Orr loved who had been such a product of racial interaction, had lost a superficial yet deeply important part of her being. Sadder still, it is a loss only felt by Orr. Even the dreamer must follow this law, change is never straightforward or in one direction.

Taking a quote by Toni Morrison in Playing in the Dark, “What was distinctive in the New was, first of all, its claim to freedom and, second, the presence of the unfree within the heart of the democratic experiment the critical absence of democracy, its echo, shadow, and silent force...” (pg. 48 PitD). Here Morrison is referring to the New World of the Americas compared to the Old World of Europe. Extrapolating from what is historical fact, that slavery flourished in response to and in contradiction of the burgeoning freedom of the white man, there is the balance of human progress once again. One group of individuals can not be made more free with out taking some of that freedom from another group. Liberty steals from order, and vice versa, order drains liberty.

There is the step forward and the shadow left behind. Can there be progress without pitfall? Is humanity fated to constantly choose one good over another? Indeed is every act a mix of good and bad, a step forward and a step back? What difference for the condition of individual, thus, does the future promise? This brings into focus a final exchange between Haber and Orr. “[Haber] ‘Then this world will be like heaven, and men will be like gods!’ ‘We are, we are already,’ Orr said.” (pg. 150 LoH)