2018 was a very weird year for me. My mental health became a very evident obstacle, and although I was never really alone, I often felt lonely and like anything I could do in life would just be pointless. I won’t get in-depth on this now, but somehow by the end of 2018 I didn’t really know how to even be myself anymore. I didn’t find the motivation I usually had for everything I had been working my whole life for. Starting 2019 with this book was the right thing to do. It brought me important reminders along with inspiring stories and ideas. This book was in my pile of “books I bought that haven’t got the time to read yet” for years. I’m glad I took it in January 2019.
An unfair world?
Economic inequality – inequality of opportunities – is reflected in every aspect of society: from health and education to bullying, climate, and the quality of our relationships. Could one solution apply everywhere? Bregman proposes three main Utopic ideas that he exemplifies throughout the book. Actually, several have already happened and/or have been studied- the universal basic income idea, for example. Whether you agree with them or not, this book triggers important discussions at a time where we need to start steering the wheel more abruptly.
It’s a very easy read with plenty of insightful case studies and examples of how we are actually living in the Utopia people dreamed about centuries ago. What’s Utopia for us now simply has to happen. Of course, things are not so easy. There is no “universal” Utopia, and there might be many things in this book that you might not agree with. Is it too liberal? Too communist? Sometimes perhaps too capitalist? Well, we don’t have to agree with everything we read, but Bregman definitely makes us ponder.
The author is Dutch and some of the Utopic ideas he discusses are closer to reality in the Netherlands than in most of the rest of the world. Having lived 3 years in Austria myself, some things also feel a bit more relatable for me here and now than I ever even thought about back in Guatemala. The value of free time and the concept of life quality, for example. Those are two things that back home are still seemingly “wasteful”. But there’s a lot more complexity in this and this book definitely has a very Eurocentric tone.
Optimistic outcomes
Nevertheless, this “book for realists” left me feeling like such an optimist about this world and my potential role(s) in it. In the current era of climate anxiety that afflicts a lot of us on a daily basis, I think this book is very good food for thought.