Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There

by Rutger Bregman

Opening our borders is not something we can do overnight, of course – nor should it be. Unchecked migration would certainly corrode social cohesion in the Land of Plenty. But we do need to remember one thing: In a world of insane inequality, migration is the most powerful tool for fighting poverty.

Ok. This contradicts everything else written in the past pages.

These days, if you want to get to Cockaigne, you have to work your way not through miles of rice pudding but through a mountain of paperwork.

“A man with a conviction is a hard man to change.” So opens Leon Festinger’s account of these events in When Prophecy Fails, first published in 1956 and a seminal text in social psychology to this day. “Tell him you disagree and he turns away,” Festinger continues. “Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.” It’s easy to scoff at the story of Mrs. Martin and her believers, but the phenomenon Festinger describes is one that none of us is immune to. “Cognitive dissonance,” he termed it. When reality clashes with our deepest convictions, we’d rather recalibrate reality than amend our worldview. Not only that, we become even more rigid in our beliefs than before.

Smart people, concludes the American journalist Ezra Klein, don’t use their intellect to obtain the correct answer; they use it to obtain what they want to be the answer.

Immediately, I mobilized my defense mechanisms. To begin with, I had my doubts about the source: The Telegraph is a conservative newspaper, so how seriously should I take that article?

for several decades now this window has been migrating to the right on both economic and cultural issues. With neoliberal economists having bagged the economic debate, the right has reached out to take control of the discourse on religion and migration, too.

Is it though? The right-winers say the same about the Left.

They decry Islamophobia, homophobia, and racism.

And they have nothing to say when the racism, sexism and homophobia comes from Muslims.

the underdog socialist has forgotten that the story of the left ought to be a narrative of hope and progress. By that I don’t mean a narrative that only excites a few hipsters who get their kicks philosophizing about “post-capitalism” or “intersectionality” after reading some long-winded tome. The greatest sin of the academic left is that it has become fundamentally aristocratic, writing in bizarre jargon that makes simple matters dizzyingly complex. If you can’t explain your ideal to a fairly intelligent twelve-year-old, after all, it’s probably your own fault. What we need is a narrative that speaks to millions of ordinary people.

The time has come to redefine our concept of “work.” When I call for a shorter workweek, I’m not pushing for long, lethargic weekends. I’m calling for us to spend more time on the things that truly matter to us.