(O)UTOPIA

With all the scourges that are plaguing our planet, I sometimes wonder if there is any utopia at all. However, once I read Utopia (1516) by Thomas More (1478-1535), I realized even if there were a utopia in a Morian sense, it wouldn't really change matters on earth, since it couldn't be any better than many other places. In fact, the pun in the title of More's masterpiece is very meaningful in that it can be defined as "no-place" or "good-place" and both would be equally applicable.

The framing of Utopia represents an idyllic scene, wherein More has a conversation with the Raphael Hythlodaeus, the homo peregrinans, who has been to Utopia, amongst other places. Raphael like his angelic namesake is a messenger of a yonder world, yet despite his vast learning, does not wish to get engaged in politics (very wise of him, I would say). The greenery of Book I contrasts with the gray atmosphere of Book II in which the specifics of Utopia are described:

There are 54 cities, a federation guided by a senate of 162 members which meets annually in the capital city, Amaurot. All cities are identical in language, customs, institutions and laws. Agriculture is the primary occupation; however, everyone learns a trade or handicraft. Everyone works for 6 hrs a day. Some magistrates are entitled not to work, but they do not take advantage of the privilege, preferring to set a good example. The households generally consist of blood relations and extended families. Urban households have no fewer than 10 and no more than 16 adult members. Each year 20 persons from each rural household move back into the city after completing a two-year stint in the countryside. In their place, 20 substitutes are dispatched from the town, to learn agriculture from those who are better skilled at it. The oldest member of each household is the ruler. The society is exclusively patriarchal. Wives act as servants to their husbands, children to their parents, and the younger to their elders. Woman are treated ‘equally’, but in reality are subordinated to their husbands (as is the case with even most of the advanced societies of our time).

Thomas More, en avant de son temps, paints a society similar and yet different from our version of socialism, for not only is property held in common, but also money and private wealth have been abolished. Paradoxically, gold and silver are held to be inferior to the multi-purpose iron. Diamonds and pearls are used as toys for children!

Should one read Utopia, one will realize that the society that lends itself to the title is far from what most of us had been expecting and that More's De Optimo Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia ("On the State of a Republic and on the New Island of Utopia") has been an intentional misnomer. The Utopians' might have a much less tainted life-style than our own, but their lives are in no way enviable. What we ought to learn from the Utopians though, is their disgust for blood sports and hunting on grounds that they lead to mutilation and murder.

Once again, I reach the conclusion that Arcadia is nowhere but in the mind; i.e., if we happen to be lucky enough to have a fertile mind that will foster such a serene space.