this is a film about the perfect country
it doesn't yet exist and it may never
but thinking about it is no idle
daydream sketching utopia's is a way to
address current problems and understand
how to solve them focusing on the ideal
version of something helps us more
clearly define what we feel is wrong
with what we have utopia's bring our
plans for reform into focus here
therefore are a few glimpses of what the
best place in the world might be like in
the perfect country people are perhaps
surprisingly still very busy working
everyone isn't on holiday while robots
do the work that's because people know
that when it's the right sort work can
be far more fulfilling than leisure what
people mean by the right sort of work is
work that feels meaningful that is work
that leaves one with a sense at the end
of a working day that one's made a
genuine improvement to the lives of
others and that one's done so through
the exercise of some of one's
distinctive and higher talents and
skills that's a lot more fun than
sunbathing to get this point in the
perfect country a lot of time is spent
drilling into people's characters from
an early age in order to determine what
sort of work they'd be best suited to
realizing the potential of every worker
is pretty much the national priority the
perfect country is rife with a new breed
of entrepreneur like the entrepreneurs
of old they want to make money but they
want something else too to properly and
deeply satisfy their customers there's
no selling of here even if it
flatters the balance sheet naturally
aiming to make a profit while doing
something meaningful is a very hard
double act to pull off that's why
entrepreneurs are so lauded here it's
deeply taboo to be a philanthropist in
perfect land because having enormous
surplus wealth is generally a sign
you've probably been extracting rather
too much cash from your business and
have not been courageous enough to risk
money investing in properly meaningful
goals in the perfect country respect is
given not just for becoming wealthy but
for how serious the problem was that you
fixed while making your wealth
there are famous people in the perfect
land but not the usual suspects here
celebrities are exemplars of qualities
we really need in our everyday lives one
of the most famous people in the country
one the good apology contest last year
few of us are ever called to be movie
stars or great singers so these are the
names people know about here the
curriculum is reverse engineered from
the things that used to give people most
trouble in the old world therefore
there's extensive study of things like
how to find your vocation and settle
into a job you can love how to be
confident defuse conflicts and know your
own mind how to have satisfying
relationships and this is a huge class
how to wind down and not lose your
temper a sign of being well educated
isn't erudition it's being happy and
kind people are incredibly unromantic in
the perfect country that's why
unsurprisingly relationships go so much
better here people don't talk endlessly
about finding the right person they know
there's no such thing
romantic enthusiasm is deeply frowned
upon and seen as the enemy of love
people are extremely emotionally
literate about their feelings
psychotherapy has high prestige it's not
unusual to hear someone say you're
transference is interfering with my
projection of your ego ideal people have
a really good grasp of their own
craziness and how it might affect their
relationships it's not uncommon for
people on a first date to ask one
another quite good-naturedly and so in
what way are you crazy
human fragility is a given as is the
need to treat it with sympathy
there's a routine assumption here that
no one has a clue how to bring up a
child just as no one knows by intuition
how to land a plane or perform brain
surgery that's why everyone is given a
good deal of training classes start from
an early age you can of course have a
baby without doing the training but that
would be like a Mountaineer setting out
to climb an ALP in their slippers
evidence of the success of the
nationwide parenting program is that
hardly any 11 year olds want to be
famous or unusually good-looking
the last person whose life was ruined by
a messed up childhood died several
decades ago there are some quite bad
things on the news in the perfect
country but no one comes away terrified
or incandescent with rage the nightly
news which is drawn up and read by
philosophers provides a subterranean
lesson in maturity and calm the news
isn't just any old thing that happened
today its purpose is to guide people to
the information that can best help them
and their country to flourish it's an
applied branch of one of the country's
biggest industries wisdom in the perfect
country very few people still believe
but the population as a whole
feels quite sympathetic to what
religions used to bring especially
community ritual and morality and they
found some inspiring substitutes people
gather in new kinds of secular temples
dedicated to important qualities there
are temples to calm and temples to
community temples to forgiveness and to
kindness there are rituals for all the
major life stages and the best writer in
the country has recently written a
secular liturgy for weddings and
funerals there's a replacement also for
the Ten Commandments which makes a big
deal of the idea that most people are
mean through anxiety and vulnerability
rather than strength or evil
in the perfect country people love art
but they've entirely given up on the
strange idea that art should be for
art's sake being an artist is a job with
a very practical purpose it's to make
the best ideas vivid and persuasive so
that we can keep them at the front of
our minds at all times art is there to
remind us to be calm forgiving open to
experience and properly awed by all that
exceeds us it's a therapeutic medium
which is judged to be part of the
National Health Service in the perfect
country the cities are beautiful partly
because there are very few Architects
around an originality in design is
really frowned upon so rather than call
in architects every time a new building
is required developers here just follow
templates that have already been shown
to work six story high buildings with
large windows contemporary forms and
natural materials abound you build
densely don't give up all roads to cars
and make sure that the streets are
lively as a result of this beautiful
slightly boring predictability there's
very little NIMBYism and property prices
stay reasonable though people love
nature they're never that unhappy when a
new development is announced as none of
us would be if Venice or Bath was about
to be built in a field near us that's
the sort of standard of beauty expected
and delivered by developments in the
perfect country
people accept that they need help with
many things so there's no terror at
living in quite a paternalistic or even
you might call it nanny in culture the
perfect country is a complete democracy
therefore people know and trust that the
government is always acting to defend
citizens own best long-term interests
it's a force enabling them to realize
their true potential that's why the
government bans business doing certain
quite unhelpful things and whether a
shows on TV about how to be a kind of
person it's not spooky because it's
properly democratically sincere people
are grateful in a perfect country
patriotism isn't seen as a weird
aberration it's an appropriate response
you don't just feel proud of what you've
achieved
you can feel part of a bigger better
collective adventure now the surprising
thing is that perfect land is oddly not
so far from many of the places we live
in already all we need is a little more
philosophy and a lot more willpower and
imagination and we'll get there
you