Humanity fails to create utopia not because we lack the knowledge of how. It’s not due to a lack of ability or resources either. It’s because of a lack of conscience. It’s because there are too many unconscionable hypocrites. And in all likelihood, that includes you.
Fast food restaurants stop offering cola refills because people order one drink and share it among three, or fill up hidden bottles to take home. Costco stops offering onion refills for the same reason—people take them home—and bathhouses don’t provide shampoo and conditioner or glue lotion bottles to the floor because people steal them.
Humanity already possesses enough food and water to feed everyone on the planet and have plenty left over. But because of a lack of conscience, people starve to death every day. Let’s say those who have excess decide to share by leaving food, clothes, or household items outside. Even if they write a large sign saying “Please take only what you need,” someone will sweep it all up and sell it within half a day. It would be fortunate if no one claimed food poisoning from the shared food and demanded medical expenses.
Someone might say that’s why the rule of law is important. They’d be wrong. The rule of law is merely a theft guide for legal tricksters. Laws exist for those who can cleverly exploit loopholes and even bribe members of parliament to insert favorable exceptions into the law. Laws exist for those who embezzle 50 billion won and receive a five-year sentence, serving only two. The law comforts their broken conscience, allowing them to say, “But I acted within the law.” Those who live honestly and conscientiously constantly suffer minor disadvantages because of the law. They endure it, saying, “It’s the law.” Conscientious people don’t need the law anyway, but for the unconscionable, the law is an essential strategic guideline. The law also protects the corrupt few from the angry majority.
Humanity already has everything necessary for everyone to live happily. Just before the pandemic, the number of international travelers worldwide was twice the global population. Does that mean everyone traveled abroad twice? No. Those who traveled did so two, three, or even ten times on average, while more than half the population never traveled at all. So, wouldn’t it be good for those who have to develop free international travel packages to share? Absolutely not. All sorts of monsters would appear: people selling free tickets, people suing those who provided free trips, people killing to steal others’ tickets, and so on.
Humanity lives in a world full of inefficiency, absurdity, corruption, and suffering, blocked by its own lack of conscience. Without realizing this, we are sometimes tricked by cunning liars like Marx, who say, “If we overthrow the wealthy, utopia will come,” leading to bloodshed. We don’t realize that if each of the eight billion people simply cultivated their own conscience, it would instantly become utopia. If each of the eight billion people never stole towels from bathhouses, followed refill rules, took only what they needed from free handouts, never lied, hated excessive accumulation of wealth, and helped those less fortunate than themselves, that would be utopia.
Most of humanity will likely never realize the real reason why utopia is impossible. Under catchphrases that deviate from the essence, such as carbon neutrality and basic income, we will create an even greater living hell. But I want to believe there’s a possibility of a “happy ending.” For example, the ending of the Bible is one such happy ending, where God resurrects only the conscientious people from all those who have lived on Earth and creates a “heaven on Earth.” Considering that the unconscionable are all sent to hell to burn in the process, perhaps even an omnipotent God cannot create utopia with unconscionable people.
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