I was pleasantly surprised early on in my reading. Raphel describes “quite a few customs from which (More's country) might take example in order to correct (their) errors (More, pg 13). Excellent! The outsiders have customs and ideas that the English can learn from!
Despite my joy, I still think that More's Utopia needs some serious improvements. I'm reading his book with modern, jaded eyes, so I think that his once radical ideas are not quite good enough. The people in Utopia aren't suffering, for the most part. Heck, the slaves in this story probably have a better time than some of the more radical monks we've read about. Men and women both learn trades! There's plenty of food and a gardening competition! Yaaaay!
| Better than a little bit of cheese and some wine. |
But, better is still pretty far from perfect. There are slaves. Sure, they're people who probably would have died otherwise, but, there are slaves.
People who are sick and suffering are allowed to end their lives. I don't disagree with that, but I do have problem with the fact that they are encouraged to do so. “Really Bill, you're pretty much a waste of flesh and food now, just kill yourself. It's better for everyone.” I think that's a bit much.
No one has property so there aren't any fights, but no one has privacy either. I don't care if the door is mine or not, but please give me a lock for it. I don't need to own the lock, I just need to have it available, please.
Women are more equal in this Utopia than they were in 16th century England, sure, but it's still not nearly enough. Women must marry into their husband's households, do all the cooking in addition to their trades, can only accompany their husbands on wars, and are generally subservient. It's better, but that doesn't mean it's good.
More's Utopia also has a few other tricky little areas, like the praise of genocide and how there's overall religious freedom, except for atheists of course. Atheists get nothing. I like this Utopia more than anything else we've seen so far, and I think it comes the closet to providing for it's citizens equally. I still want more than that though. This utopia is certainly better, but it's not good enough for me yet. More equality, less slaves. That's really what me and my modern views are looking for.
( Image taken from feedio.net)
I agree with you on a lot of what you wrote here. It's better, but far from perfect and I felt lacking in some areas. I also noted while reading the lack of privacy with the communal living situations. I I definitely wanted more, more of what I do not know, but something.
ReplyDeleteYeah the idea of encouraged suicide and the joy they seemed to get from genocide seemed a little off for a utopia. I can understand allowing suicide especially for someone with terminal illness or old age but let the person decide for themselves! The genocide seemed a bit strange for a utopia but as we read in Plato they had a strong standing army that was trained to take pride in killing so I suppose the Utopians were told to take pride in wiping off the other race.
ReplyDeleteI feel similar about this book. While I like it a lot, I *do* have a list of some significant dislikes.
ReplyDeleteI like what More tried to do with the women in Utopia. His ideas would have been pretty radical for his time. Yeah, they're not equal, but to a 16th-century pre-feminist, he would have made a solid step in the right direction. Points to More for trying.
I also don't like the encouraged suicide, or really the general extermination of people who are terminally ill. Some may say their examples. My uncle has been dying of ALS for the past six years, and he's taught me more in that time than he did before then.
... Also I think you get this week's "Punniest Title" award.
I agree with you 100% about the advice for suicide for sick people. I really didn't like that and the equality among the sexes is a little off but More could be making fun of how his society looks at that situation because he was an advocate for equal rights for women. Also, Iwas just curious about how you would go about dealing with criminals if you don't like the way that More has set up the condition of slavery, because in my opinion, eventhough he has slaves in his utopia it is not all that unpleasant to be one in his Utopia
ReplyDeleteGwen, I like how you point out that "More could be making fun of how his society looks...because he was an advocate for equal rights for women." This uncertainty about where More is being satirical is extremely intriguing to me. I'm sure in some courses many class periods are spent on just dissecting his book and deciphering which sections were intended to be taken seriously. I like how you really have to think deeply and have a decent amount of background knowledge about More and the time period to have a real understanding of his intentions.
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