Pod People?

After looking over Iris' post I realized all of that is totally true! There are so many set rules on how to act, what to do when, how to dress, what to read and your entire daily life is mapped out for you. Where is the self expression? Where is the freedom, the creativity? Admittedly the last two books we read from by Bellamy and Morris personal creativity was mentioned especially with regard to working and living. You could choose how you wanted to spend your allotted money, whether it be on fancy clothes or a nice house. Your "job" was also artistic and enjoyable. Bellamy and Morris, personally, are the two closest things to a utopia we have seen so far. They allow for individual choices, work, and family.

The other reads throughout all I could think of were the Pod People from The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (preferably the 1956 film version). The people described in the utopias just seem like they aren't quit human, like to actually be utopians they lose a bit of their humanity sort of like the pod people. The pod people are perfect clones of the humans but everyone (well everyone that was close with the original person) can tell there is something "off".

These utopias have so many of types of  laws, rules, and regulations that help to make them these utopias that they just sound like they would create mindless people. Everything is so ordered and controlled you don't have to think at all. So after a few generations of a brain numbing life I'm pretty sure people would just get dumber. Like that thing we mentioned in class were they choose sexual partners based on qualifications to create more "average" people.

Does the perfect world really have to create a race of thoughtless people? Why can't utopias like Morris and Bellamy's exist? Why does everything have to be so structured and so controlled that people can't even have a family, own a house or even decide what clothes they wear on a daily basis?

I understand that a society needs rules and guidelines. What is the old thing that kids that act out crave boundaries? Sure I get that as humans we need guidance, hopefully from someone wiser, smarter, and (again hopefully) more morally upright. But why does this guidance have to turn into soul crushing oppression?

Utopia, to me, was always about freedom in many different forms. Personal, religious whatever it was I always thought that for a society to be perfect people should be allowed to do as they pleased. I realize now that for a society to work there do have to be rules in place. There have to be guidelines for daily life and laws and that people can't just go around and do whatever they want when ever they want. But seriously you can't even pick out what you wear that seems a little much to me.



sources: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049366/
http://unseenflirtspoetry.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/homer-fear2.jpg