In search of Arcadia

Mankind has always been looking for utopias, I assume initially because of harsh climatic conditions and scarce food sources, and then as societies developed, these utopias were a means of escape from the prevailing conditions. I suppose the earliest recorded search for a utopia was when Moses led his people out of Egypt, Yahweh promising them a land for the Jews. Humankind has always been on the move, and there is DNA evidence that the homosapiens spread all over the world in search of first basic needs of food and shelter and then moved up to bigger things.

Acadia is the old name for Nova Scotia, it was colonized by some French people who were looking for Arcadia. Arcadia being the name of an idyllic place in Greece, which provided refuge to people escaping their lives and troubles. Arcadia became the model utopia after Sannazaro, an Italian poet wrote the poem Arcadia.

So there we have it, people suffering persecution, starvation, discrimination, etc. etc. or maybe even fantasizing about an ideal place where everything works just the way they want it, conjure up an imaginary place in their heads, their Arcadias.

The new world was mostly made up of people searching for this perfection. They were escaping from societies that they felt did not allow them to live the way they wanted. New ideologies and new religions were envisioned. And so life went on. As travel became easier more and more people moved, looking for better economic opportunities and better lives.

It took the Jews fourty years of wandering in the desert, and centuries later they still haven't found their Zion. The colonization of the new world took its toll, the native people had to pay very dearly for for it. Ask the Native Americans and the Aborigines. And the question is whether these people found their utopias? Maybe for a little while they did, and then they went back to forcing people to dream of newer Arcadias. The French people in Nova Scotia landed up in Louisiana and made music and good food, but suffer from a genetic disorder which makes them blind caused by inbreeding.

The Muslims of the Indian sub-continent created their own utopia, which has been crumbling since the start. Societies are created by people, and these utopias are made of the same people, so in reality there is no escape. All the problems will catch up with them sooner or later. That is not to say that one should accept injustices, and not aim for higher ideals, its just that fantasizing about these things is not going to help.

We base our fantasies on myths and legends, they rarely exist in the present. So we are either lamenting the lost glory days or dreaming about the future. Life is what happens today, make the best of it. So when I hear people tell me that the reason why there is so much trouble is because we don't follow the righteous path, I can only roll my eyes and wish they read history.