How do utopians choose their mates




















What would a utopian government be like? What is mores view of government and law in general? Who does the agricultural labor in Utopia? What jobs are there in Utopia? What is a utopian vision? What are good laws for a utopia? Why do utopias fail? What is a perfect utopia? What are the 4 types of dystopian control? What would a utopian society be like? What would the perfect world look like? In what genre of fiction are utopias common? Is a dystopia? What is the opposite of utopian?

What are 3 characteristics of a dystopia? What is a utopian world? This way, if gold and silver are needed, such as to pay soldiers in wartime, citizens will not hesitate to turn them over. Though an individual in a market-based economy who works incredibly long hours to beat out his competition is certainly more productive than the average Utopian worker, Hythloday explains that for every one of the productive people, there are numerous people who make no productive contribution.

While no one in Utopia is phenomenally productive, everyone is fairly productive, and laziness on the job is punished. This punishment system admits to the flawed nature of man—Utopia may be perfect, but Utopians are not. The narrator More points out the potential pitfalls of a communal society, but Hythloday maintains that these problems can be overcome by properly structuring society.

Utopia is not ideal because its people are perfect but rather because its laws compel citizens to act perfectly despite their inherent human failings. The narrator of the novel goes to bed in his home in a London suburb one night in , but when he wakes he finds himself in strange surroundings. The people he meets talk about events that occurred in the year as though they were past history. Radical changes have transformed England both in appearance and in its social patterns.

The new society is structured according to the pattern of ideal communism: no money, no private property, perfect equality for every citizen. Labor is shared by every member of the community. These are all familiar attributes of utopian societies. One of the distinctive features of Morris's plan is that labor is regarded as a pleasure rather than a necessary chore, the reason being that everyone works at a task that he can do best and consequently takes pride in the product of his labor.

This essentially Medieval attitude toward the achievement of the workman turns production into something of an art, whether the product is a dish, a meal, a doorknob, or a bridge. The revival of that ancient pattern of individual workmanship has been made possible by the elimination of all but the simplest machinery.

Factories have all been destroyed, and the former pattern of urban industrial crowding and squalor has disappeared. Where London used to be there is a collection of scattered villages. The age is described as post-industrial. The story of the transformation from the nineteenth-century capitalist-industrial society is explained to the narrator by an old man who has made a study of the revolution that brought about the change.

Before the outbreak of armed revolt, conditions for the common workers grew gradually more intolerable, and unions banded together in an organization similar to the AFL-CIO. The establishment ordered the machine-gunning of unarmed protesters, and the people finally learned how to fight back. Certain features of this history are reminiscent of the French Revolution, but others actually foreshadow developments and actions which occurred in the twentieth century, like the firing into the crowd of protesters in Petrograd by the Czarist guards.

Morris's utopia is the natural outgrowth of his lifelong devotion to two causes: first, his Pre-Raphaelite conviction that the workman of Medieval times was a happy man and a fulfilled artist, and second, his political involvement in the Socialist movement. Morris, like Bellamy, predicts a brighter future for mankind, with men and women equal, healthy, and happy; but he differs radically in his discarding of "modernity" with its advancing technology and complex organization.

Wells devotes much of his attention to previews of possible future developments of civilization that are predominantly optimistic. It is utopian specifically in that Wells held a firm belief in the progress of mankind toward perfection; hence, he confidently pictured a bright future. The term "modern" in the title was meant to convey the idea that he intended to keep his picture within the realm of reasonable possibility, avoiding excessively visionary treatment of the theme.

For that reason he was unwilling to adopt certain features that were traditional among the majority of earlier utopists. The great society of the future, he believes, will have a worldwide structure, a World State. Nationalities will no longer have significance. The entire human race will become one commonwealth with uniform customs and mores and with a common language. Money will still be used for exchange, and individuals will still hold the right to ownership of personal property, though all of the earth's land and all sources of power will belong to the State — that is, to everyone.

He does not subscribe to the idea that all work can be made pleasurable; consequently, he declares that every member of society shall be required to perform work up to a minimum which earns him enough to discharge his obligations. Beyond that, he may choose to work more to earn more or he is free to enjoy his leisure.

Equality for all mankind is not a realistic goal in Wells's view. That, he believes, would mean a loss of individuality, and individuality is an inherent requirement of human nature. Similarly, competition is necessary to a thriving society.

Taking what he considers a practical position, he sees the new society as divided into four classes of persons which he calls poietic, kinetic, dull, and base. There is a leader caste, called Samurai, which is drawn primarily from the poietic group, though some from the kinetic class may qualify. Persons who volunteer for Samurai membership must meet stringent requirements, both physical and mental; and they must pledge to conform to the rules of the caste, which forbid eating meat, smoking, drinking, gambling, and participation in public sports or entertainments.

The Samurai furnish the World State with its administrators, legislators, lawyers, doctors, and other leaders. Furthermore, they are the only voters in the commonwealth.

The male members of the Samurai are encouraged to marry women of comparable qualifications, and they are encouraged to produce children with the aim of improving the quality of the population. The lower classes of citizens, the dull witted, the criminals, and the deformed are exiled from society and prevented from childbearing.

The religion of Utopia is based on moral and humanitarian principles but is free from superstitions and formal ceremonies. Its primary tenet is the denial of the doctrine of original sin.

The affirmation of man's inherent goodness is inherent in the pervading optimism of the work. The optimistic views which the author held regarding the inevitable progress of human society were somewhat undermined by the events of World War I, as is demonstrated in his later writings.

He came to question whether or not scientific progress would always achieve social improvement. His warning of the possibility of developing mind control through blatant advertising and through drugs is prophetic.

A body of writings commonly associated with the utopian tradition even though the works seem to be in direct contradiction are variously referred to as anti-utopian or distopian. If it is remembered that the primary motivation for all utopian writing is a desire to attack the ills of existing society and to point directions for the amelioration of human society, we will recognize that these anti-utopian documents are not entirely remote from the traditional utopias.

Indeed, the anti-utopian works purport to offer utopian solutions to social, economic, and political problems at the outset, but sooner or later — usually sooner — the reader discovers that the author's real purpose is satirical. The title of Samuel Butler's Erewhon is intended as an anagram for "Nowhere"; and that, it is recalled, is the translation of "Utopia.

Erewhon is a remote kingdom not on any map, which the narrator claims to have discovered in his travels. Much of the landscape resembles a region of New Zealand where Butler had lived for a few years. The residents of Erewhon are without contact with any other nation and live according to their own eccentric pattern of civilization. In many respects their life resembles that of contemporary Western civilization rather than Plato's or More's plan of society. They are governed by a monarchy, and have lawyers, judges, and prisons.

They have money, banks, rich citizens, and poor. The features of Erewhonian society that surprise the author are those that differ from the England that he knew. According to the early impressions of the travelers, the people all appear to be exceptionally healthy, exceedingly handsome, and altogether contented. Their life style is characterized by simplicity and gracious manners, best described as Arcadian. Gradually, however, oddities, or what appear to be oddities to the visitor, begin to surface.

Duplicity pervades every aspect of thought and action. The natives habitually profess agreement to a proposition although they do not believe in it, and their friends are perfectly aware that they do not mean what they say.

There are two separate banking systems in operation and two sets of religions. The people give lip service to what they call the Musical Banks, but they transact all serious business with the currency of the other chain of banks.

Similarly they recognize a group of deities representing the personification of human qualities — justice, hope, love, fear — and erect statues to them; but their pragmatic morality is evidently dictated by a goddess — Ydgrun Grundy. More and more they reveal themselves to the traveler as victims of self-deception and inverted logic. Their universities are called Colleges of Unreason, and the principal course of study is Hypothetics. One of the most eccentric features of Erewhonian life is the interpretation of crime and punishment.

Illness is treated as a crime. Sentences of varying degrees of severity are pronounced according to the nature and seriousness of the disease. There are no physicians in the country. Those actions which Europeans consider criminal — theft, fraud, embezzlement — are regarded as weaknesses of character deserving sympathy and help, help which is provided through the ministrations of "straighteners.

Another surprising feature is the attitude toward machinery. Several centuries earlier, the Erewhonians had attained a remarkable stage of sophistication in the development of machinery, but through the teachings of a prophet they had been persuaded that machines might some day become masters over men, with the result that they destroyed all of the machinery having any degree of complexity and outlawed any further experimentation in the field.

They retained only the simplest kinds of implements — spades and scythes — and horses and wagons. The section of the book dealing with the outlawing of machinery has attracted special attention from students of utopian literature because of its possible bearing on the attitude of certain philosophers who viewed the industrial revolution with alarm and warned of the menace of the machine age.

It can hardly be concluded that Butler meant to advocate the elimination of machinery, as some later utopists did, for he treats this attitude as one more example of the susceptibility of the natives to outlandish arguments. Nevertheless, he sets forth the arguments in such a fashion that the reader is obliged to reflect seriously on the issue and recognize in advancing technology some serious threats to human values. The reader, following the narrator's shifting attitude from admiration to surprise and finally to contempt, is led to believe that the author is bent on demonstrating the vast inferiority of the Erewhonians to his fellow Englishmen; but it gradually becomes clear that he attributes to Englishmen much of the irrationality and the ingenious equivocations that make the Erewhonians look foolish.

The difference is only one of degree. The technique is close to that of Swiftian satire. In some places it is confused and inconsistent, but in other passages it is both clever and devastating, worthy of the master. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World offers a projection of what life on earth might become in another years if technology plays an increasingly dominant role and if government control of all aspects of human activity becomes absolute.

Skyscrapers will become taller, factories will become more efficient, travel will be mainly by air, diseases will be virtually eliminated, and universal happiness will be provided through elaborate sports and entertainment programs and through a happiness pill called soma.

The new plan of society does not conform to many of the familiar features of classical utopias. Money is used in much the way it was used in the 20th century — for wages, for the purchase of goods and property, and for amusements and travel. Most radical of the anti-utopian features is the denial of equality. Mankind is classified in a caste system that is achieved through controlled genetics and that insures the society a supply of dull-witted, underdeveloped individuals to perform the less agreeable jobs and those demanding lesser skills.

The application of scientific methods begins in the "Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. The types are labeled alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and epsilon, with certain plus or minus grades within each type. In infancy the individuals are scientifically "conditioned" to cultivate certain desires, to abhor certain things, to believe certain truisms, according to the kind of service for which they are designated.

The conditioning takes the form of nutritional treatment, electric shock, screeching sirens, or hypnopaedia — that is, sleep-teaching. Every individual is employed according to his classification — in an office, a factory, a hatchery, on a farm, or flying a helicopter taxi.

A great variety of entertainment is provided for after-working hours — sports like electromagnetic golf, Riemann-surface tennis, and centrifugal bumble-puppy. There are lively nightclubs and "feelies," movies that provide accompanying scents and that also stimulate appropriate tactile sensations. Every evening seems to end with going to bed with someone of the opposite sex.

Description second half? Total Cards Subject History. Level Undergraduate 1. Create your own flash cards! Sign up here. Supporting users have an ad free experience! Flashcard Library Browse Search Browse. Create Account. Details Title History Final Description second half? Additional History Flashcards. Term How do Utopians choose their mates? What contemporary problem do you suppose More was reacting to when he invented this novel way of selecting a spouse?

Term What appear to be the overall goals of the Spanish explorers?



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