{"id":64768,"date":"2019-10-26T08:37:25","date_gmt":"2019-10-26T05:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=64768"},"modified":"2023-05-21T15:23:20","modified_gmt":"2023-05-21T12:23:20","slug":"nostalgia-plus-utopian-thinking-spells-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/nostalgia-plus-utopian-thinking-spells-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Nostalgia Plus Utopian Thinking Spells Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[674,391,837,810],"acf":{"old_id":"64768","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34235,"related_cahpter":"336","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"No going back - or forward - to Eden","content":"

Towards the end of the previous chapter Isaiah yearns for the restoration of the judges and counselors of the past. In his vision, restoring honored men, and women in our times, to such positions will allow Jerusalem to revert to a city of righteousness. Yet, a reading of the previous prophetic books raises major questions regarding Isaiah\u2019s nostalgia. Was David such a great and honest judge when he slept with Bathsheba, or took a census, or choose for all of Israel to suffer during a plague? Solomon was the wisest of judges, but was his oppressive national forced labor (mas<\/em>), ala Pharaoh\u2019s, the hallmark of justice?<\/span><\/p>\n

Isaiah\u2019s belief in a just past is coupled with his vision of the harmonic future in our chapter. His utopian image of the end of days when all nations will stream to Jerusalem for life lessons from God, and then beat their weapons into ploughshares is glorious, but sadly has never worked in practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nearly one hundred years ago Leon Trotsky described his vision of the Soviet Socialist Republic:<\/span><\/p>\n

“The human species, the coagulated <\/span>Homo sapiens<\/span><\/em>, will once more enter into a state of radical transformation, and, in his own hands, will become an object of the most complicated methods of artificial selection and psychophysical training. \u2026 The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise<\/span>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet within a decade the Soviets would be crossbreeding people with apes to create invincible humans and establishing camps for dissidents that would turn into the gulags, where millions of Russians were murdered. While many other attempted utopias, whether in literature or reality, didn\u2019t result in such horrors, the grand visions are lovely, but always seem to fail.<\/span><\/p>\n

The two fiery swords still guard Eden, not only keeping out Adam and Eve, but also telling us that humanity should attempt to achieve small incremental advances (such as those described by Michael Shermer in his book <\/span>Bend the Arc<\/span><\/i>) then dream of, or even worse try to implement, collective visions of perfected paradises.<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: Thomas Cole, \u201cExpulsion from the Garden of Eden\u201d 1828 \/ wikipedia<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":64773,"id":64773,"title":"Is2-eden","filename":"Is2-eden.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Is2-eden.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/nostalgia-plus-utopian-thinking-spells-problems\/is2-eden\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"is2-eden","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":64768,"date":"2019-10-26 05:37:04","modified":"2022-05-18 20:00:04","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":799,"height":579,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Is2-eden-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Is2-eden-300x217.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":217,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Is2-eden-768x557.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":557,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Is2-eden.jpg","large-width":799,"large-height":579,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Is2-eden.jpg","1536x1536-width":799,"1536x1536-height":579,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Is2-eden.jpg","2048x2048-width":799,"2048x2048-height":579,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Is2-eden.jpg","post_full_size-width":799,"post_full_size-height":579,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Is2-eden-580x420.jpg","home_baner-width":580,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Nostalgia Plus Utopian Thinking Spells Problems","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"No going back - 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