Cognitopia
You have probably heard the term “utopia” as well as “dystopia” before, but I suspect you have never heard of a “cognitopia.”
Plato’s Republic is considered to be the first attempt at describing a utopia, but it wasn’t until 1516 that the term was coined by Sr. Thomas More in the book, Utopia. More’s and Plato’s utopias are, like all utopias, imagined perfect societies.
Over the years, the term “utopia”, in ordinary parlance, has come to mean a place that is so perfect that it cannot exist. Fiction. More recently, to emphasize the differences between imagined perfect societies the term utopia is sometimes modified as seen in ecotopia, heterotopia, and ominitopia.
The Literary Terms web site has an excellent, and very easy to read, article on different types of Utopias.
Define Cognitopia
Cognitopia is a new contribution to the arena of imagined societies. Cogni — as a prefix is taken from the word “cognition” which means thinking or reasoning as well as anything that is based on empirical factual knowledge. Cognitopia is a society where critical thinking is central to the functioning and philosophy of the state.
Cognitopia, while legally an international corporate cooperative, is run as society the very foundation of which is critical thinking, emotional intelligence, eco-literalism, rights of nature, ethics and humanism rather than mysticism, religion, greed and violence.
At the same time, Cognitopia is not a society devoid of emotion like Vulcan, the imaginary home plant of Dr. Spock, but rather a place where policy, social morals, and beliefs are determined by what can created through empirical evidence and critical thinking.
Conceptually, Cognitopia is governed as a secular democracy, not a dictatorship, oligarchy, or theocracy. It’s founded on social and economic equality and civic responsibility as opposed to machiavellian laissez-faire or social Darwinism.
Aspects Cognitopia governance includes secularity, constitutional social democracy, delegated democracy, evidence-based policy, open government, scientifically based, focused on economic equality, and civic responsibility.
The purpose of Cognitopia is to build on the best qualities of humanity while dispensing with the rest. Everything is designed to mitigate the worst of human nature — ignorance, greed, corruption, sexism, racism, classism, and violence — from impacting society as a whole. It’s a place where knowledge of the universe expands without fear or superstition, where transparency makes corruption all but impossible, where all genders are equal, where racial distinctions are of no importance, where no one is grossly wealthy and no one is poor and desolate, where violence is rare, and people live in harmony of purpose and perspective.
Citizens of Cognitopia consider themselves custodians of Earth and philosophers. The mission of Cognitopia is to establish and maintain ecological balance and promote a more human society while seeking knowledge of the universe.
