The thought of Utopia disquiets. Inmates in old age homes inhabit utopias of sorts, places where they wait to die, but theme parks, endless amusement and time almost without end, offer a different vision. Utopias of whatever vision seem tame. We think conflict spices life and spend our lives competing.
The urge to individualsim generated by negative collective imagery will be difficult to uproot. We resist seeing ourselves as part of an organism (a society), no different from other parts. We fear losing ourselves in the collective. We want meaning. We want recognition even though the process chains us to despised jobs that serve no useful purpose.
Demoting individualism to aberration seems authoritarian and unpleasant, but collectivization need not imply enormous cafeterias in grim, Orwellian settings. Small intimate bistros can be part of the utopian dining scene, but utopia provides fewer choices because the urge to establish difference disappears.
In our present circumstance one cannot say with certainty we, collectively, will choose life over death or moderate our need for triumph. It is foolish to believe carefully accumulated wealthmeans much in the infinite scheme, but like compulsive individuals, we persist in collective compulsions because we cannot stop.
Essential knowledge is hidden. We learn by doing and, as technology becomes more powerful, chances of fatal errors increase dramatically. A new fusion reactor's first test may spin out of control and do us in. Luck plays a greater role in human affairs than we care to admit, but we are not compelled to wage war, pollute, or derive satisfaction from hierarchical position. To that extent, the future is up to us.