Utopia Is A Dangerous Idea, Responsible For Millions Of Deaths Throughout The Twentieth Century

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.

A utopia sounds like a wonderful thing. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “utopia” as an “imagined or hypothetical place, system, or state of existence in which everything is perfect, esp. in respect of social structure, laws, and politics.” (OED, 2015, entry 2) But what happens when someone tries to bring this imagined land of perfection into reality? Both in fictional literature and in real life applications, utopian dreams destroy societies.

The western concept of utopias stem in the age-old world, where fables of a carnal arcadia lost to history, linked to the human ambition to build an ideal community, abetted in forming the utopian notion (“Utopias in America”). Ideal communities have varied considerably in philosophy and design, and maybe not all have been persistently utopian in the draconian understanding of hoping to achieve a system for a "perfect" community. Utopian "communitarianism" seems to have deeper roots set in the United States than in Western Europe, more specifically in actually putting philosophy into practice. This composite mental image may appear misplaced in a nation with an intense admiration towards individuality, but the perseverance amongst these societies brings to light quite a bit about the incredibly diverse American culture, notably how the sexes have thought of cultural advancement and how

Throughout history, many utopian societies have been established in hopes of creating a protected and uniform environment. In order to maintain a perfectly equal and errorless environment, some basic human rights are often violated. Many of the utopian principles put in place are based on the fear that the citizens will gain knowledge and notice the absence of their basic human rights. Unfortunately, once the citizens figure out that the government has infringed on their civil liberties they become disillusioned and want to revolt. This ultimately causes dissention and unhappiness throughout the utopia, which defeats the sole intention the leaders had when creating it. To avoid the rebellion, leaders of utopian experiments infringe on

“Ideas shape the course of history”- John Maynard Keynes, Economist. History has a way of always changing things. We get these ideas of how to the make the world better, how to make a country better, how a make a city better. All of these ideas of what would make the perfect place to be in. We all envision a perfect place for us to live in. We envision what the government would look like, how the government would look like. But it is not just the government we envision our own perfect way. Economic structures, religious beliefs, social customs, and legal systems, we envision these things to be perfect, according to our own wants and desires. In Sir Thomas More’s Utopia that is exactly is happening. Utopia is defined as an imagined place or

Parity of basic needs, elimination of poverty, and balance of power within society are features of Utopia. However, current culture may find the manipulation of the individual for the good of the commonwealth and the indifferent attitude towards women to be dystopic features of Utopia that hinder it from being an idyllic place.

A utopia is what everyone is aiming for, but is that really what they are getting? With the hopes of a perfect society, we the people are rushing for a drastic change in the way things work without giving too much care in which direction things are changing, and that can and will cause definite issues. In the hopes to rush into a perfect world, too many people are treating government like a roulette wheel and hoping for the best, even though all odds are against them. In doing so, they are setting themselves up for a more controlled tomorrow.

Garden City, Ville Radieuse, and Octagon City. (io9.gizmodo.com). The reason for failure was the simple fact of nothing can ever be perfect. Everyone will always have different point of views. One place which they say was supposed to be a utopian society in Texas is Post,Texas. Post, Texas which was established for people who worked for post the cereal was meant to be perfect. This town also failed in becoming

A utopian society would be classified as perfect and just for all. This society has been conceived numerous times throughout history along with numerous ideologies. Although these ideologies have solved specific problems, none of them can be considered perfect due to numerous perceptions, which in turn would prevent perfection. In 1984, the Party made a totalitarian government. Like other oppressive governments throughout history, the ideology designed by the Party was not capable of creating a society that could support all people. Currently democracy provides the best society, but can still create oppositions of views. Even though some ideologies may present themselves as ideal, when applied to reality, they fail due to uncontrollable factors. This means an “ideal” society is impossible for mankind to accomplish as proposed by the totalitarian government in 1984 and from historical events.

Utopia:Possible or not Do you think a utopia is obtainable? First of all, a utopia is an imagined place or state of things where everything is perfect. The word utopia was first used in the book “Utopia” in 1516 by Sir Thomas More Well, due to these article, “Why Utopias Fail”, “Communities that didn’t Pan out”, and “The Amish Lifestyle”, I do not believe a utopia is possible.

One must sometimes wonder what an ideal utopian world would be like. The first things to come to mind would probably rather trivial, such as golden roads, chocolate fountains, etc. However, the underlying core of what a utopian society would be like is one that would have an abundance of two seemingly unknown words, morality and humanity. Morality and humanity would be the greatest grace for any society to have, for any government to be driven by. Sadly, this is usually not, nor has it really ever been, the case. Instead, government is run by a largely imperialistic attitude. That is, whatever can satisfy the greed and hunger of a nation is what matters, not the inhumane suffering that follows afterwards. This imperialistic and dehumanized

In a perfect utopian society everyone gets what they need because communication, understanding, and open mindedness of different ideas would be key. In order for a society to be a utopia, everyone has to be comfortable and be provided with their wants and needs and everything needs to function perfectly. In order for function and equality, people must compromise in thoughts and ideas to provide for everyone. To do that, one must have a good understanding of why others may think differently and have the ability to accept that. One of the many reasons our Earth is not a utopia is because of the competition and contradictory understandings of people, and the inability to accept other’s ideas. You do not have to believe what others believe, but respect for separate thought would make the world better. If everyone had their thoughts heard, were more sympathetic of different ideas and more capable of compromise, then there would possibly not be such gaps in social standing and humans dying from lack of basic needs while others bathe in gold.

Each citizen of Utopia should value total and complete equality above all else. Total and complete equality encompasses social matters and governmental matters; no individual is above another in any capacity. This also applies to dealings with the structure of government: the needs of the individual are equal to the needs of the government because the government is the people. This is achieved through the elimination of social hierarchy. Man cannot think of himself as better than his peers if they are equal parts of a whole.

Coming from the Greek words ‘outopia’ (meaning ‘nowhere’) and ‘eutopia’ (meaning ‘good place’), Utopianism is the idea of a perfect society. Although visions of this perfect society vary, most can be characterised by an abolishment of exploitation, greed and conflict. Utopianism is often most associated with Anarchism and because of this, many critics are often quick to deem the ideology idealistic and unattainable. However this view of Anarchism is, in fact, over simplified itself, and as a wider philosophy Anarchism can be broken into much smaller strands - all with varying degrees of utopian belief.

Throughout the ages, man has come to idealize a word that is most commonly related to ‘heavenly’ or ‘perfect’ without actually picking up the book and realizing for themselves that there is no such thing. A Utopian society could never exist because man is made to want, to desire success. Man is competitive by nature and would never be happy in a society where everyone is equal and there is no chance of advancement. Sir Thomas More dreamt of a land that was much like England but could never surpass time. He opened the eyes of a nation and made its people desire something new. Views were significantly changed and the world would never be the same. Sir Thomas More inspired dramatic changes in religion, community life and even paved