In this post I will
be discussing the subject of Utopia and dystopia.
The word utopia is
derived from the Greek word which means "no place" and "good
place". The word basically
describes a society or civilisation that lives under perfect and ideal
conditions.
Utopia is also the
name of a book written by Thomas More in 1516.
This work of fiction takes place on an island which is named after the
title. On the island the people have
collective ownership over food stored in warehouses where everyone takes only
what they need. Men and women do the same
amount of work on their farms to provide food for the collective society and some
widowed women may also become priests.
More's fictional
island also introduces the concepts of a welfare state with free healthcare for
all and with state sanctioned voluntary euthanasia for the elderly or infirm. Priests are allowed to marry and divorce is
allowed. There are no lawyers and the
law is presented transparently to the people in order to understand right from
wrong. There is no crime. Women must also confess their sins to their
husbands once a month.
The lifestyle of the
islands inhabitants this isn't a Communist or socialist state. The households elect a leader to rule over
individual states but the whole island is ruled by the King.
On the surface this
way of life is seen as absolute perfection but deep down there are some
concerning factors. Each household on
the island has two slaves and women must, once a month tell their husbands of
any misdeeds. Equality doesn't seem to
exist here despite the fact that this island is a supposed to be a utopia. The law of the land is made easy for the
inhabitants to understand in order to stop crime from ever happening but, in my
opinion an understanding of the law won't prevent crime but only make it
worse. The subject of euthanasia that is
state sanctioned is a very prickly topic as it entails the concepts of people voluntarily
ending their own lives and the fact that it is legal to do so.
Utilitarianism means
that happiness is the most desirable end that all men strive for or, to quote
Jeremy Bentham "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that
is the measure of right and wrong".
This basically means that whoever has the most votes, wins. John Stuart Mill however takes into
consideration the fact that one ideal may be the most desirable could also be
the worst option for everyone else who disagrees. The options must be considerably weighed up
for the greater good. I strongly agree
with John Stuart Mill because it encourages critical thinking in the process of
deciding the best course of action instead of just enforcing laws that only
enrich the lives of the majority.
The concept of a
flawed paradise is displayed in a painting called the Garden of earthly
delights by Hieronymus Bosch. Underneath
the utopian imagery there is an uneasy and sinister undertone. In my honest opinion I think that all
utopia's are flawed because not everyone thinks alike.
A utopian ideal is
shared by people who agree with it and those who disagree are shunned by the
majority. A real-life example of this is
from Levittown, built by William Levitt and his family in 1948. The town consisted of houses built with the
same materials, in bulk and all looked exactly the same inside and out. The housing was intended for soldiers that had
returned from the recent war and their families. The Town capitalized on the post war
depression.
When
a black family tried to buy a house in Levittown, nearly all the residents who had
lived there since the beginning protested against the purchase. This was due to the fact that in those days if
the community went black they would be massive financial problems. This still came down to racism. In my opinion a utopia is only a utopia from
the perspective of whoever created it and whatever the creator detests will be
considered undesirable to whoever agreed to this in said utopia.
A
dystopia is the polar opposite of Utopia where everything is terrible and
destructive. A dystopia is most
disturbing when it appears beneath a sugary coating. I had a look at a clip from the movie Blue
Velvet. The footage introduced us to a
seemingly perfect town complete with children holding hands on their way to
school. We then focus on a man watering
the garden who in turn accidentally cuts of his ear. It lands on the grass and is then devoured by
insects. I believe this best describes
what a dystopia is.
More
examples of dystopias came from books such as The Beach by Alex Garland and Island
by Aldous Huxley. As mentioned in a
previous post the game mirrors edge also portrays a dystopia. More explicit dystopias are depicted in The Road
by Cormac McCarthy and the movie Children of Men directed by Alfonso Cuarón.
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