Utopia means many things to many people. Certainly none of those meanings have anything to do with the Utopia that Sir/Saint Thomas More wrote about when he penned “On the Best State of a Republic on the New Island of Utopia” late in the 15th Century. My Utopia includes endless lush soccer fields with plenty of cold beer in the aftermath. Others may view their Utopia quite differently. Very quickly, however, should you randomly approach people on the street, you might find answers to Utopian question that run the gamut from such things as the end of hunger or the end of unemployment to the more controversial things such as universal health care--heaven forbid.
Those answers would be closer to More’s Utopia than mine, but I can’t help think soccer would be one of More’s favorite pastimes, had it been around back then. Soccer, you see, is far more akin to a balanced state of social justice then the economic dominance of the winner take all mindset always at the root of capitalism. American football, for instance, is capitalism at its finest and more closely related to the philosophy of Conan the Barbarian, “To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!” Which, ironically, is also more akin to another book, published at about the same time as Utopia. “The Prince”, by Niccolò Machiavelli, which was published in 1513, about three years ahead of Utopia, would never be referenced in any bill on universal health care. But to continue the analogy of soccer, low scoring games, well played, are superior to the breaking of bones.
More was well ahead of his time. And that, perhaps, cost him his head. Yet he was on to something big. Something bigger than the governments of the day, something bigger than the Church of England, or the Catholic Church. He was talking about justice. Was talking about equality. He was talking about happiness. Institutions, such as slavery, were impossible to reconcile with his view of justice and thus, had to play a role in his Utopia. Slaves, were not thus, slaves, but rather the incarceration of those who committed crimes against society. That was an easy fix for the injustice of the day. But so too were the inequities of commerce when the rich were in a powerful position to exploit the poor. Fast forward 500 years. It’s now 2018. Would anyone dispute that living in a democracy, be it in the United States or any other modern democracy, is Utopian? I think despite our political differences we all can agree modern democracies figured most of it out. Yes we have flaws but the precepts of More’s Utopia foreshadow most of our American values for justice and the value of human life. We also work hard, wish to create as few laws a possible, and try to only engage in just wars. We do not commit criminal acts and we are free to worship as you please. Above all, More believes that an overarching principle of Utopia is to be happy. Bob Marley would echo that sentiment.
Yet Utopia, despite the fact that we live in a very Utopian USA, is riddled with criticisms stemming from what can only be described as Marxism. It’s communist at worst and socialist at best. Well yes, the Utopia that Thomas More envisioned had many flaws, but if life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness equals socialism, then yes, socialism is what he wrote about...that, and an unfailing love of God and the Catholic Church. Which isn't so bad either, and no would would argue the impact of the Christian theology on Western philosophy. The Golden Rule is a prominent feature of Utopia, to name but one of the many ties.
We should all drop to our knees and thank Thomas More for writing this book, 500 years overdue. There can be no doubt his influence on our forefathers showed up in our constitutional framework. We credit Hobbes and Locke...but perhaps we fell 100 years short of the real inspiration found in many of our textbooks. Most likely because the common good of the common man flies in the face of profit the past 200 years.
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