It’s a strange book, yet quaintly intriguing in all of its naïveté. The world More created is simplistic to the point of being ridiculous, but that makes his ideas no less interesting. I first read his book when I was 11, it didn’t strike me as comical as it did this time around… In fact, in my childish and innocent mind, Utopia sounded kind of brilliant. Mainly because at that age, I was an idealist and I was optimistic to a fault. I hadn’t experienced the world yet, nor did I understand humans and the way we relate to each other.
Utopia has some very interesting ideas in it, but as you read it, you’re aware of a paradox: yes, these ideas could be great in practice, but there would never be an all around consensus... Therefore, it would end up being a heavily flawed socialist experiment (as history has proven). Maybe I’m too pessimistic at this point in my life, but many of More’s proposals in Utopia sound terrible to me. Rather than tear the book apart, I’ll give the main example that swam around my head the whole time I read it: an utter lack of artistic expression would be the death of civilization. More thought it would be wonderful if everyone looked the same, did the same things over and over, and there seemed no place for art in his “idealistic” world.
I found the novel to be considerably more humorous than serious, maybe because I am aware of the aforementioned paradox: try as we might, wish as we may, it is simply unattainable, so much the better because if there were no place for artists… what good would Utopia do me?
Utopia has some very interesting ideas in it, but as you read it, you’re aware of a paradox: yes, these ideas could be great in practice, but there would never be an all around consensus... Therefore, it would end up being a heavily flawed socialist experiment (as history has proven). Maybe I’m too pessimistic at this point in my life, but many of More’s proposals in Utopia sound terrible to me. Rather than tear the book apart, I’ll give the main example that swam around my head the whole time I read it: an utter lack of artistic expression would be the death of civilization. More thought it would be wonderful if everyone looked the same, did the same things over and over, and there seemed no place for art in his “idealistic” world.
I found the novel to be considerably more humorous than serious, maybe because I am aware of the aforementioned paradox: try as we might, wish as we may, it is simply unattainable, so much the better because if there were no place for artists… what good would Utopia do me?
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