More's deceptively eloquent and thorough portrayal of Utopia was most reminiscent of Plato's Republic. Both More and Plato had very specific theories on developing perfect societies by manifesting rigid and perfectly balanced structures for the individuals of the collective in question. There were distinct differences between the two men; however, the general concepts were harmonious: pristine motives, strong work ethics, consistency, and nobody went to bed hungry. And most importantly, emotion became a non-issue. This was, of course, reasonable to keep the delicate balance of the Republic/Utopia from falling into complete chaos. Everyone knows that emotions like fear, anger, and panic are the leading causes of chaos. For More, if there were too many people in the Utopia, they were moved. If one city ran out of food, another shared with it. If there weren't enough blacksmiths, a young man was expected to gladly give up his dreams of becoming a farmer and take of the post of blacksmith. The Utopia was kept in balance.
Utopia was also reminiscent of Johnathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. Like Swift convinced me that eating babies to sustain economy, feed the poor, and decrease the surplus population was a swell idea, More convinced me to believe all of the crap that I wrote above. There is a reason that these ideas were theories and never came into fruition. All incentives aside, More's theory removed the identity of a person. He almost had me convinced, but a society of drones made me lose my appetite. While it may be counterproductive, an individual should have the right to sit on his ass all day and gamble until he's broke and naked having traded in the shirt off of his back. While More's ideas may not seem as extreme as eating babies, they're close. If I want to be a cross-dressing juggler instead of a blacksmith, then I'm going to be a cross-dressing juggler. If I want to raise my son myself instead of shipping him off to a stranger, you had better keep your damn hands off of him.
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As the Renaissance went on, there were a lot of people who realized their dreams of being cross-dressing jugglers, so to speak -- that's probably what More was predicting, and either protesting against or demonstrating the inevitability of.
ReplyDeleteSwift almost certainly read More (and Plato), so you're right about the continuity there.