EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

What is “Utopia?”

The term ‘Utopia” is frequently written and spoken, especially in literary circles. But it’s meaning can be quite different from one person to the next. What exactly is Utopia?

The dictionary definition is as follows:

an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect

But this is still quite ambiguous because “perfect” can mean different things to different people. Plus, the use of the word “imagined” in the definition tells us that such a place is not real and conveys the idea that it is likely unreachable.

Two well-known examples of utopia from Western religion are the Garden of Eden, a beautiful and pristine place with no knowledge of good or evil, and Heaven, a place in the afterlife where God, angels and human souls live in harmony.

The word “utopia” was created in 1516 by Sir Thomas More as the title of his book, Utopia. In this work, More created a description of a fictional island that had the qualities of perfection as he defined them. He derived the term from compounding the Greek words “ou,” (“not’) and “topos” (“place”), so the actual meaning is “nowhere.”

Other examples of utopia, as represented through literature, popular culture, and other means include:

· Shangri-La, in James Hilton's Lost Horizon

· The “Golden Age of Greece,” as described by the poet Hesiod

· “The Federation” in the Star Trek series

· The Capital in The Hunger Games series, a place of luxury and freedoms

· England in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, with no wars or hunger

· The United States Constitution and Bill of Rights (…in order to form a more “perfect” union…)

As the above list suggests, some fictional utopias actually turn out to be “dystopias,” a world with suffering and injustice. A prime example of a utopia that's actually a dystopia is seen in George Orwell's 1984.

The term utopia as a description of a social environment has manifested in many ways. The idea of "world peace" is considered utopian in nature, and communes, especially popularized in the United State in the 1960’s, were attempts at utopian ways of living. However, there can be many different features of an ideal society, depending on one’s desires and point of view.

In an ecological utopia, the society would work in harmony with nature, producing no waste and pollution, and people would become one with their natural environment.

Beginning in the 16th century, with the ideas of Adam Smith, those seeking economic utopia were responsible for the development of capitalism The works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were also intended to describe a self-sustaining utopian economy.

In a religious utopia faith controls every aspect of a person's life, creating religious harmony. The Amish community is an example of such a society.

Scientific utopia is the idea of perfecting the human condition in terms of improving the quality of life through science. The goals are eliminating human suffering from things such as stress, disease, physical injury and even achieving immortality.

Technological utopian lifestyles would be those that replace human needs or functions with technology in such a way that humans have a higher quality of life. Computers and robots are real life examples of this. Scientific and technologicalutopias are oftentimes connected.

Dystopia or Utopia?

The basic definition of dystopia is “An imaginary place where the state of being is very bad or oppressive.” The word dystopia comes from Greek root words that mean “bad place.” There are many examples of Dystopias in literature:

· Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell

· Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

· Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

· Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (made into the film Blade Runner)

· Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Lord of the Flies by William Golding

· The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

· The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Interestingly, these are mostly considered to belong in the genre of Science Fiction.

Is the world in which you live closer to utopian or dystopian? What about Venerable? There is no correct answer. It’s in the eye of the beholder.

#utopia #dystopian #sciencefiction #Venerable