Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There – from the presenter of the 2025 BBC ‘Moral Revolution’ Reith lectures

by Rutger Bregman

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realization of Utopias. Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

while young people in the West have largely come of age in an era of apolitical technocracy, we will have to return to politics again to find a new utopia.

utopias are initially attacked on three grounds: futility (it’s not possible), danger (the risks are too great), and perversity (it will degenerate into dystopia).

“Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”

When reality clashes with our deepest convictions, we’d rather recalibrate reality than amend our worldview.