1/9/2024 0 Comments Utopia thomas more backround![]() The result is a happy world in the imagined past or the distant future. As Marius de Geus wrote in Ecological Utopias, “it is extremely attractive to dream of an ideal world free of social injustice, hunger, poverty, criminality, pressure, violence, and pollution.” Utopians examine the roots of these problems and attempt to expose the ingrained structural mistakes of society, and on the clean canvases that they create, they paint a place that consistently breaks from the past by holding up a mirror to their contemporaries. Utopias are appealing because they give people an opportunity to withdraw from their problems, and enter a world of bliss. They are young, in their early 30s, living a life of bliss that includes wearing sumptuous robes, bracelets and perfumes. Similarly, Islamic texts describe life for the immortal inhabitants of the Jannah as happy and without hurt, sorrow, fear or shame. There, Eve and Adam lived free from hunger, worries and clothes. One of the most commonly-known concepts of a utopian place is the Judeo-Christian Garden of Eden. After haphazardly sailing up a river in a forest of blossoming peach trees, a fisherman reached the river’s source through a narrow passage in a grotto, then a village where people had led an ideal existence in harmony with nature, unaware of the outside world for centuries. In 421 CE, Chinese poet Tao Yuanming drifted away from the political instability and national disunity that characterized his time by depicting an ethereal utopia in his fable The Peach Blossom Spring. ![]() In Plato’s Republic-a Socratic dialogue written around 375 BC-the Greek philosopher discusses justice, order and the character of the just-city-state, and just-man. So it’s clear that the Utopian society is founded on reason and organized rationall-and its ultimate benefit is good and proper pleasure.Įven before More, a plethora of writers, philosophers, architects, and intellectuals toyed with the idea of imaginary worlds where society is driven by harmonious living. For Utopians, this architectural uniformity is bliss, as every decade they move and by doing so, don’t have to adjust to their new places. All houses are public because no house is private, and there are no locks. In Amaurot, More’s capital of the island-state of Utopia, all streets are identical, all buildings are the same three stories high. Utopias are far from reality, so much so that the term itself means “nowhere,” as Sir Thomas More wrote in 1516 when he combined the ancient Greek words “ou” (no) and “topos” (place) for his novel’s title, Utopia. ![]() ![]() Equality, peace, and universal access to food, education, healthcare, and employment: No matter which ideals they’re inspired by, utopias are characterized by these crucial elements. ![]()
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