he utopian mind, Roger Scruton wrote in The Uses of Pessimism, is remarkable not merely for being detached from reality but for taking a certain pride in consciously rejecting reality. Utopians “see the world differently. They are able to ignore or despise the findings of experience and common sense, and to place at the centre of every deliberation a project whose absurdity they regard not as a defect but as a reproach against the one who would point it out.” Being unrealistic is not a flaw but a marker of one who has cast off the ugly chains of the world and committed himself to a pure and righteous world—even if it doesn’t exist.
Read Full Article »
