Utopia Is Not Good

This introduces us to Utopian laws, acting as a serious attack against the politics and social structure in Europe at the time More was writing. Again, as I have said though although some attacks made by More are obvious, for example the blatant attack against Royal Advisors, because Kings were only interested in using advisors for wrongful deeds (look at King Henry using Cardinal Wolsley and the saga that was created when he divorced his first wife, Catherine). Though a lot of the attacks are satirical and ironic. Looking back at the example of female priests, one would not expect this suggestion from a devout Catholic, and it is ironic that in Utopia that women are priests. But again, this only contributes to the overall negative picture of Europe in the 1500s and Protestantism. More was saying that if Protestantism takes over this will happen and the results will mean that England will stray from its sound, upstanding values and chaos will follow. The beauty of being able to look back though means that we have a lot more to compare Utopia to than More. Although More wrote the book as a warning, we can look at it and see the text in a new light. The beauty of Utopia is that it has relevance today. Many see the book at not only a warning against threats in the 1500s, but as a book before its time. Many people see Mores texts as an early warning against communism. The fact that the community is given prevalence over the individual, that if a foreigner harms a Utopian they are viewed as insulting the country, not as having harmed and individual echoes recent days of Stalinist Russia, the rule of Lenin and even near recent times in China. The text itself shows what can happen in a society if individualism is lost, people become faceless and they suffer. Look back at the example of those forced into slavery if they commit adultery; it became easy in Utopia to see people as meat, as currency; ironic seeing as Utopians see money as the root of all evil and privatisation is prohibited. Utopia has many issues within it that are relevant to many different times, but what do we think about the actual morals and issues within it as they stand alone? The emphasis on work and idleness shocks me most of all. It is almost as though More has created some sort of twisted marriage of a warped Utilitarian view of using people as ends with communism. Disregarding the warnings from history and looking at it from a moral and philosophical point of view, I believe that as I have just said, More has created some early form of Utilitarianism. People are not respected as free moral agents but are seen as a means of attaining happiness for the majority of people. Even then it is questionable whether these people are happy. Perhaps they act happy out of fear? Heresy is the worst crime after all, so why should.