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Little-Known facts about the book "Utopia"

posted 4 years ago by AmeriGirl26 (14379)
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My family has quite an extensive (and very jumbled) library of books, and years ago, when I was in jr. high, I found the book "Utopia," which was apparently my dad bought years ago to read. I only took an interest in it because it was mentioned in the movie "Ever After," and the term is often used as a metaphor for "paradise" or a perfect place. However, reading it for real brought up some fascinating stuff that a lot of people don't know about. For example:

- The term "Utopia" does not mean "paradise." It literally means "No Place."
- It was written by Thomas More (a contemporary of King Henry VIII) and first published in 1516, in a slim book of 110 pages.
- It is said to "tell the truth with a laugh" meaning it was both deeply philosophical, but also silly.
- Thomas More apparently had a sense of humor, because he first starts the book with fictional characters with names like "windbag," telling a fictional version of Thomas himself about the island of Utopia.
- The Utopians even have their own alphabet, which is actually written in the preface of the book.
- The island used to be a peninsula, but the Utopians wanted to separate from whatever land that connected their home, and deliberately dug out the strip of dirt connecting Utopia to the mainland until the ocean flowed in.
- The island is shaped like a crescent moon.
- The Utopians owned slaves who did all the work Utopians couldn't stand to do, such as slaughter animals for food and clothing. All the light stuff, such as gardening and maintaining infrastructure, was done by the Utopians themselves.
- Utopians apparently had their military work out by swimming in their armor. However, this military was not really implemented much, considering how peaceful the island was.
- If you visited one town in Utopia, you had pretty much seen them all, for they all looked exactly the same.
- The Utopians did not put value in gold or jewels. They saw them as baubles for babies and children to play with, causing a lot of embarrassment and confusion when ambassadors from other countries came to visit. (In that era, foreign ambassadors from parts of Europe would be decked out in gold and jewels to represent the richness of their countries). Seeing them dressed like that would make Utopian children laugh and ask why they were wearing baby toys.
- The appearance of the Utopians is never spoken in detail. Their looks are left up to the imagination of the reader.
- The Utopians had three religions: one vaguely similar to Christianity, one that worshiped the Sun, and one that worshiped the moon.
- Any couples who wanted to get married were obligated to be brought together by their families, and the future bride and groom had to see each other naked before they decided if they still wanted to get married.
- The book shows that concepts such as socialism/communism (a supposedly classless, egalitarian society) predated even the Victorian era, but they didn't have those names back in the 16th century. In fact, nobody had a name for it.
- Some editions of the book have a picture of the Tower of Babel being built, printed on the front cover.

[–] joi2049 (5561) 3 years ago

Thanks for posting your OUTSTANDING REVIEW of MORE's UTOPIA AG.

At the UNIVERSITY we had a Great Books course about UTOPIAN SOCIETIES that began with MORE's book, and included reading WALDEN II ( which was also a society based upon Skinner's behaviorism) where a conversation takes place that also sums up the situation regarding UTOPIAN thinking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_Two

>>Walden Two thus avoids the way that most societies collapse or grow dysfunctional: by remaining dogmatically rigid in their politics and social structure

This of course was a LIE, because essentially the FOUNDER of WALDEN II was also a DESPOT or a DICTATOR and one of the characters was also right when he calls him out about it.

In the GREAT BOOKS course We also studied PLATO's idea for a PERFECT SOCIETY which is also mentioned in the review of Skinner's novel:

>>Skinner's Walden proposal is in a tradition that goes back to Plato's philosopher king: a 'legislator' (monarch) and a set of guardians who are wiser than the common people. The guardians "are to be a class apart, like the Jesuits in old Paraguay, the ecclesiastics in the States of the Church until 1870 and the Communist Party in the U.S.S.R. at the present day,"

Our US SENATE also illustrates the same kind of an idea (that a group of GUARDIANS -- like the ENGLISH HOUSE of LORDS -- should also LORD it over the others that they don't consider to be members of their class).

And there have also been several other attempts made to create UTOPIAN SOCIETIES (most of which FAILED). In the 1960's, for example, COMMUNES became popular, but just as quickly became UNPOPULAR when they didn't work out.

In other words, MORE was also a VERY WISE MAN when he concludes that UTOPIA means "NO PLACE," because so far there has NEVER BEEN (and will most likely also NEVER BE) any such place, due to the way what's PERFECTION for ME may also be a LIVING HELL for you due to the way human beings never see a situation the same way.