All About Utopia - English II - Precursor to "Harrison Bergeron"

Utopia

Meaning an ideal community, taken from a book written in 1516 by Sir Thomas More describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean, possessing a seemingly perfect socio-politico-legal system.

The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempted to create an ideal society, and fictional societies portrayed in literature.

"Utopia" is sometimes used negatively, in reference to an unrealistic ideal that is impossible to achieve, and has spawned other concepts, most prominently dystopia.

The word comes from Greek: οὐ, "not", and τόπος, "place", indicating that More was utilizing the concept as allegory and did not consider such an ideal place to be realistically possible.

It is worth noting that the homophone Eutopia , derived from the Greek εὖ, "good" and τόπος, "place", signifies a double meaning that was almost certainly intended.

Despite this, most modern usage of the term "Utopia" assumes the latter meaning, that of a place of perfection rather than nonexistence.

Dystopia

A negative utopia: a totalitarian and repressive world. Examples are George Orwell's 1984 Aldous Huxley's Brave New World Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange Alan Moore's V for Vendetta Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tales Ayn Rand's Anthem Cormac McCarthy's The Road

Some questions have arisen about the fact writers and people in history have used utopia to define a perfect place.

Utopia is a perfect but unreal place. A proper definition of a perfect and real place is eutopia . More's Utopia is largely based on Plato's Republic, a perfect version of Republic wherein the beauties

of society reign (eg: equality 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 removed. It has few laws, no lawyers and rarely sends its citizens to war, but hires mercenaries from among its war-prone neighbors (these mercenaries were deliberately sent into dangerous situations in the hope that the more warlike populations of all surrounding countries will be weeded out, leaving peaceful peoples). The society encourages tolerance of all religions.

Some readers have chosen to accept this imaginary society as the realistic blueprint for a working nation; others say More intended nothing of the sort. Some maintain More's Utopia functions only on the level of a satire, intended to reveal more about the England of his time than about an idealistic society. "Utopia" is a compound of the syllable ou-, meaning "no", and topos, meaning place. But the homonymous prefix eu-, meaning "good," also resonates in the word, with the implication that the perfectly "good place" is really "no place."'''

23 August 2010

All About Utopia - English II - Precursor to "Harrison Bergeron"

Economic utopia

Most intentional communities attempting to create an economic utopia were 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 socialism he described as utopian.This forms the first mention of the idea of Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS).

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 free market economies, in which the presupposition is that private enterprise and personal initiative without an institution of coercion, government, provides the greatest opportunity for achievement and progress of both the individual and society as a whole.

There is another view that capitalist utopias do not address the issue of market failure, any more than socialist utopias address the issue of planning failure. Thus a blend of socialism and capitalism is seen by some as the type of economy in a utopia. It talks about the idea of small, community-owned enterprises working under the capitalist model of economy.

Political and historical utopia

Political utopias are ones in which the government establishes a society that is striving toward perfection. A global utopia of world peace is often seen as one of the possible endings of history. Within the localized political structures or spheres it presents, " polyculturalism" is the model-based adaptation of possible interactions between different cultures and identities in accordance with the principles of participatory society.

Religious utopia

Are based on religious ideals, and to date are most commonly found in human society. Members are 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 Islamic, Jewish, and Christian ideas of the Garden of Eden and Heaven may be interpreted as forms of utopianism, especially in their folk-religious forms.

23 August 2010

All About Utopia - English II - Precursor to "Harrison Bergeron"

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 Hindu concept of Moksha and the Buddhist concept of Nirvana may be thought of as a kind of utopia.

In Hinduism or Buddhism, utopia is not a place but a state of mind. However, the usual idea of Utopia, which is normally created by human effort, is more clearly evident

in the use of these ideas as 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 eutopian 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 eutopian societies was the Shaker movement, which originated in England in the 18th century but moved to America shortly after its founding.

Other good examples are Fountain Grove, Riker's Holy City and 15 other Californian eutopian colonies between 1855 and 1955, as well as in B.C., Canada and 15 other socialist and religious communities round the world, including Finnish " kolkhozes".

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 humans have 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.

Utopianism

Utopianism refers to various social and political movements. In many cultures, societies, religions, and cosmogonies, there is some myth or memory of a distant

past when humankind lived in a primitive and simple state, but at the same time one of perfect happiness and fulfillment. In those days, the various myths tell us, there was an instinctive harmony between man and nature. Men's needs were few and their desires limited. Both were easily satisfied by the abundance provided by nature. Accordingly, there were no motives whatsoever for war or oppression. Nor was there any need for hard and painful work. Humans were simple and pious, and felt themselves close to the gods.

These mythical or religious archetypes are inscribed in all the cultures and resurge with special vitality when people are in difficult and critical times. However, the projection of the myth does not take place

23 August 2010

All About Utopia - English II - Precursor to "Harrison Bergeron"

towards the remote past, but either towards the future or towards distant and fictional places, imagining that at some time of the future, at some point of the space or beyond the death must exist the possibility of living happily.

These myths of the earliest stage of humankind have been referred to by various religions:

Golden Age

The Greek poet Hesiod, around the 8th century BC, in his compilation of the mythological tradition (the poem Works and Days), explained that, prior to the present era, there were other four progressively more perfect ones, the oldest of which was the Golden age.

Plutarch, the Greek historian and biographer of the 1st century, dealt with the blissful and mythic past of the humanity.

Arcadia

In Sir Philip Sidney's prose romance The Old Arcadia (1580). Originally a region in the Peloponnesus, Arcadia became a synonym for any rural area that serves as a pastoral setting, as a locus amoenus ("delightful place"):

The Biblical Garden of Eden

The Biblical Garden of Eden as depicted in Genesis 2 ( Authorized Version of 1611):

"And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. [...]

And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man."

The Land of Cokaygne (käk ān′)

The Land of Cokaygne has been aptly called the "poor man's heaven", being a popular fantasy of pure hedonism and thus a foil for the innocent and instinctively virtuous life that is depicted in all the other accounts mentioned above. Cockaygne is a land of extravagance and excess rather than simplicity and piety. There is freedom from work, and every material thing is free and available. Cooked larks fly straight into one's mouth; the rivers run with wine; sexual promiscuity is the norm; and there is a fountain of youth which keeps everyone young and active.

There is a medieval poem (c. 1315) written in rhyming couplets which is entitled "The Land of Cokaygne":

"Far in the sea, to the west of Spain, Is a country called Cokaygne.

23 August 2010

All About Utopia - English II - Precursor to "Harrison Bergeron"

There's no land not anywhere, In goods or riches to compare. Though Paradise be merry and bright Cokaygne is of far fairer sight...."

Finding utopia

These myths also express some hope that the idyllic state of affairs they describe is not irretrievably and irrevocably lost to mankind, that it can be regained in some way or other. One way would be to look for the "earthly paradise"—a place like Shangri-La, hidden in the Tibetan mountains and described by James Hilton in his Utopian novel Lost Horizon (1933). Such paradise on earth must be somewhere if only man were able to find it. Christopher Columbus followed directly in this tradition in his belief that he had found the Garden of Eden when, towards the end of the 15th century, he first encountered the New World and its indigenous inhabitants.

Another way of regaining the lost paradise (or Paradise Lost, as 17th century English poet John Milton calls it) would be to wait for the future, for the return of the Golden Age. According to Christian theology, the Fall from Paradise, caused by Man alone when he disobeyed God ("but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it"), has resulted in the wickedness of character that all human beings have been born with since ( original sin).

In a scientific approach to finding utopia, the Global Scenario Group, an international group of scientists founded by Paul Raskin, used scenario analysis and backcasting to map out a path to an environmentally sustainable and socially equitable future. Its findings suggest that a global citizens' movement is necessary to steer political, economic, and corporate entities toward this new sustainability paradigm.

Examples of utopia

Plato's Republic (400 BC) was, at least on one level, a description of a political utopia ruled by an elite of philosopher kings, conceived by Plato. (Compare to his Laws, discussing laws for a real city.)

The City of God (written 413–426) by Augustine of Hippo, describes an ideal city, the "eternal" Jerusalem, the archetype of all Christian utopias.

Utopia (1516) by Thomas More a Gutenberg text of the book Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), a pseudo-utopian satire (see also dystopia). Shangri-La described in the novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton (1933) Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) by Marge Piercy, the story of a middle-aged Hispanic woman who

has visions of a utopian society. The Matrix (1999), a film by the Wachowski brothers, describes a virtual reality controlled by artificial

intelligence such as Agent Smith. Smith says that the first Matrix was a utopia, but humans rejected it because they "define their reality through misery and suffering." Therefore, the Matrix was redesigned to simulate human civilization with all its suffering.

23 August 2010

All About Utopia - English II - Precursor to "Harrison Bergeron"

K-PAX (2001), a film based on the book of the same name, is about a man who calls himself prot, an alien from a "utopian planet" K-PAX.

Equilibrium (2002), a film about an utopia where all emotion is forbidden, which is considered the only way to peace and balance.

Lois Lowry's The Giver

Related terms and concepts

El Dorado: It was among the Muisca that the legend of El Dorado was first heard by the Spaniards. They were told of a ritual ceremony that took place at Lake Guatavita, some distance to the North of Bogota.

Kibbutz Israeli communal settlement in which all wealth is held in common and profits are reinvested in the settlement. The first kibbutz was founded in Palestine in 1909; most have since been agricultural. Adults live in private quarters; children are generally housed and cared for as a group. Meals are prepared and eaten communally. Members have regular meetings to discuss business and to take votes on matters requiring decisions. Jobs may be assigned by rotation, by choice, or by skill.

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Paradise Zion: Within the Latter Day Saint movement, Zion is often used to connote a utopian association of the righteous. This association would practice a form of communitarian economics called the United Order meant to ensure that all members maintained an acceptable quality of life, class distinctions were minimized, and group unity achieved.

23 August 2010