In order to survive, humans live together and help each other. In this process of associating, they develop rules about the way they will behave with others. A good concept for conceiving this is "society". Now, everyone has an ideal of society with certain regulations that can guarantee that everyone will be happy. That is what we call an "utopia".Some people think it's possible to achieve that state of utopia. I don't agree with them.
First of all, we live in a period conceived by historians, philosophers and social scientists as Modernity. That means we are always pushing for changes in almost every aspects of our lives. We can't stand the idea of living everyday without experimenting technological advances, new ways of communication and new ways of relationship. Most of the time this process is not conscious. So there's a contradiction between an ideal state of utopia, which is most conceived as a non-dynamic state of things (because of the supossed achievement of happiness), and the Modernity process we're in, where life's dynamics are the fundamental elements.
Also, we need to understand that the idea of society considers conflict. As a society, we have conflicts that involve our own ideals about certains ways of conducting it, in order to secure happiness to its members. We try to convince others about a better path to achieve total happiness. This struggle is constant in society's development, and allows better life conditions but asuming that not everyone is happy with the way we acomplish those advances.
In conclusion, living in utopia is impossible because utopia is a state of happiness where we don't need to make any effort to get satisfaction, so we don't act at all. It's a static state. And because our way of life implies dynamic forms of developing, we are always looking for that horizon without reaching it. Utopia is a good idea to keep in mind as long as we know that it helps us to determine a sense for our life but is imposibble to reach.
