James S. Pearson

Praxis-CFUL | University of Lisbon

Monsters of our Own Making: The Political Value of Illusory Dystopias

25 October 2022, 17h00 (Lisbon Summer Time — GMT+1)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy) | School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

Dystopian fears currently loom large in the public imagination. In this talk, I examine whether it might be politically valuable for people to fear illusory dystopian scenarios. The dominant view among contemporary political theorists is that members of a polity should only fear real dangers – that is, credible threats, which are based on facts and evidence. On this view, which I call the credibilist view, widespread fear of imaginary threats causes political harm. There is reason to believe, however, that it may in fact be politically beneficial for citizens to fear illusory dystopias under certain conditions. I refer to this competing position as the illusionist view. The first point that speaks in favour of the illusionist stance is that recent political theorists have convincingly demonstrated that pursuing illusory – i.e., infeasible – utopias can promote collective flourishing. Given that utopias are to a certain extent structurally symmetrical with dystopias, we might then reasonably expect illusory dystopias to be just as valuable as their utopian counterparts. To test this hypothesis, I consider the two strongest pieces of evidence that might be cited in support of the illusory view.  First, philosophers and social psychologists have argued that collective fear of hell (perhaps the illusory dystopia par excellence) can foster social cooperation and compliance. The second piece of potential evidence is to be found in the field of international relations (IR). Certain IR theorists (e.g., Thomas Christensen) maintain that political leaders can enhance national cohesion by inspiring the citizenry with a dystopian fear of foreign invasion and occupation – and this is said to hold even where there is no real threat. If groundless fears of hell and foreign occupation can promote the commonweal, then the illusionist view would appear to be correct. I scrutinize these two pieces of evidence, finding them to be too contentious to vindicate the illusionist view. It does follow, however, that we should therefore endorse the credibilist view. Although the current evidence in favour of the illusionist position remains weak, stronger evidence may still be forthcoming. In light of this possibility, we should refrain from automatically dismissing dystopian fears that lack credibility since they may still prove to serve our collective interests.