UtopiaModel or reality essays

UtopiaModel or reality essays In his famous work Utopia, Sir Thomas More describes the society and culture of an imaginary island on which all social ills have been cured. As in Platos Republic, a work from which More drew while writing Utopia, Mores work presents his ideas through a dialogue between two characters, Raphael Hythloday and More himself. Hythloday is a fictional character who describes his recent voyage to the island of Utopia. Throughout the work, Hythloday describes the laws, customs, system of government, and way of life that exist on Utopia to an incredulous and somewhat condescending More. Throughout the work, Hythloday presents a society organized to overcome the flaws of human nature. This society has been carefully thought out by More-as the author of the work-to help avoid the problems associated with human nature. Individual human appetites are controlled and balanced against the needs of the community as a whole. In other words, More attempts to describe a society in which the seven deadly sins are counterbalanced by other motivations set up by the government and society as a whole. I believe that by providing the answer to the timeless question of overcoming mans inherent evils in such a way More creates a perfect society to be modeled after. Many of the ideals in Mores Utopia are, as the name implies, based on ideal situations and not reality. They would work well in a civilization of automatons, but would be abolished quickly in a human situation. Nevertheless, we can apply the ideals held by the Utopians to our own societies since the ideals themselves are attainable even if a perfect society is not. More seems to think that the seven deadly sins will be fairly easy to overcome. Pride, for instance, is counterbalanced in several ways in his social system. For instance, he makes sure that all people wear the same clothing, except that the different genders wear different styles, as do married and unmarrie...