Utopias Envisioned
By Betty Bassett
What is the perfect society? Is a perfect society in which people never suffer from want or hunger or danger?
To what extent do our current conditions fall short of your vision of an ideal world? Maybe in a perfect world, we'd all be able to get along, there wouldn't be any wars or natural disasters, and everyone would have food on the table. Being, at least somewhat, a matter of opinion then no one solution is correct.
Some people think that the best possible society would be one in which everyone was completely fulfilled in their lives. Some could argue that a condition of complete peace and egalitarian balance among all citizens is ideal. What we consider to be an ideal condition is, in the end, a function of our values and our principles. Five philosophers—Plato, Thomas More, Campanella, Burke, and Godwin—has their vision of utopia. In this article we inquire into the nature of their utopia and the means by which it might be attained.
Plato
Plato's Republic presents the best examples of his idea of a perfect government. Plato says that the art of molding the soul is also the art of politics. In essence Plato says that the two are the same. Until a politician learns to think like a philosopher and a philosopher learns to think like a politician, it will be impossible to build a state based on the principles of Truth and Good.
Like the soul, an ideal state is made of three parts. It is a three-tiered system
Administration
Security
Material production
The population is divided into three groups:
Producers (or workers)
Auxiliaries (or support staff)
Guards (or soldiers)
People who have mostly sexual desires are in the first and "lowest" class. The second group, called the protectors, is made up of people who act on their beliefs. A sense of duty makes them careful, so they keep an eye out for threats from all directions. People who are moderate and like order and discipline are among the most deserving, and they are the ones who are supposed to run the state.
Plato thought that when it came to running a country, only the most noble and privileged citizens would do. Those who are able to love their city more than anyone else and do their jobs with the most passion should be put in charge. These leaders must, above all else, be able to see and think about the Good.
So, the ideal state is one in which the people as a whole are moderate, the military is strong, and the people in charge are wise.
In a perfect society, people lawfully do what they need to do. People in the City, which could be compared to the different parts of a person's mind, care about justice. For there to be justice in the outside world, there must be justice on the inside. So, in an ideal city, people will get the best education and upbringing for their social class.
Plato places a high value on training guards because they are an important part of society and the source of all leaders. A king or queen-worthy education would emphasize both practical and philosophical understanding. A leader requires a model to help them embody the Good in their state, and education provides that.
Plato claims in the Republic that an ideal world is not as important as it appears at first glance. A life governed by the Good, Truth, and Justice enshrined in this city's laws can suffice. After all, in historical time, the Platonic City begins on the inside before it appears on the outside.
Thomas More
The literary forerunner to the utopian fiction subgenre leading to the concept of what in modern times constitutes a perfect society is Thomas More's Utopia, published in 1516. More's vision of Utopia exists on an island. The most powerful positions in government in this monarchy are held by elected officials. The problem is that each Utopian is so ingrained in their professional corporation that they have no way of rising through the management ranks.
Because the rulers are so distant from the populace, there is no uniform ideology or religion on the island; belief in a single deity is preferred, but each individual is free to work out the "details" as they see fit. You can choose to follow the Christian faith or the pagan religions. It is impossible to claim that there is a God hierarchy or that there are no Gods at all.
There is no currency or private property on the island. Centralized distribution has completely replaced free trade, and the free market economy has been replaced by a government-run universal service for finding and employing workers. Because their slaves are forced to do all the menial tasks, Utopians don't put forth much effort. Slavery is used as a form of punishment for crimes committed by island residents, and it is also an option for foreigners who are sentenced to death.
There is no room for diversity on an island where everyone speaks the same language, has the same customs, institutions, laws, and housing design.
While Thomas Moore's vision ultimately failed, its influence can be witnessed in many modern-day states. These parallels are the result of overarching patterns in the universe, not of strange coincidences. For example, More believed that rejecting private property would inevitably result in cultural unification, which is evident in states where private property was limited. More's utopia also teaches us something that should be self-evident: in the absence of a major technological advance, reducing the workload for some citizens can only be accomplished by over-exploiting others.
Tommaso Campanella
Tommaso Campanella's City of the Sun is undoubtedly a "totalitarian" utopian model.
As a way to teach, the utopian idea for the City of the Sun was for the walls to show trees, animals, celestial bodies, minerals, rivers, seas, and mountains.
Campanella saw private property and the family as the source of evil and crime. Everyone shares everything in the City of the Sun, and traditional family concepts such as monogamous marriage and parental rights are considered archaic.
These "Solariums," or new utopian citizens, constantly collaborate and share everything except their private bathrooms and bedrooms.
People who go to solariums don't know what democracy is. Metaphysician or the Sun, the high priest, and his co-rulers, Power, Wisdom, and Love, are all scientists who have been made city leaders. The lowest-ranking leaders, the priests-scholars, are chosen by the most powerful rulers. No one else has a say in who gets that job.
Solariums bow down at the altar of science. Their whole purpose in life is to learn more about things that make sense. Also, it is based on scientific principles, which the priests then use to explain things in the real world.
Twenty-four priests stand on top of the temple and sing psalms to God at midnight, noon, morning, and night. They have to keep a close eye on the night sky and use an astrolabe to track the positions of the stars. They also have to look into how the universe affects things on Earth. By doing this, they can figure out when and where changes will happen on Earth. They are a link between God and people because they show the best times to fertilize, plant seeds, and harvest crops.
What could be wrong with a system that seems to work so well? Where, in fact, doesn't it work? Why wouldn't it make sense for scientists to run the show in a society that is actually based on science? One could say that the City of the Sun is indeed not a utopia because its people don't get enough time alone with themselves, their significant others, their families, their things, and even their own sins. Like all other utopias that get rid of private property, Campanella's doesn't give its people the right to private property.
Burke
Edmund Burke is credited wih starting the conservative political movement. Burke defends state institutions rather than religious institutions, saying that getting rid of them makes as much sense as getting rid of churches.
Burke uses irony to describe an ideal world. He says that every possible political system, all lead to slavery in some way. So, he says, let's get rid of the state and start a "natural society."
Should we continue to worship this dangerous god, giving up our health and freedom to do so, when political society, in whatever form it takes, has already made the majority the property of the few, leading to exploitative forms of work, vices, and diseases?
Burke says that the natural world paints a totally different picture. Nothing that Mother Nature can give is needed for the world. Slavery would be impossible in such a society because people would only want things that they could get with very little work. In the same way, there is no opulence because no one can make all of the needed parts. Because life is so easy, happy times are to be expected.
On the other hand, Burke thinks that for society to move forward, it needs the political, social, and religious institutions that are already in place. He thinks that keeping things the same is the most natural thing to do and that any attempt to change society is an attempt to create a false reality.
Godwin
Godwin's ideal view of the world is centered on the individual, whose actions are always based on reason. Only a society based on rational ideas has a chance to do well. Because there is only one truth, there can only be one right way for people to live together.
Since all of recorded history is full of bad things, it seems pointless to look for this kind of arrangement in the past. A single standard is set by the government, but so is every other thing that controls the mind.
Godwin says that the perfect person is always a "enemy of the state." Godwin says that soon, instead of nation-states, the world will be ruled by self-sufficient, locally populated communities.
Then the question is, "What does a perfect society look like?"
People have thought about the question of what makes for a utopia for hundreds of years, but no one has come up with a clear answer. Here, we looked at what five philosophers thought about the ideal and perfect society. Each had a different take on what the best world would be like and what it would take to get us there. Even though the idea of what made for perfection was different, each philosopher thought that society could bear improvement and it was incumbent upon us to move toward the direction of a better world.
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