Utopia Annotated Bibliography

A utopia is a place of ideal perfection. However, according to the Merriam-Webster, it is also an impractical scheme for social improvement. Though dating back to the earliest days of U.S. history, utopian communities became a part of American thought by the 1840s. Various groups that were struggling because of urbanization and industrialization, challenged the traditional norms of American society with a desire to create a world without capitalism, immigration, and the tension between communities. However, these attempts failed due to individualism, materialism, the lack of growth, and little balance.

Utopia, according to Google, is defined as an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. The biggest concept to understand as a person analyzing literature is that a utopia cannot ever exist, there is always going to be flaws and they will often be destructive. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley uses the utopian society archetype to show that the citizens give up their identity and give into conformity. Through this, Huxley reveals that in any society we assimilate to the social norm of society to be happy, thus compromising our identity for happiness.

A Utopian Society is modeled on or aiming for a state in which everything is perfect. “Utopian societies is seen to be perfect by the people who create it.” Everyone in the is equal, no one is better than anybody else. Rules are strictly enforced and expected to be followed by everyone in the society. They are commonly thought to only appear in movies and books they exist in our modern society. They usually fail and end in a big disaster but some are successful. Most utopian societies fail because everyone is individual and we have already witnessed the creation and downfall of Utopian Societies. We have also experienced inequality and the right to live our lives how we want so no leader could convince everyone to act the same, have the same, and

Utopia would be a place where everyone cared and loved for each other. For example, no one would judge nor criticize another person. No one would fight over different things, thus the prevention of war. One would never feel threatened in their acts if nobody hated them for it.

The word utopia originates from Sir Thomas More’s novel of the same name, Utopia. Sir Thomas More created the term as an intentional homophone of the word “eutopia”, which is a Greek word meaning “good place”. (Sterling, 2015) “Utopia”, on the other hand, means “no place”, which implies either an impossibility of existence or the results of attempting to bring about such existence. The reasons why a utopia is so destructive to societies are that each person has their own vision of perfection and it is impossible to make everyone agree; if everyone made their own utopias there would be conflict between their objectives. Also, human nature is flawed and cannot accommodate perfection.

According to Merriam-Webster, Utopia is an imaginary place where laws and social positions are perfect. William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, was published in 1954 and shows that anyone who decides to be a leader must be fair or their society will fail. Through the novel, it is shown that a true Utopian society can not exist because names are forgotten, corruption occurs after creation, and you can get lost in thoughts and dreams.

Thomas More’s Utopia is a work of ambiguous dualities that forces the reader to question More’s real view on the concept of a utopian society. However, evidence throughout the novel suggests that More did intend Utopia to be the “best state of the commonwealth.” The detailed description of Utopia acts as Mores mode of expressing his humanistic views, commenting on the fundamentals of human nature and the importance of reason and natural law while gracefully combining the two seemingly conflicting ideals of communism and liberalism.

The idea of a ‘Utopia’ is captivating to many people. Utopia is defined as a “perfect society”, where there exist no flaws between relationships, economic standards, political standards, and more. Many stories feature caricatures of utopias, such as Harrison Bergeron.

Each person has their own vision of utopia. Utopia means an ideal state, a paradise, a land of enchantment. It has been a central part of the history of ideas in Western Civilization. Philosophers and writers continue to imagine and conceive plans for an ideal state even today. They use models of ideal government to express their ideas on contemporary issues and political conditions. Man has never of comparing the real and ideal, actuality and dream, and the stark facts of human condition and hypothetical versions of optimum life and government.

Every utopia needs a government that is in complete and utter control of the people. Control is power in our government, and if you have control everything runs ever smoothly.

A utopia is any visionary system of political or social perfection. In Moore’s novel an ideal place to live was described and since then many people on Earth have searched to find a utopia of their own. Utopian Cults created exclusive, self-supporting communities that were completely isolated from the sinful world. In all of these cults, success of the community was most important and individual wants came second. The leader of the clan would assign jobs to his/her followers and they had to work. Assignments were usually tasks such as farming, because the cult’s community was isolated from the rest of the world and needed to feed themselves. All recorded Utopian cults have failed within 20 years of effort proving that none of them were up to the enormous challenge of perfection.

For generations, the topic of “utopia” has been discussed. Most commonly we are reminded of a perfect place that cannot exist when we hear the term. What would be your perfect place? What would be your Utopia? In this paper, when we refer to utopia, we will be considering a self-sufficient society that is morally perfect, helping each and every member of the population to be the best person he or she can be. There will be no poverty, no war and no hate. The people of our utopia will be happy with their lives, not just content. No one citizen would be of greater power or importance than another. Everyone contributes and everyone helps their neighbors. According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, “utopia” is defined as “an imaginary and indefinitely remote place as well as an impractical scheme for social improvement.” Society tends to disagree regarding “utopia” with two common stances. The first being that the place Utopia does not currently and will never exist; therefore, it is a waste of time to discuss this imaginary topic. The other side to the discussion is that if we discuss a topic such as this, we can model our actions and set our goals on a path to obtaining a more ideal society. In the book Utopia, written by Thomas More, the author makes note of utopia being a subject best left for amusement among friends and discussions between kings and their advisors. In this paper, we will look at the benefits of our society’s leaders discussing how we may achieve a perfect utopia. We will also consider the benefits of the general population engaging in meaningful discussions regarding the topic. Lastly, we will touch on why it is necessary for both the leaders of society and the general populous to discuss these topics together in order to make the most advances towards our goal, if our goal was to make a society closer to that of Utopia.

1. More than 200 Utopian Novels were published between 1888 and 1900; Bellamy’s Looking Backward is a prime example. Is Connecticut Yankee a Utopian Novel in the standard sense? Twain’s audience has been sometimes children, as with Tom Sawyer, and sometimes an elite group, claiming to have a highly intellectual reading, as with some commentators who study Huck Finn. What is the audience for this book? (Did you ever see the Bugs Bunny version? Or, for that matter, the Bing Crosby film?)

In My Utopia, no ideal government exists. My Utopias’ ideal government would serve one function, and one function only – to protect our liberty, not take it away. Also the power would lie in the community/people’s hands and not in a woman/man with a suit and tie doing whatever lobbyists want them to do. My utopias’ ideal government would strive for love and peace, instead of striving for war and fear.

Utopia is a brilliant novel written by Thomas More. The idea of a utopia seems impossible, how can anyone live in a perfect place when perfection is in the eyes of the beholder? The Utopia in this novel is nothing more than abundant of already established ideas therefore it can’t not truly be a Utopia.