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UTOPIAN

It has been suggested that utopianism be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)
For other uses, see Utopia (disambiguation).
Left panel (The Earthly Paradise, Garden of Eden), from Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights. This artist showed in his paintings part of the desires that induce human beings in pursuit of a heaven on earth.
Left panel (The Earthly Paradise, Garden of Eden), from Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights. This artist showed in his paintings part of the desires that induce human beings in pursuit of a heaven on earth.

Utopia, in its most common and general positive meaning, refers to the human efforts to create a better, or perhaps perfect society. Ideas which could be/are considered able to radically change our world are often called utopian ideas.

"Utopian" in a negative meaning is used to discredit ideas as too advanced, too optimistic or unrealistic, impossible to realize. Hence, for example, the use by Marxists, of such expressions as "utopian socialism".

It has also been used to describe actual communities founded in attempts to create such a society. Although some authors have described their utopias in detail, and with an effort to show a level of practicality, the term "utopia" has come to be applied to notions that are (supposedly) too optimistic and idealistic for practical application.

Contents

Basics of Utopia

Dictionary definition

Look up Utopia in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Adjective — utopian:

According to Oxford dictionary, it is usually used negatively to criticise proposals or ideas having or aiming for a level of perfection of utopia which is impossible or very difficult to achieve.

Noun — utopian:

The word utopian can be used as a noun to mean someone who imagines, proposes, or supports a utopia.

Derivation of utopia

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The term utopia was coined by Sir Thomas More as the name of an imaginary, idealistic island where society lives in harmony with government and everyone is free from poverty, tyranny and war, in his Latin book De Optimo Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia (circa 1516), now known more commonly as Utopia.

Etymology

The term "utopia" is combined from two Greek words — "no" (οὐ, ou) and "place/land" (τόπος, topos), thus meaning "nowhere" or more literally, "no-place/no-land". It could also be considered to come from the two Greek words "good" (εὐ, eu) and, again, "place/land" (τόπος, topos). The word "utopia" was created to suggest two Greek neologisms simultaneously: outopia (no place) and eutopia (good place). In this original context, the word carried none of the modern connotations associated with it.

Related terms

  • Dystopia is a negative utopia. A world where utopian ideals have been subverted. example: George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
  • Eutopia is a positive utopia, roughly equivalent to the regular use of the word "utopia".
  • Heterotopia, the "other place", with its real and imagined possibilities (a mix of "utopian" escapism and turning virtual possibilities into reality) — example: cyberspace. Samuel R. Delany's novel Trouble on Triton is subtitled An Ambiguous Heterotopia to highlight that it is not strictly utopian (though certainly not dystopian). The novel offers several conflicting perspectives on the concept of utopia.
  • Ourtopia combines the English 'our' with the Greek 'topos' to give 'our place'—the nearest thing to a utopian planet that is actually attainable.

Other subcategories include Arcadias and Cockaygnes. Ruth Levitas is one who has developed such a categorization.

More's Utopia

Main article: Utopia (book)

Thomas More depicts a rationally organized society, through the narration of an explorer who discovers it - Raphael Hythlodaeus.

Utopia is largely based on Plato's Republic. It is a perfect version of The Republic where the beauties of society reign (eg: equalism and a general pacifist attitude), although its citizens are all ready to fight if need be. The evils of society, eg: poverty and misery, are all removed. It has few laws, no lawyers and rarely sends its citizens to war, but hires mercenaries from among its war-prone neighbours (these mercenaries were deliberately sent into dangerous situations in the hope that they would be killed, thus ridding the world of a parasite).

Utopia also reflects More's commitment to Christianity, as the people are united by belief in a Supreme Being, a priest administers the island's religious affairs, and belief in what is essentially the Christian Afterlife is mandatory. Furthermore the Utopians are depicted as readily accepting of Christian doctrine when introduced to such by European visitors. More extends the communism of property to all citizens, reflecting his familiarity with the early Christian society described in the Biblical Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2.44-45, 4.32-35). Furthermore, vices commonly condemned by the Catholic Church (to which More belonged), such as pre-marital sex, prostitution, adultery, gambling, theft and drunkenness, are outlawed and severely punished.

It is also likely that Thomas More, a religious layman who once considered joining the Church as a priest, was inspired by monastical life when he described the workings of his society. Thomas More lived during the age when the Renaissance was beginning to assert itself in England, and the old medieval ideals – including the monastic ideal – were declining. Some of Thomas More's ideas reflect a nostalgia for that medieval past. It was an inspiration for the Reducciones established by the Jesuits to Christianize and "civilize" the Guaraní.

His book reached high popularity so the term utopia became a byword for ideal concepts, proposals, societies etc. Like later utopian works, More's book contains explicit and implicit criticisms of perceived faults in existing societies. Utopian authors speculate that such faults could be eliminated in societies designed around their favored principles. The innovations portrayed in utopian visions are usually radical, revolutionary, inspirational, or speculative.

Throughout the years, many interpretations of Thomas More's work, Utopia, have arisen. Although countless individuals have chosen to accept this imaginary society as the realistic blueprint for a working nation, others have postulated More intended nothing of the like. Some maintain the position that More's Utopia functions only on the level of a satire, a work intended to reveal more about England than about an idealistic society. This interpretation is bolstered by the title of the book and nation, and its apparent derivation from the Greek for "no place" and "good place".

Types of utopia

Economic utopia

These utopias are based on economics. Most of them formed in response to the harsh economic conditions of the 19th century. Particularly in the early nineteenth century, several utopian ideas arose, often in response to the social disruption created by the development of commercialism and capitalism. These are often grouped in a greater "utopian socialist" movement, due to their shared characteristics: an egalitarian distribution of goods, frequently with the total abolition of money, and citizens only doing work which they enjoy and which is for the common good, leaving them with ample time for the cultivation of the arts and sciences. One classic example of such a utopia was Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward. Another socialist utopia is William Morris' News from Nowhere, written partially in response to the top-down (bureaucratic) nature of Bellamy's utopia, which Morris criticized. However, as the socialist movement developed it moved away from utopianism; Marx in particular became a harsh critic of earlier socialisms he described as utopian. (for more information see the History of Socialism article)

Utopias have also been imagined by the opposite side of the political spectrum. For example, Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress portrays an individualistic and libertarian utopia. Capitalist utopias of this sort are generally based on perfect market economies, in which there is no market failure—or the issue of market failure is never addressed. Also consider Eric Frank Russell's book The Great Explosion (1963) whose last section details an economic and social utopia. This forms the first mention of the idea of Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS).

Political and historical utopia

Political utopias are ones in which the government establishes a society that is striving toward perfection. With that said, many such governments tend to be harsh in its execution of laws and allow little individualism if it conflicts with its primary goals. Many strive for a controlled society where the state or government replaces religious and family values (and loyalties for that matter).

A global utopia of world peace is often seen as one of the possible inevitable endings of history.

Sparta was a militaristic utopia founded by Lycurgus (though some, especially Athenians, may have thought it was rather a dystopia). It was a Greek power until its defeat by the Thebans at the battle of Leuctra.

Religious utopia

These utopias are based on religious ideals, and are to date those most commonly found in human society. Their members are usually required to follow and believe in the particular religious tradition that established the utopia. Some permit non-believers or non-adherents to take up residence within them; others (such as the Community at Qumran) do not.

The Jewish, Christian and Islamic ideas of the Garden of Eden and Heaven may be interpreted as forms of utopianism, especially in their folk-religious forms. Such religious "utopias" are often described as "gardens of delight", implying an existence free from worry in a state of bliss or enlightenment. They postulate existences free from sin, pain, poverty and death, and often assume communion with beings such as angels or the houri. In a similar sense the Buddhist concept of Nirvana may be thought of as a kind of utopia.

However these ideas are more frequently the bases for religious utopias, as members attempt to establish/reestablish on Earth a society which reflects the virtues and values they believe have been lost or which await them in the Afterlife.

In the United States and Europe during the Second Great Awakening of the nineteenth century and thereafter, many radical religious groups formed utopian societies. They sought to form communities where all aspects of people's lives could be governed by their faith. Among the best-known of these utopian societies was the Shaker movement, which originated in England in the 18th century but moved to America shortly after its founding.

(See also: End of the world, Eschatology, Millennialism, Utopianism)

Scientific and technological utopia

These are set in the future, when it is believed that advanced science and technology will allow utopian living standards; for example, the absence of death and suffering; changes in human nature and the human condition. These utopian societies tend to change what "human" is all about. Technology has affected the way humans have lived to such an extent that normal functions, like sleep, eating or even reproduction, has been replaced by an artificial means. Other kinds of this utopia envisioned, include a society where human has struck a balance with technology and it is merely used to enhance the human living condition (e.g. Star Trek). In place of the static perfection of a utopia, libertarian transhumanists envision an "extropia", an open, evolving society allowing individuals and voluntary groupings to form the institutions and social forms they prefer.

Garrett Jones published "Ourtopia" in 2004, arguing that, instead of a 'no place' we need to use all the resources at our command to make 'our place' proof against climate change and obsolete tribalisms. Buckminster Fuller presented a theoretical basis for technological utopianism and set out to develop a variety of technologies ranging from maps to designs for cars and houses which might lead to the development of such a utopia.

One notable example of a technological and libertarian socialist utopia is Scottish author Iain M. Bank's Culture.

A variation on this theme was found earlier in the theories of Eugenics. Believing that many traits were hereditary in nature, the eugenists believed that not only healthier, more intelligent race could be bred, but many other traits could be selected for, including "talent", or against, including drunkness and criminality. This called for "positive eugenics" encouraging those with good genes to have children, and "negative eugenics" discouraging those with bad genes, or preventing them altogether by confinement or forcible sterilization.

See also: hedonistic imperative, transhumanism, technological singularity, abolitionist society, techno-utopia, technocratic movement

Opposing this optimism is the prediction that advanced science and technology will, through deliberate misuse or accident, cause environmental damage or even humanity's extinction. Critics advocate precautions against the premature embrace of new technologies.

Characteristics of Fictional Utopia

Many works of utopian fiction depict an outsider, a time-traveler or a foreigner, who can be shown the features of the society so that they can be shown to the reader.

Virginia Woolf was deeply critical of the level of characterization shown in many utopias, flatly asserting in her essay, "Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Brown", "There are no Mrs. Browns in Utopia."

Examples of utopia

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Related terms and concepts

Links on utopia

Further reading

  • Henrik F Infield, Utopia and experiment; essays in the sociology of cooperation, Port Washington, N.Y., Kennikat Press, 1971, ISBN 0-8046-1414-8.
  • Levitas, R. (1996). The Concept of Utopia (Utopianism & Communitarianism). Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0-8156-2513-8
  • Mumford, L. (1962). The Story of Utopias. New York: The Viking Press