LITR 5439 Literary & Historical Utopias
Final Exam Submission 2009
Kathleen Breaux
10 July 2009
Topic A3: Teaching Utopia
Acquainting Our Students with a Virtuous Utopia
The classroom is a vestibule of a great many things—knowledge, entertainment, community, and most notably, growth of character. As educators, we have the grand gift of guiding our students as they set out to forge their own paths to individual triumph, and we hold the proud burden of ensuring that these ways are paved with more than good intentions. In doing this we must keep in mind that education, like perfection, is not a destination, but a journey.
As our students set out on their own individual quests, we must ensure that they do not confuse greatness with perfection. For, it is our humanistic right to be “surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways” (Crothers). The implementation of utopian literary study in the classroom serves to support this, among several other virtues of the human condition. With regard to Course Objective 5B: “What does utopian or dystopian literature instruct us about education?” let us examine the significance, worthiness, and range of utopian studies as a topic for literature courses, particularly in secondary educational levels.
Education does not merely encompass the aquiring of knowledge and it does not deal solely with academia; the classroom serves as the breeding ground for virtues. As educators, we hold the responsibility to teach our students these virtuous endeavors with respect to their continuous development of consciousness. According to Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, as students enter secondary education, their moral awareness begins to shift from a focus on the self to a focus on the self in relation to one’s surroundings. Beginning in junior high and progressing throughout high school, students increasingly regard themselves as members of a society, rather than just single self-serving individuals. Their moral cognition, which began at a purely egotistical stage, moves into an understanding of and conformity to conventional roles, and eventually arrives at a final level in which “the standards conformed to are internal, and action-decisions are based on an inner process of thought and judgement concerning right and wrong” (Kohlberg). The situations and choices encountered by secondary level students mirror those given attention in utopian and dystopian literature. The implementation of this genre in the academic classroom provides an outlet for students to both become acquainted with the virtues that are developing within their own consciousness, as well as regard the situations in which these virtues come into question from a reader’s objective standpoint.
Like perfection, a student’s most powerful tool is not knowledge itself—facts and figures to be memorized and restated—but the quest for it. For, it is on this never-ending journey toward a distant gleaming beacon of knowledge, that they learn the most. Central to both utopian and dystopian literature is the quest for knowledge, which proves essential in each counterpart. Special attention tends to be granted to the knowledge gained through literature, such as in Danvers’ Circuit of Heaven, as Justine identifies with the unnamed narrator of Rebecca whose “story began with a dream, just as [Justine’s] day had” (Danvers). Whether in More’s phrase-coining work, Utopia, or Gilman’s Herland the human mind’s need for stimulation rings loudly throughout each as essential for both the society and the individual. Even in the repressed society of Rand’s riotously dystopian Anthem, the inherent human desire to know cannot be stifled:
And questions give us no rest. We know not why our curse makes us seek
we know not what, ever and ever. But we cannot resist it. It whispers to
us that there are great things on this earth of ours, and that we must know them. We ask, why must we know, but it has no answer to give us. We must know that we may know (Rand).
Knowledge exists like the utopia on the horizon—ever in sight, ever out of reach—and on this regenerating path toward knowing, students encounter a wealth of virtues that surround this central theme of life and utopian literature. Although they forge their individual fates, students do so from among a group of their peers; as they study through collaborative efforts, students will begin to see the utopian virtue of community taking place in their own classrooms. As objective readers, students will have the opportunity to recognize the benefits and the fallacies of a society that focuses solely on the community as a whole, without regard for the individual. Dystopian texts that counter this strictly communal focus emphasize and heroize the individual, providing an outlet for students’ recognition of the vital importance of their own individuality.
As students study the virtues of community and individualization, they begin to comprehend the appreciation and respect for life itself that is central to both utopian and dystopian literature. From literature to mathematics, sociology to logistics, all academic endeavors surge forth in search for comprehension of the well from which every fountain of humanity springs—life. This recognition lies at the center of utopian studies—whether implemented to control it or to free it, utopian and dystopian societies are formed with the recognition of life’s precious importance. In utopian novels such as Callenbach’s Ecotopia, the health of plants and animals are equated with that of humans to express that by valuing the sanctity of life itself, whether held within treebark or skin, society, both communally and individually, will flourish. Callenbach proposes a paradigm of thought that provokes students to contemplate an alternative utopian way of thinking, and a virtue that may encourage them to propose a change in their own societies as well.
“It is through discussion and dissemination of utopian texts that a [student] can begin to fully realize the importance of not only historical economic, political, and social systems, but apply the knowledge to their current situations as well. It is this self-discovery that sparks the imagination of readers and allows for future discoveries and innovations” (Castillo). Course objective 5 questions what difficulties the study of utopias in classrooms presents, but if we encourage our students to identify the strengths and counter the pitfalls of utopia with the alternatives offered in dystopian texts, the risks of the subject are far outweighed by the benefits. The virtues found in utopian and dystopian texts are ingrained in students as they objectively discuss the moral issues that they encounter in their own lives. The study of utopian literature serves as an arena for experimentation, rich with a field of “What If’s” on which students can tread safely in their objective positions as readers. Through utopian study, students are exposed to the benefits gleaned from a stride toward achievement, as well as the danger of belief in ever reaching the hologrammed destination of perfection.
Breaux, Kathleen. “Animal House: A Modern Utopia?” LITR 5439: Literary and Historical Utopias. June 2009. <http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/hsh/whitec/litr/5439/utopia/>
The Daily Reading Bible. English Standard Version. Illinois: Crossway Bibles, 2001.
“Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.” Abraham Maslow: Father of Modern Management. 9 July 2009. <http://www.abraham-maslow.com/amIndex.asp>
Kathleen Breaux
10 July 2009
Topic B5: Focused Review and Application of Research Postings and Other Sources
Utopia: Breaking From Tradition to Impose Control
The study of utopian literature reveals a society in which basic human needs are met with shelter, sustenance, and safety, but necessities that rest outside the physiological realm are left by the wayside in favor of utopian control. However, a man by the name of Maslow might dare to question even the most stringent Council of Scholars regarding utopia’s detrimental ignorance of the basic need that defines the human experience—that of love. This emotional element, which rests in the heart of the human’s hierarchy of needs, gives way to levels of esteem and self-actualization that in amalgamation with the physical and emotional levels constitute human motivation (Maslow).
Humans were created with the inherent desire to procreate and the inclination to love; these facets account for the sustenance of the human race. Biblical traditions that define and give purpose to these elements at the heart of humanity have become the foundations of societal norms. The Bible instructs that “because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7:1-2). By governing the human’s animalistic desire for sex with a distinct purpose of monogamy and procreation, Biblical traditions provide the context for that inexplicable feeling that runneth over the cup inside the heart of a human.
By imposing monogomous marital unions that give way to procreation and individual family units, Biblical tradition not only institutes societal norms, but gender roles as well. Man was created for God, woman was created for man, and the Lord teaches that by honoring one another, men and women are in turn, honoring God: “Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord… Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church… and the two shall become one flesh (Ephesians 5:22-31).
The influence of Judeo-Christian teachings on societal traditions have thus imposed gender roles as the manners by which we identify ourselves as members of society, as well as the methods by which we assert our indentities within family units. Through the relationships and subsequent loyalties that we develop with others on the basis of love, we also embrace our own individualities.
But, the utopian motivation for the community over the individual is frustrated by these independent and individually imposed loyalties that derive from the basic human instinct to love and to procreate. Thus, utopias seek to counter this inherent element of humanity by implementing control over the desires for love and sexual relationships. In Anthem, Rand depicts a society in which sex is taught as a civic duty, one of “an ugly and shameful matter” (Rand) rather than a natural and necessary element of humanity. As Equality comes to identify the feeling of love despite the word’s absence from his vocabulary, so his humanity begins to reign over his learned norms of utopia. In contrast, More’s Utopia proposes a society where monogamy is valued and family units are imposed; however, these families are governed by occupational trades before bloodlines. Even in this utopia that values many of the traditions on which our society operates, individual family loyalties are superceded by the motivation of the community. Callenbach’s Ecotopia is arguably the most effective society proposed by this genre of literature. “Governing structures, standards, codes, purposes, and guidelines allow members the freedom to exist as individuals within [the utopian society,] rather than utopians whose only [purpose] is that of the society as a whole” (Breaux). But, even in the free love community of Ecotopia, the members of the society are controlled by the lack of control. While Ecotopia recognizes the inherent human affinity for sex, the city imposes a “love one, love all” philosophy to negate the loyalties that might be established through monogomous sexual relationships.
Utopian texts often attempt to reign in individuality by passing over the loyalties imposed by relationships and harnessing in the gender roles themselves. With an emphasis on equality as much as on community, utopias strive to place men and women on the same playing field—or in the case of More’s Utopia, on the same battlefield. In the instances of some extreme utopias, such as Gilman’s Herland, parthenogenesis enters as a means of erasing gender equality issues altogether. The asexual form of reproduction is a glaring representation of Herland’s rejection of Biblical tradition and invention of human-made standards of society. In Woman on the Edge of Time, Piercy proposes an extreme alternative to tradition in which men develop hormones to reproduce, exemplifying utopia’s willingness to cross any boundaries that stand in the way of ultimate equality of its inhabitants, and ultimate control of the society.
Between utopia’s emphasis on community and complete ignorance of personal relationships and dystopia’s achievement of individuality through interpersonal relationships determined on the basis of love, there lies an extreme conflict. This matter is just one of the ways in which utopian and dystopian literature work off of and against one another to provoke thought and discussion, and thus, should be represented in a course objective. Course objective 3E briefly addresses the issue of sexuality, gender, and individuality in its discussion of the social structures that utopia exposes and frustrates, but the matters are not regarded with quite enough pertinence to their reliance and dependence on one another. The proposed new course objective, which would fall under the historical and cultural objectives is “to determine gender roles and standards of sexual and love relationships in utopian communities, and how these differ from or resemble traditional norms.” The insititution of this objective would provide a pathway for discussion of these integrated topics that is so central to the utopian genre of literature.
Castillo, Carlos. “Topic A3: Utopian Literature: A Foundation to Build Upon.” LITR
5737: Literary and Historical Utopias. 2 July 2007. <http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/
hsh/whitec/litr/5439utopia/>
Crothers, Samuel McChord. “Quotations by Author.” The Quotations Page. 8 July
2009. <http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Samuel_McChord_Crothers/>
Danvers, Dennis. Circuit of Heaven. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc., 1947.
“Kohlberg’s Moral
Stages.” 9 July 2009. <http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/kohlberg.stages.html>
Rand, Ayn. Anthem. 1938. <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1250/1250-h/1250-h.htm>