A Critique of More’s Utopia
A Critique of More’s Utopia
More’s Utopia is the representation of his humanist, “rational” ideas. He attempted to show us not necessarily the blue print, but rather the basis of an egalitarian society. This, near ideal, equality motivated society that More created was not (as it may be easily misconstrued) a society of perfect people. It was near ideal because; it was prepared with the notion that its population would not consist of infallible, perfect people. It was created with the notion that people would want to succumb to their natural urges, and to allow them to do so within the limits of the law. The Utopia’s laws were set fourth to make morality the only rational way to conduct ones self. Also, to further indoctrinate the populace with this mindset they were taught to think “rationally” through education. With the understanding that people naturally served their own best interest, and by manipulating laws and other institutions (education, and religion) the Utopians (More) created an environment, where to fulfil ones best interest would in turn fulfil the best interest of the community as well.
The Island of Utopia was heavily steeped in the ways of an egalitarian society. In order for More to extinguish the injustices that were seen elsewhere in the world (particularly England) Utopia was made to be as equal as possible. Everything was divided equally among the people. The houses, the towns, the food rations, the amount of work during the days, and the choices of clothing were all the same. The physical structure of the island it’s self was almost equally distributed. As Raphael Hythloday explains, “The island if the Utopians is two hundred miles across in the middle, where it is widest, and throughout most of the island it is not much narrower, but toward booth ends it narrows a bit.” (53) While the areas of religion, scholastics, and the issue of slavery are all strong arguments leading to faults within the Utopian system, these minor glitches may have been over looked by More, because they seemed inevitable in any “civilized” society during More’s age. This quality of over all equity, is key in understanding the relationship of a perfect society consisting of imperfect people.
People in general were not and are not perfect, and the people of...