Utopia - St Thomas More (1 Viewer)

[Son of John Leo]

I am 2/3s of the way through this book
I thought that it may tell a story, which might have been more interesting, but it is more like an instruction book...

I can see why it is studied at University, but does anyone know how we could create a Perfect Society, which Utopia seems to be?

I was talking in my local eat-in to a couple, and when I told them of my plans to set up a Political Party they said I was looking for Utopia...

I had just explained that members of my Party would be able to vote if they were younger than me and anyone older than me could advise the youngsters on how to vote...

 

[Talia_Brie]

That's an interesting idea, but I don't know how it would create a utopian society.

There's lost of utopian fiction out there. Try Waldon Two, can't think of the author. There's also a significant level of contemporary SF that tries to explore this idea. If you do a Google on Utopian Fiction, you'll probably get a 1,000 hits.

How to creater a utopia? Thomas More had a good idea, but it required a certain geographical framework, and I think it still would have only worked for a relatively short amount of time. I seem to recall that one of his ideas was that when a city becomes overpopulated, a percantage of the population move to another location. The island upon which the society was based is only going to be able to support this system for a short time. Also, when the cities become older, and their theoretical foundations less clear, who's to say one of them isn't going to try to invade the others?

Another utopian idea surrounds Feminist Utopias. There's a huge body of work in this area. Essentially, these are based around matriachal societies, rather than patriarchal. They are based around the idea that the source of evil in our society is Patriarchal Capitalism. I certainly agree with this, but I don't know that the solution is Matriarchal Communism, although it might be.

Essentially the idea around Utopian Fiction is to look at the problems today's society is facing, poverty, violence, crime, greed, prejudice, and consider how to move to a society without those problems. Unfortunately, what most Utopian Fiction fails to address is the method of getting there, adn how that relates to the proposed philosophy.

What I mean is most of the time moving from a violent capitalist society to a peaceful socialist one requires a war between the capitalists and the socialists. There is an inherant contradiction there.