blog#2: deductive reason

       Since the beginning of history, man has tried to devise a perfect political system. Plato designed a utopian Republic, while Karl Marx radically changed the face of the earth by offering up a secular state that is supposed to be sufficient for all. The highest hopes for political systems were held by some 18th century French Enlightenment philosophers, specifically Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, the Marquis de Condorcet. However, the concomitant attempt to bring about an ideal humanistic system (based on Enlightenment thought), most nearly attempted in Scandinavia, has fallen short of fruition. The great things these systems propose to offer, such as financial and legal equality, peace and moral freedom, are not sufficient for all these individuals, leaving people disillusioned and perfect utopian political systems fatally flawed. It is foolish to try to please all the people all the time with simple comforts. Hence, utopias are doomed to failure, as my critique will show and pessimists believe things can improve. Utopian perfection, though, is unrealistic because even the best of nations suffer. Nonetheless, there have clearly been great thinkers who have apealed to this idea.
     For somethere are two governments: the spiritual and the political. Thus, there are two regulators, the conscience and external jurisdictions. The "former" has its seat in the interior of the mind, whilst the latter only directs the external conduct: one may be termed a spiritual kingdom, and the other a political one. However, anyone who knows how to distinguish between the body and the soul, between this present transitory life and the future eternal one, will find no difficulty in understanding that the spiritual kingdom of Christ and civil government are things very different and remote from each other.
      Condorcet and other Enlightenment thinkers comprised the most optimistic genre of thinkers in history. All of these humanists esteemed Hellenic optimism and the Roman State’s governmental form. They borrowed greatly from their British predecessors’ contract government and hope in people. Condorcet was the most optimistic of all the thinkers and has been a spokesman for optimists who seek perfection for the future. Together, these Frenchmen epitomized the ideals of utopia. While some later political theorists also helped model modern day socialist utopias, they owe much to Condorcet and his perfectionist dreams, as this paper will show. The predecessors to the French (Greece, Rome and England), the French themselves, and their philosophical followers created the philosophical constructs that led to the construction of social democratic states like present day Sweden. Just as there were three national influences on enlightenment thought, three consequent schools of thought which borrow from the French are correspondingly influential in modern utopian societies. These are communism as outlined by Marx, utilitarianism (from Mill), and nihilism.