This is the woodcut for Utopia's map as it appears in Thomas More's Utopia printed by Dirk Martens in December 1516 (the first edition).
The word
Utopia. It literally translates as “no place”, coming from the Greek: οὐ (“not”) and τόπος (“place”), and meant any non-existent society, when ‘described in considerable detail’.[4] However, in standard usage, the word's meaning has shifted and now usually describes a non-existent society that is intended to be viewed as considerably better than contemporary society.[5]
In his original work, More carefully pointed out the similarity of the word to eutopia, meaning “good place”, from Greek: εὖ (“good” or “well”) and τόπος (“place”), which ostensibly would be the more appropriate term for the concept in modern English. The pronunciations of eutopia and utopia in English are identical, which may have given rise to the change in meaning.[5][6]Dystopia, a term meaning "bad place" coined in 1868, draws on this latter meaning. The opposite of a utopia, dystopia is a concept which surpassed utopia in popularity in the fictional literature from the 1950s onwards, chiefly because of the impact of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Famous quotes from writers and characters about utopia:
"There is nothing like a dream to create the future. Utopia to-day, flesh and blood tomorrow." —Victor Hugo
“It won’t be long until this planet is reborn as “Utopia”.” -
Goku Black
"A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias." —Oscar Wilde
"Utopias are often only premature truths." —
Alphonse De Lamartine
"None of the abstract concepts comes closer to fulfilled utopia than that of eternal peace." —Theodor W. Adorno
"I think that there is always a part of utopia in any romantic relationship." —
Pedro Almodovar
"In ourselves alone the absolute light keeps shining, a sigillum falsi et sui, mortis et vitae aeternae [false signal and signal of eternal life and death itself], and the fantastic move to it begins: to the external interpretation of the daydream, the cosmic manipulation of a concept that is utopian in principle." —Ernst Bloch
"When I die, I want to die in a Utopia that I have helped to build." —Henry Kuttner
"A man must be far gone in Utopian speculations who can seriously doubt that if these [United] States should either be wholly disunited, or only united in partial confederacies, the subdivisions into which they might be thrown would have frequent and violent contests with each other." —Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 6.
"Most dictionaries associate utopia with ideal commonwealths, which they characterize as an empirical realization of an ideal life in an ideal society. Utopias, especially social utopias, are associated with the idea of social justice." — Lukáš Perný [11]
"We are all utopians, so soon as we wish for something different." — Henri Lefebvre[12]
cited the definition from the contemporary Dictionary of ethical and political sciences:
Utopias and other models of government, based on the public good, may be inconceivable because of the disordered human passions which, under the wrong governments, seek to highlight the poorly conceived or selfish interest of the community. But even though we find it impossible, they are ridiculous to sinful people whose sense of self-destruction prevents them from believing.
Engels used the word "utopia" to denote unscientific social theories.[13]
Which means that we should reinvent utopia but in what sense. There are two false meanings of utopia one is this old notion of imagining this ideal society we know will never be realized, the other is the capitalist utopia in the sense of new perverse desire that you are not only allowed but even solicited to realize. The true utopia is when the situation is so without issue, without the way to resolve it within the coordinates of the possible that out of the pure urge of survival you have to invent a new space. Utopia is not kind of a free imagination utopia is a matter of inner most urgency, you are forced to imagine it, it is the only way out, and this is what we need today."[14]
... utopism was a common type of thinking at the dawn of human civilization. We find utopian beliefs in the oldest religious imaginations, appear regularly in the neighborhood of ancient, yet pre-philosophical views on the causes and meaning of natural events, the purpose of creation, the path of good and evil, happiness and misfortune, fairy tales and legends later inspired by poetry and philosophy ... the underlying motives on which utopian literature is built are as old as the entire historical epoch of human history. ”[15]
... every social organization relies on something that is not realized or feasible, but has the ideal that is somewhere beyond the horizon, a lighthouse to which it may seek to approach if it considers that ideal socially valid and generally accepted."[16]
Varieties
Chronologically, the first recorded Utopian proposal is Plato's Republic.[17] Part conversation, part fictional depiction and part policy proposal, Republic would categorize citizens into a rigid class structure of "golden," "silver," "bronze" and "iron" socioeconomic classes. The golden citizens are trained in a rigorous 50-year-long educational program to be benign oligarchs, the "philosopher-kings." Plato stressed this structure many times in statements, and in his published works, such as the Republic. The wisdom of these rulers will supposedly eliminate poverty and deprivation through fairly distributed resources, though the details on how to do this are unclear. The educational program for the rulers is the central notion of the proposal. It has few laws, no lawyers and rarely sends its citizens to war but hires mercenaries from among its war-prone neighbors. These mercenaries were deliberately sent into dangerous situations in the hope that the more warlike populations of all surrounding countries will be weeded out, leaving peaceful peoples.
During the 16th century, Thomas More's book
Utopia proposed an ideal society of the same name.[18] Readers, including Utopian socialists, have chosen to accept this imaginary society as the realistic blueprint for a working nation, while others have postulated that Thomas More intended nothing of the sort.[19] It is believed that More's Utopia functions only on the level of a satire, a work intended to reveal more about the England of his time than about an idealistic society.[20] This interpretation is bolstered by the title of the book and nation and its apparent confusion between the Greek for "no place" and "good place": "utopia" is a compound of the syllable ou-, meaning "no" and topos, meaning place. But the homophonic
prefix eu-, meaning "good," also resonates in the word, with the implication that the perfectly "good place" is really "no place."
In many cultures, societies, and religions, there is some myth or memory of a distant past when humankind lived in a primitive and simple state but at the same time one of perfect happiness and fulfillment. In those days, the various
myths tell us, there was an instinctive harmony between humanity and nature. People's needs were few and their desires limited. Both were easily satisfied by the abundance provided by nature. Accordingly, there were no motives whatsoever for war or oppression. Nor was there any need for hard and painful work. Humans were simple and pious and felt themselves close to their God or gods. According to one anthropological theory, hunter-gatherers were the original affluent society
.
These mythical or religious archetypes are inscribed in many cultures and resurge with special vitality when people are in difficult and critical times. However, in utopias, the projection of the myth does not take place towards the remote past but either towards the future or towards distant and fictional places, imagining that at some time in the future, at some point in space, or beyond death, there must exist the possibility of living happily.
In the United States and Europe, during the
Iptingen, Germany, in 1785. Due to religious persecution by the Lutheran Church and the government in Württemberg,[21] the society moved to the United States on October 7, 1803, settling in Pennsylvania. On February 15, 1805, about 400 followers formally organized the Harmony Society, placing all their goods in common
. The group lasted until 1905, making it one of the longest-running financially successful communes in American history.
The
intentional communities
with some type of faith-based ideas have also started across the world.
Anthropologist Richard Sosis examined 200 communes in the 19th-century United States, both religious and secular (mostly
The Greek poet Hesiod, around the 8th century BC, in his compilation of the mythological tradition (the poem Works and Days), explained that, prior to the present era, there were four other progressively less perfect ones, the oldest of which was the Golden Age.
Scheria
Perhaps the oldest Utopia of which we know, as pointed out many years ago by
Greek colony
, a model for those founded from the middle of the 8th C onward. A land of plenty, home to expert mariners (with the self-navigating ships), and skilled craftswomen who live in peace under their king's rule and fear no strangers.
Plutarch, the Greek historian and biographer of the 1st century, dealt with the blissful and mythic past of humanity.
And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. [...]
And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. [...]
And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; [...] And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman and brought her unto the man.
According to the exegesis that the biblical theologian
, Haag never makes any reference to the discontinuity of the loss of access to the tree of life.
The Land of Cockaigne
The Land of
Schlaraffenland is an analogous German tradition. All these myths also express some hope that the idyllic
state of affairs they describe is not irretrievably and irrevocably lost to mankind, that it can be regained in some way or other.
One way might be a quest for an "earthly paradise" – a place like
Lost Horizon (1933). Christopher Columbus followed directly in this tradition in his belief that he had found the Garden of Eden when, towards the end of the 15th century, he first encountered the New World and its indigenous inhabitants.[citation needed
]
The Peach Blossom Spring
The
Jin dynasty.[47] In the story, the community was secluded and unaffected by the troubles of the outside world.[47]
The sense of timelessness was predominant in the story as a perfect utopian community remains unchanged, that is, it had no decline nor the need to improve.[47] Eventually, the Chinese term Peach Blossom Spring came to be synonymous for the concept of utopia.[48]
Datong
Classic of Rites, in the chapter called "Li Yun" (禮運). Later, Datong and its ideal of 'The World Belongs to Everyone/The World is Held in Common' 'Tianxia weigong/天下爲公' 'influenced modern Chinese reformers and revolutionaries, such as Kang Youwei
.
Ketumati
It is said, once
Jambudvipa will need to take part in cultivation and hunger will no longer exist.[50]
Particularly in the early 19th century, several utopian ideas arose, often in response to the belief that social disruption was created and caused by the development of
History of Socialism
article.) In a materialist utopian society, the economy is perfect; there is no inflation and only perfect social and financial equality exists.
Edward Gibbon Wakefield's utopian theorizing on systematic colonialsettlement policy in the early-19th century also centred on economic considerations, but with a view to preserving class distinctions;[53]
Wakefield influenced several colonies founded in New Zealand and Australia in the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s.
In 1905,
Local Exchange Trading Systems
(LETS).
During the "
Andromeda
(1957) in which a major cultural thaw took place: humanity communicates with a galaxy-wide Great Circle and develops its technology and culture within a social framework characterized by vigorous competition between alternative philosophies.
The English political philosopher James Harrington (1611-1677), author of the utopian work The Commonwealth of Oceana, published in 1656, inspired English country-party republicanism (1680s to 1740s) and became influential in the design of three American colonies. His theories ultimately contributed to the idealistic principles of the American Founders. The colonies of Carolina (founded in 1670), Pennsylvania (founded in 1681), and Georgia (founded in 1733) were the only three English colonies in America that were planned as utopian societies with an integrated physical, economic and social design. At the heart of the plan for Georgia was a concept of "agrarian equality" in which land was allocated equally and additional land acquisition through purchase or inheritance was prohibited; the plan was an early step toward the yeoman republic later envisioned by Thomas Jefferson.[55][56][57]
intentional communities with the hope of developing a better way of living together. Many of these intentional communities are relatively small. Many intentional communities have a population close to 100, with many possibly exceeding this number.[61] While this may seem large, it is pretty small in comparison to the rest of society. From the small populations, it is apparent that people do not prefer this kind of living. While many of these new small communities failed, some continue to grow, such as the religion-based Twelve Tribes, which started in the United States in 1972. Since its inception, it has grown into many groups around the world. Similarly, a commune called Brook Farm established itself in 1841. Founded by Charles Fourier’s visions of Utopia, they attempted to recreate his idea of a central building in society called the Phalanx.[62] Unfortunately, this commune could not sustain itself and failed after only six years of operation. They wanted to stay open for longer, but they could not afford it. Their goal, however, was very similar to that of Utopia: to lead a more wholesome and simpler life than the atmosphere of pressure surrounding society at the time.[63]
It is clear that despite ambition, it is difficult for communes to stay in operation for very long.
Science and technology
Utopian flying machines, France, 1890–1900 (chromolithograph trading card)
", an open, evolving society allowing individuals and voluntary groupings to form the institutions and social forms they prefer.
reversal of aging, self-replicating spacecrafts, arbitrary sensory inputs (taste, sound...), or the precise control of motivation, mood, well-being and personality.[64]
Opposing this optimistic perspective are scenarios where advanced science and technology will, through deliberate misuse or accident, cause environmental damage or even humanity's extinction. Critics, such as Jacques Ellul and Timothy Mitchell advocate precautions against the premature embrace of new technologies. Both raise questions about changing responsibility and freedom brought by division of labour. Authors such as John Zerzan and Derrick Jensen consider that modern technology is progressively depriving humans of their autonomy and advocate the collapse of the industrial civilization, in favor of small-scale organization, as a necessary path to avoid the threat of technology on human freedom and sustainability.
There are many examples of techno-dystopias portrayed in mainstream culture, such as the classics Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four, often published as "1984", which have explored some of these topics.
Ecological utopian society describes new ways in which society should relate to nature.
Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism 1600–1860 from 1995 suggested the roots of ecological utopian thinking.[66] Grove's book sees early environmentalism as a result of the impact of utopian tropical islands on European data-driven scientists.[67] The works on ecological eutopia perceive a widening gap between the modern Western way of living that destroys nature[68] and a more traditional way of living before industrialization.[69] Ecological utopias may advocate a society that is more sustainable. According to the Dutch philosopher Marius de Geus, ecological utopias could be inspirational sources for movements involving green politics.[70]
Utopias have been used to explore the ramifications of genders being either a societal construct or a biologically "hard-wired" imperative or some mix of the two.[71] Socialist and economic utopias have tended to take the "woman question" seriously and often to offer some form of equality between the sexes as part and parcel of their vision, whether this be by addressing misogyny, reorganizing society along separatist lines, creating a certain kind of androgynous equality that ignores gender or in some other manner. For example, Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1887) responded, progressively for his day, to the contemporary women's suffrage and women's rights movements. Bellamy supported these movements by incorporating the equality of women and men into his utopian world's structure, albeit by consigning women to a separate sphere of light industrial activity (due to women's lesser physical strength) and making various exceptions for them in order to make room for (and to praise) motherhood. One of the earlier feminist utopias that imagines complete separatism is Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland (1915).[citation needed]
In
Elizabeth Mann Borghese, gender exists but is dependent upon age rather than sex – genderless children mature into women, some of whom eventually become men.[71] "William Marston's Wonder Woman comics of the 1940s featured Paradise Island, also known as Themyscira, a matriarchal all-female community of peace, loving submission, bondage and giant space kangaroos."[72]
Utopian
Motherlines.[75] Utopias imagined by male authors have often included equality between sexes, rather than separation, although as noted Bellamy's strategy includes a certain amount of "separate but equal".[76] The use of female-only worlds allows the exploration of female independence and freedom from patriarchy. The societies may be lesbian, such as Daughters of a Coral Dawn by Katherine V. Forrest or not, and may not be sexual at all – a famous early sexless example being Herland (1915) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.[74] Charlene Ball writes in Women's Studies Encyclopedia that use of speculative fiction to explore gender roles in future societies has been more common in the United States compared to Europe and elsewhere,[71] although such efforts as Gerd Brantenberg's Egalia's Daughters and Christa Wolf
's portrayal of the land of Colchis in her Medea: Voices are certainly as influential and famous as any of the American feminist utopias.
Critical utopia is a theory conceptualised by literary theorist Tom Moylan.[77] In contrast with utopianism, critical utopia rejects utopia. The idea is highly meta and uses the idea of utopia to advance society while critiquing it simultaneously. A problem with utopianism is identified: it has limitations since the imagined utiopia is significantly distant from current society. Utopia also fails to acknowledge the differences between people that result in differences in experience.[77] Moylan explains that “[critical utopias] ultimately refer to something other than a predictable alternative paradigm, for at their core they identify self-critical utopian discourse itself as a process that can tear apart the dominant ideological web. Here, then, critical utopian discourse becomes a seditious expression of social change and popular sovereignty carried on in a permanently open process of envisioning what is not yet.”[78]
. This goodness theme is advanced most definitively through the promise of a renewal of all creation, a hope present in OT prophetic literature (Isa. 65:17–25) but portrayed most strikingly through Revelation's vision of a "new heaven and a new earth" (Rev. 21:1). There the divine king of creation promises to renew all of reality: "See, I am making all things new" (Rev. 21:5).
. By alluding to the new Creation prophecy of Isaiah John emphasizes the qualitatively new state of affairs that will exist at God's new creative act. In addition to the passing of the former heaven and earth, John also asserts that the sea was no more in 21:1c.
Development of Socialism from Utopia to Science (1870?) by Friedrich Engels.
Ideology and Utopia: an Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (1936), by Karl Mannheim, translated by Louis Wirth and Edward Shils. New York, Harcourt, Brace. See original, Ideologie Und Utopie, Bonn: Cohen.
Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (2005) by Fredric Jameson. London: Verso.
Utopianism: A Very Short Introduction (2010), by Lyman Tower Sargent. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Defined by a Hollow: Essays on Utopia, Science Fiction and Political Epistemology (2010) by Darko Suvin. Frankfurt am Main, Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang.
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