What is Utopia?
AND WHY IT LITERALLY MEANS “IMPOSSIBLE SOCIETY”
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What is Utopia?
The coined word “Utopia” is derived from the Greek ou (“not”) and topos (“place”), and by putting those roots together Utopia literally means “No Place.” *
It’s a fiction!
To those pushing social reform and reconstruction, who are hinging on this idealistic word, at best are ignorant or naïve to the fiction or at worst, are willfully blinding themselves to the fact that are ignoring the premise this piece of literature is founded on, because let’s face it, “Utopia” is a hell of a lot more marketable than “The New World Order” or “The Fourth Reich” or some other totalitarian form of government.
Now, this title/term very well could be a pun on the Greek word eutopos which means “Happy” or “Fortunate” Place, but Utopia, by definition, means “fictitious”. I’ll say again, Utopia could be considered an irony for societal ideals, but the problem with any “perfect, collective, harmonious” society is that it is practically guaranteed that such a society will fall under a tyrannical, communistic regime if left up to the devices of man and womankind.
We’ll dive deeper, but before we do...
A brief, contextual synopsis of Sir Thomas More’s actual book is in order. An origin story if you will for our impending conversation because believe it or not, future Communists have celebrated his book to be a visionary blueprint to justify the abolition of private property.
Written from 1515-1516, More observed a world unlike any modern American Citizen can comprehend—a world rank of inequality, economic exploitation, trivial but catastrophic bickering across dynasties, and legal deception, all of which served as the inspiration to Utopia. Having served as a page under the rule of King Henry VII’s lord chancellor, More had an intimate knowledge of the political and governmental workings of the world at the time. Torn between a career in law and devotion to religion, yearning for a family, More chose a secular career in public affairs, taking his talents to Parliament and the King’s council where he served, gained experience in diplomatic and commercial affairs, and where he eventually became lord chancellor himself.
More was a brainiac that had workings within the inner circles of society.
Despite all his legal studies and prestigious career, More was a conflicted individual that loved his family but felt that their concerns pulled him away from a “life of the mind.” Sounds kind of shitty, but who am I to judge? More’s passion for Greek and Latin literature bled into his love for theological and moral arguments, and in all honesty, his musings on the problems of society in the late 15th and early 16th centuries parallel those of Karl Marx’s cynical observations of Capitalism when he wrote The Communist Manifesto.
*All references about the book Utopia and its author Sir Thomas More come from The Norton Anthology English Literature Volume 1.
Book One
Written after Book Two, the premier half of Utopia is not a direct call to complete revolutionary social reform (that comes later). It’s rather a meditation on the current issues of the world More lived in and the reasons behind them, and if we’re being completely honest, none of the travesties can be argued with due to the reality of the culture (which is what makes Marx somewhat persuasive).
In this portion we read of a dialogue between Raphael Hythloday and Thomas More (not the real Sir Thomas More, but a fictional representation of him... don’t ask). Their conversation serves as a contrast for the country of Utopia which readers will read about in Book Two. From beggars in the streets to the disproportional punishments for thieves hanging from gallows, it is here that Hythloday argues and prefaces the idea that the abandonment of warfare and the abolition of private property are the sole solutions to curing society’s woes. He also argues that the reason these constrictive constructs are in place are because of the Kings and royalty of the time—or by today’s standards—politicians and the wealthy, which again has some merit today if you’re focusing solely on greedy assholes.
Having visited Utopia, Hythloday is able to give the reader a polarized view of Western society that offers the real Thomas More an opportunity to ponder on the inner conflicts he has about what “is” and what “should be”— the King and the powers royalty has, or his devotion to God as an ardent Catholic. So, like all of us, he thought about the injustices of the world and created a visional solution to the ailing of his time.
Book Two
This is where we learn what Utopia really is.
“The chief aim of their constitution is that, whenever public needs permit, all citizens should be free, so far as possible, to withdraw their time and energy from the service of the body and devote themselves to the freedom and culture of the mind. For in that, they think, is the real happiness of life.”
Through Hythloday’s travels, we learn of the details of this idealistic society that has become the framework for a myriad of attempts at the creation of similar countries. Through a Tolkien like detail of the world, there are a lot of convenient, ideal happenstances that even allow a place like Utopia to exist.
“No one has to exhaust himself with endless toil from early morning to late at night, as if he were a beast of burden. Such wretchedness, really worse than slavery, is the common lot of workmen almost everywhere except Utopia.”
While we’ll get into the exceptions that More/Hythloday elaborate on, as a whole, citizens never break rules, and are every government’s perfect citizen. They are never burdensome to the system, always pulling their weight, and the system is never burdensome to them, allowing the ideal six-hour workday, which is another happy convenience that somehow this structure creates the most efficient, gapless economic market, offering the perfect work-life balance across the board. Utopians and Utopia always has everything they need at all times—nobody or anything wants for more than their needs ask. Hobbies are nonexistent.
“Since all the rest of the population is neither idle nor occupied in useless trades, it is easy to see why they produce so much in so short a workday.”
On a superficial front, citizens are equal in dress, appearance, societal status, etc. and even from city to city within the country, Utopians experience very little deviance as each metropolis is practically a carbon copy of their neighboring city.
“If you know one of their cities, you know them all, for they’re exactly alike, except for where geography itself makes a difference.”
Social relations, travels amongst the Utopians, trade with gold and silver, Utopian philosophy, military practices, religions, and even samples of their written language are all detailed as to help the reader picture how any of this is even possible.
The darkest realization of all though is the Utopian use of slaves.
Utopia Will Always Be Dystopian
“Their slaves are either their own former citizens, enslaved for some heinous offense, or else foreigners who were condemned to death in their own land. Most are of the latter sort.”
Here we have come to the antithesis of what modern day Utopians and idealists envision, and that is a Dystopia, which is what Utopia is all about.
Derived from the Greek dys (“ill” or “bad”) and topos (“place”), the word Dystopia is a “Bad Place” and arguably, Sir Thomas More wrote the first dystopian novel—long before George Orwell—while simultaneously creating the term “Utopia” from which the genre is founded from.
While Utopia is an ambiguous, subjective thought experiment of what a flawless culture could look like, the country of Utopia is one which rests on the slave market which includes the imprisonment of social deviants. This sole theme calls for deeper reflection of Utopia as a written work, making it even harder to gauge what More really intended when writing this book.
While everyone is equal, there is no variety in dress, appearance, housing, and there is no privacy, giving credence to a form of Thought Police.
Pleasure is a value in Utopian society, but constant monitoring of it prevents pleasure that surpasses laws of “nature” or “reason.” Or in other words, Utopia has a Ministry of Love.
While there is freedom of thought and belief and religious diversity (ironically), priests can still punish for “impiety” in their version of a Ministry of Truth.
And even though Utopians despise war, they are constantly fighting other nations, and one could argue to help sustain their economy.
For argument’s sake, let’s pull one out of the Marxist handbook and just say that these contradictions and double standards don’t exist. Anytime people pursue their vision of the ideal society, not only are they disillusioned, but human nature is completely thrown out of the equation. They assume that either their subjects or citizens will be without questions and in complete compliance, or they can make them submit through one form of force or another.
From the socialist policies of China that have catapulted the nation into one of the most powerful communist powers the world has ever seen to Cuba’s Castro. The National Socialist German Worker’s Party, aka, the Nazi’s envisioned a worldwide Utopia without certain classes and races, the infamous Soviet Union’s secret genocide of Stalin, and even Venezuela, who for a short time was propped up as a socialistic Utopia under Hugo Chavez before plummeting into economic plunder. Vietnam, and Zimbabwe under socialist Robert Mugabe who is proving to have ordered the killings of more than 20,000 civilians.
Socialism is the vehicle by which world leaders attempt to bring about their own Utopia.
Socialists love to feed off the sentiment of a perfect society and everyone sharing everything, which ironically is sold into the vain emotion that citizens will get something rather than being forced to sacrifice anything of their own—take from the rich, give to the poor. Socialism and Utopian counterparts disregard the simple fact that people are first and foremost individuals who have deviances in personalities all the way down to DNA. Secondly, people love having things. Private property expresses individuality and these personal variants we all have.
This would be a good time to talk about the fallacy of “appealing to novelty”.
The greatest irony of all is that this newness of the American Socialism experiment is how American Socialists justify bringing Utopian society to the States, because it hasn’t been tried here… It’s been tried everywhere else and failed everywhere else, yet these people have finally figured out the secret ingredient that makes their idea the new, working concept.
Yes, greed does create some great societal woes, and politicians often abide by the adage “rules for thee, but not me”, and no government mandate or law is going to change the hearts of these or any people.
Utopia Always Looks Good on Paper
“As ever, the perfect is the enemy of the good—including the unrealistic expectation that a good system should have been able to produce better results by now. This is an invitation to radicalism, authoritarianism, fundamentalism, and cynicism. This is what makes Theory seductive—or populism, or Marxism, or any other form of Utopianism that looks good on paper and is ruinous in practice. It seems like the necessary solution to the world’s myriad problems, some of which feel like (or are) emergencies.”
I equate Utopia to an average boyfriend’s worst nightmare. While he’s verging on perfecting the dadbod and borderline middle management material, his rival counterpart is a chiseled and tapered Greek god modeled after Chris Hemsworth and who is living a Tony Stark career life—basically Elon Musk without the less than sexy social Asperger's.
Instead of stench and crowded, crooked streets, Utopia gleams with symmetrical cities with free hospitals and childcare. Instead of neurotic consumerism and attachments to money and status classes that act as a parasite for average citizens, Utopia is a perfectly structured democracy where education is free and universal and where the misery of peasants and the working class are replaced by collective farms and industry. Utopia is a place where no one is overburdened and there is ample time and opportunity to pursue peaceful arts and the pleasures of the mind and body, which is an innuendo if I’ve ever heard one!
Just like the idealistic, fictitious god and goddess boyfriend and girlfriend, Utopia is just as subjective and fake.
Not until Christ himself comes down to rule and reign can any form of perfection exist in society and any politician telling you they can beat the odds are Anti-Christ's selling you a collectivist fiction for their own personal gain.
Communism is the prime example of humanity’s ability to recognize that even the best of theories can catastrophically fail when put into practice. Even when motives are pure and justified by an idealistic vision of “the greater good”, greed always takes over. Arguments that call for us to “care more”, “care in the right way”, “move to the right side of history”, forcing everyone to cooperate, swearing solidarity to the cause always place politicians as the solution to all of these things—it creates a god out of government.
Watch closely. We live in a world where power grabs are being made left and right. From Australia* and their Covid Quarantine Facilities to their endless lockdowns that people are finally showing some hardcore civil disobedience over, and when our President clearly states that his “patience is wearing thin”, Americans should take careful note of the protests across the Pacific Pond or any other pond that totalitarian governments lie in waiting.
*Here’s a little more “in your face” resource to how bad Australia has become over the course of 2020-2021: BREAKING! Australia Is a COVID WAR ZONE!
