I read your posts! I like what you're doing. I wanted to offer a term/concept. In BF Skinner's Walden Two and in his other philosophical work, perhaps some of the most genuinely compassionate yet utilitarian writing on the idea of social progress, he terms the "eutopia" as a counter to utopian ideas that ultimately strive for the past. not a perfect society, but a good one that is always seeking to experiment on itself forwardly, deriving lessons, rather than solutions. Thought you'd like it

So…my reflexive reaction here is actually a pretty negative one.

Which is not to say that I disagree with this “eutopia” idea on the object level.  On the object level, it’s obviously good and correct.  Yes, you always want to be open to improvements, rather than getting mired in a static ideology.  Yes, you want to find your ideals in possibly-real future rather than a definitely-imaginary past golden age.  Very true.

But building a utopia is very hard work, and one of the first hard parts is the part where you actually have to take a stand and define your values.  It requires saying “this is what I think the Good Life looks like, concretely, and I want there to be more of that.”  It requires saying “if we can get ourselves into Situation X, which I describe below, I’ll count that as a win.”  It requires, ultimately, painting some kind of static picture of the utopia and being willing to fight for it – even if you’re willing to cede that progress and improvement over that model are possible. 

This is not a thing that people like to do.  It commits you, and it puts you into conflict with anyone who objects to your favored values and your idealized images.  It’s very tempting to weasel your way out of making any kind of serious concrete normative claim, instead putting your effort into cheering for empty good-sounding “proposals” with no actual content.  Like, y’know, “we should have lots of diversity and freedom so that everyone can do whatever thing is personally best for him!”  Or “we should commit ourselves to finding empirically-justified solutions and then enacting them!”  Or, uh, ahem, “we should always keep on making progress instead of remaining static!”  None of those things is wrong, and in fact all of them are important, but none of them is an answer to any of the hard questions. 

(For those who care: I have just described one of the main ways in which I find liberalism unsatisfactory as a guiding ideology.  It will not tell you how to live the Good Life.  It can only offer general-purpose benefits like freedom and rationality and progress, which are great but insufficient.)  

There’s actually a sort of fun experiment you can do.  Ask some smart people you know to describe a utopia.  (Or even just “a society that is close-to-ideal for you personally.”)  They don’t have to tell you how to get there, or even how it functions, just what it looks like.  I’ll bet you money that most of them – most of the normal-ish ones, anyway – will be totally unable to do it.  They’ll fall back on liberal cliches about diversity and progress and sensibleness, and they’ll give you zero specifics.  Because cliches are easy and appealing, while specifics are difficult and set you up for criticism. 

So in short: I am not inclined to favor any approach that emphasizes “the most important part of utopia-building is making sure that you can still have progress!”  It seems likely to be used as a tool to bypass the actual utopia part of the project.