Escaping Utopia

If a storm had driven me to the city of Utopia, it wouldn't have taken me a two hour visit before I would have picked up my little bags and waved goodbye to all my new nice,hardworking,uniformed, emotionally stunted, clearly controlled friends. Maybe I've seen too many sci-fi films, but that place would have freaked me out!!

I admit it would be nice to live where there was a great health care system " These hospitals are very well furnished and equipped with everything conductive to health" (p 750). I also think this was great for More to point out since proper health treatment was so needed, especially with the Black Death running rampant. It also would be nice not to have starvation on the streets; but for me that was pretty much it. I didn't even agree that the governor should hold office for life. I know, even today, that some feel safe having the same officials in for life, but I think this halts new ideas,progress and change. I think this is the real idea behind More and his creation of Utopia, the questions we can raise about a so-called perfect society, and to ask ourselves how much we are willing to sacrifice to feel safe.

In almost every paragraph I found there were contradictions. From Utopians adorning their slaves in gold, to their seating arrangements when they were gathering to eat. Something that would have really made me want to jump off a cliff was that you couldn't waste time...some of my best ideas come when I'm "wasting time". I think More knew of the pitfalls of a controlled people. I think he lived with passion and that for him to live without his own passions,convictions, and ideas just to have peace would have been a hellish ordeal. I think this is proved later when he was given the choice to live under the protection of the King and break his connection with Rome and the church or die for his faith. He chose to die; which is ironic that in Utopia he wrote about a man who was preaching of a one true faith and is tried and convicted " His sentence after the verdict of guilty was exile. Actually, they count this principle among their most ancient institutions, that no one should suffer for his religion"(p.776). I think More knew that severe contradictions live in a corrupted society, but that contradictions can sometimes reign even brighter in a perfect one.