The vision of the good order

One of the more persistent variations of the same theme in different times and contexts is that of a Kingdom of Heaven on earth. The urge to ‘build Jerusalem’ (Blake) reflects the refusal to live with imperfections as best one can. The various attempts to set up the perfect city have always been disappointing. Or, as Kautsky prosaically remarked, before and after he had witnessed the latest, i.e. the Bolshevik, experiment, ‘the ideal … has always ended with a hangover’.

True, the vision of a perfect order is a natural defence mechanism (for some people), but to assert that it is needed because relatively modest improvements require an extraordinary amount of collective means is to posit a false alternative. If Kolakowski's assertion were true, together with his additional contention to the effect that ‘through the accretion of reforms no revolutionary aim is attainable’, one would have to conclude that the cost of satisfactorily incisive reform is prohibitive. If a revolutionary aim, that is a radical change (reform), is desirable, and, as it would follow as well, if revolution (which on this reasoning certainly aims at perfection, or at least radical break) is cheaper, why do we need the revolutionary vision as a defence mechanism and not as a mechanism of ignition instead?