Deep thoughts with Duncan, Vol. I

Mr. Girard and Geoff Rowe

Hello, readers of the Imprint blog. I, Duncan McLeod, have taken it upon myself to ask the hard questions to various teachers and students, these questions being of course, ones of deep philosophical nature.  For this article, my five questions focus around the concept of perfection, such as utopia, and my interviewees were the esteemed Mr. Girard, Physics and Chemistry teacher extraordinaire, and Geoff Rowe, snare drummer and student beyond compare.  So follows here the five questions and ten answers provided to your unhumble philosopher, Duncan McLeod.

Mr. Girard was asked: “Do you believe that a utopia or its opposite, a dystopia, could truly exist in this world?” His reply: “No, the way the world has been structured so far, it seems to me to be something we cannot actually achieve.”  I then asked if we are closer to, a dystopia or utopia, and his opinion on this was varied, stating we are closer to a “dystopia, but on some levels of society closer to a utopia.”  I proceeded to ask if a permanent world peace could exist, and he replied in a manner shadowing his answer to the first question. “Based on human history,” he said, “I don’t think that could ever happen.”  The fourth of the questions asked was “Can a perfect being exist?”  To this, he replied “an individual, yeah. It is rare, but possible.”  And the fifth and final questions asked was that of “If such a form of perfection can be achieved, how many paths in life lead there, is there only one path?” and he responded stating that it was “definitely not one path … It would be a long path.” He ended on the bittersweet optimistic statement of “we gotta live life hoping.”

To the student Geoff Rowe the same questions were asked, and his answers were recorded just the same.  When asked if he believed if a utopia or a dystopia could exist, he responded claiming “yes, though it would be unlikely to last particularly long,” and in answer to the second of the queries, he responded that he does believe we are closer to a dystopic society, and did not elaborate further.  When he was asked if he felt that a permanent world peace could exist under any circumstances, he claimed that “perhaps a long lasting peace, but it would eventually come to an end.”  As to the possibility of a perfect being, he believes strongly that it is possible, though whether he feels that there has been such a person he refused to say.  And as to the paths by which one might achieve world peace, utopia, or perfection, he states that if it is possible, there is an infinite number of paths.

Glossary of potentially confusing terms and words used above:

1. utopia: a perfect society, a paradise
2. dystopia: a flawed society, a horrible place
3. extraordinaire: a person of great regard within a field (term of respect and admiration)
4. shadowing: used here to mean resembling, or alike to
5. bittersweet optimistic statement: something positive with some negative interpretations
6. queries: questions