LITR 5737: Literary & Historical Utopias
Midterm Submission 2005

Bryon Smith

Objective 3b. What is utopia’s relation to time?  Does utopia stop time, as with the millenial rapture?  Or may utopia evolve? 

10-10:20 AM, 3-5:45 PM, 6-15-2005

Utopias: Defining Perfection

Utopia: the word is commonly defined as coming from a set of Greek roots meaning “no place,” but to simply define utopia as no place is rather dismissive.  If we also consider the word as relating to the Greek roots for “good place,” the meaning deepens.  Viewed in light of these two possible etymologies, utopia is a good place that doesn’t exist, rather like perfection.  Perfection, of course, routinely comes into the definitions of utopia:  utopias are thought of as perfect societies, perfect nations, or perfect cultures, where all flaws have been eliminated.  Unfortunately, perfect societies, like perfection in any form, are hard to find. 

The first usage of the word utopia occurs in Sir Thomas More’s work Utopia.  This utopia, therefore, is a reasonable place to begin discussing utopias and perfect societies.  In More’s Utopia, many of the problems visible in European life at the time have been successfully eliminated.  Theft, for example, is nearly non-existent as a result of the lack of money or personal property.  Other crimes, such as violence or adultery, are also uncommon.  Many of the social ills common in More’s time, (and our own,) have likewise been made rare or eliminated altogether:  the Utopians rarely engage in wars; there is no unemployment or under-education; the sick, the dying, and the orphaned are all cared for.  Further, the inhabitants enjoy a very active mental life and have several hours a day dedicated to leisure, which is chiefly spent in reading.  In all it sounds like a very pleasant society to live in.  It is not a miraculous or magical place, however.  Sickness, old age, and death still visit the inhabitants.  From this it becomes clear that Utopia is a plausible society, if not a real one.  It is possible, (if not likely,) that humans could one day eliminate crime and poverty.  Eliminating age and death are significantly less realistic.  This means that Utopia is definitely a good place, and while it is not a place that exists, it is a place that could, without the need of sorcery or divine intervention.  It is not, however, a perfect place.  One indication of this is that crime still occurs, if only rarely.  Another indication is found in the primary punishment for crime: enslavement.  At the time of Utopia’s publication, slavery would not have been viewed as particularly barbaric or evil, but the contemporary reader cannot help but view it as such.  The citizens of Utopia, however, do not view slavery as a contemptible institution, and it appears to have a valuable place in Utopia, providing both a source of menial labor and a deterrent to crime.  Thus More’s Utopia provides a number of characteristics by which to measure other utopias.  This utopia is a good place, enjoying financial prosperity, artistic development, and spiritual sophistication, while lacking crime, poverty, illiteracy, and a host of other societal problems.  This utopia, while fictional, is a realistic place: there are no magical or miraculous occurrences; the inhabitants are not angels or fairies, simply humans who have been shown the error of their ways. 

Utopia does seem to show some evolution here.  Time has not completely stopped on Utopus’ island, as indicated by the changes brought about by Raphael and his traveling companions.  Some technological changes are introduced, including the making of paper and the idea of a printing press.  Another idea, or rather set of ideas, brought to the island is Christianity.  It is also reasonable to assume that progress occurs in Utopian technology and philosophy, although this is not specifically represented.

Another utopian image is presented by Edward Bellamy in Looking Backwards.  This utopia is not no place; this utopia is the United States in the year 2000, as envisioned by the author.  While it is not a vision which has come true, it is a vision based on an existing place, and in a time not far removed from the author’s own.  It is not a distant imaginary country, like Utopia, nor is it a future so far removed as to be unforeseeable.  Again, it is a plausible vision: no miracles are involved beyond society’s peaceful evolution toward a more socialist state, a more perfect union.  In fact, not only is the vision plausible, but some elements of it have come to pass in the century since its publication: many businesses are both regulated and subsidized by the federal government, and in Canada and Europe the universal healthcare described in the novel is a reality.  In this way, it is less of a no-place than Utopia.  It is also a good place.  Like Utopia it has no unemployment, no poverty and little crime.  What crime exists is not punished with slavery, as in Utopia, but is treated as an illness instead.  Further, war has not become a rare event to be fought by mercenary Zapolets, but a non-event which does not seem to occur at all.  In this way, Bellamy’s America is more utopian than Utopia itself, at least in the eyes of a modern reader.  One might even suggest that the only problem in this society is the utter boredom that its residents must be subject to.  In fact, this utopia comes much closer to an ideal society than Utopia, while remaining more firmly planted in the realistic. 

Unlike Utopia, Bellamy’s America does seem to have stopped in the flow of time.  In this vision of America, people listen to the music of previous centuries, apparently without having developed any new music of their own.  Likewise, the inventions already available in the late 1800’s are clearly apparent, although their uses have been somewhat extended.  No new inventions, however, appear to have been created, with the possible exception of the mysterious tubes that propel slips of paper across the country.  It is apparent that a full century’s worth of new literature has been produced, although the literature itself appears, from the little description it is given, to contain nothing except perhaps idle words. 

The third utopia studied in this course, Gilman’s Herland, is a slight departure from the evolving pattern.  Like More’s Utopia and Bellamy’s America, Herland is a good place.  There is no money, and hence no poverty.  Everyone works, and so there is no unemployment.  The population is held in check, to maintain the beautiful environment and food supply.  Education is not only universal, it is constant, ongoing, and painless.  Nature herself protects the inhabitants from invasion, or any other kind of interference.  The wonderful diet and living conditions, combined with the inhabitant’s endless pursuit of self-improvement, have virtually eliminated disease and the decrepitude of old age.  In every way, Herland appears to be a very good place, better than Utopia and at least as good as Bellamy’s America.  It is also more of a no-place than either of the others.  Like Utopia, it is a strange, undiscovered land.  Unlike Utopia, it is hidden from outsiders, completely cut off.  Its location is also secret, the narrator refusing to reveal what continent it is located on.  This allows it to be even more secret than Utopia, because although More has never seen Utopia, Raphael gives him a general idea of its location beneath the equator, on the other side of the globe.  This is not all; Herland is also less realistic, in that its existence depends not merely on the mutual cooperation of her inhabitants, but also upon a miracle.  Were it not for the miracle of parthenogenesis, Herland would have ceased to exist within a generation of its founding.  Herland’s parthenogenetic miracle does not stop there, however, but manages to defy Mendelian genetics in a way that puzzles the narrator and his companions.  In this way, Herland succeeds in being both a good place, and a no place, one that’s not considered possible. 

Herland’s progression through time is apparent.  It is made quite clear that not only their technology, but somehow their genetic pool is continually improved over time.  Their land also shows the passage of time, having been cultivated and re-forested until all of the trees and plants are fruit bearing as well as beautiful.  Herland’s history is also well preserved, and records at least two crises, that of their original founding, and the later crisis of overpopulation, which they carefully solved without fighting or bloodshed.  Because of these advances Herland appears to be more firmly rooted in the flow of time than her literary siblings. 

While it is true that, barring mythological accounts of places such as Eden, utopias are absent from the history of humankind, that has not been enough to stop people from attempting to create them.  One such attempt was seen in the Latter Day Saint community.  Like the residents of Herland, Utopia, and Bellamy’s America, the Latter Day Saints attempted to effectively do away with money among themselves, by holding all things in common, as described in their law of consecration.  This law was dissolved after slightly more than three years, due to “[g]reed, avarice, and the wordly circumstances in which they [the saints] found themselves.”  Similarly, the Oneida community attempted to practice economic communism, holding all property jointly.  While the Oneida community does appear to have had more success with this than the LDS community, their attempt at universal economic equality within their group also failed in the end.  Both of these communities are very much a some-place, not a no-place.  The Oneida community, although it no longer exists, survived for four decades under different names, and the Church of the Latter Day Saints still exists, and is still growing in population.  Whether or not these societies were good places can best be judged by their members.  The Mormon Church’s growth seems to indicate that, yes, for a great number of people it is indeed a good place.  The Oneida community’s demise seems to indicate the reverse, a conclusion which is none too shocking in light of their controversial practices of complex marriage and mutual criticism.  As for the perfection of these communities, the dissolution of the law of consecration and the dissolution of the Oneida community seem to indicate that these communities have failed to find perfection in the eyes of their members or their founders. 

Although the Oneida community, being defunct, has been effectively shut off from the progression of time, during their existence they appear to have embraced the changes brought by time.  One example of their relationship to the flow of time is to be found in their planned breeding program, their stirpiculture. 

In light of these utopias, both fictional and non-fictional, it seems that utopia can be defined, if somewhat vaguely, as groups attempting to improve the lives of their members and succeeding (to some degree,) in this endeavor.  Fictional utopias present a vision of perfection, while experimental utopias attempt to achieve their own visions of perfection, with varying degrees of success.  While it may be said that any quest for perfection is doomed to failure, it is also true that the quest itself may provide a great deal of happiness and fulfillment to those who embark upon it.