Utopianism always begins as an awakening. It ends, if it is allowed to run through its phases, as a tyranny of the pure. There is a slower path. It lacks ecstasy and salvation. It is not rough or revolutionary. It can feel like a letdown, particularly to the young and the impatient. It accepts imperfection as the price of freedom. It chooses a decent polity over a redeemed one. History suggests this is the wiser bet. Its lesson is unromantic and, for that reason, trustworthy: whenever we try to storm heaven, we tend to wake up in a very familiar place, counting the costs and wondering how the rope we thought we could use to pull ourselves up became a noose.
Dustin Sharp, as he concludes this essay
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