Jacob A. McCleese

15 June 2013

Utopian Rhetoric: Dancing to the Beat

            Societies are imperfect groupings of human beings, united with a common goal. Utopian literature depicts elevated, idealistic images of human societies. Usually people do not try to apply the concepts of fiction in real life. It is a small portion of the world that models their lives after fictional accounts. That is not the case with utopian literature. People all over the world reject their lives in order to live in intentional communities, utopias. What is it about this fiction that makes it so believable? What is it about utopian depictions of perfection that cause people to try and mimic fiction? The answer is embedded in in the language that utopian authors use and the rhetoric that is applied in almost all utopian fiction.

            The purpose of rhetorical discourse, at least its classical definition, is to find or invent ways to persuade an audience. Rhetoricians try to find ways to invade the minds of their audience, and tap into the desires, fears, and passions of audiences in order to cause them to behave in certain ways. All utopian fiction has the same goals. Utopian authors create verbal images that appeal to desires created by the human desire for something better. These works of fiction offer a world free from evil, a place where right prevails over all forms of wrong. 

            Who wouldn’t want to move to a place where evil has been conquered? Herland, just to use an example from our class texts, is Gilman's depiction of a world free from villainy. Her world full of mothers purports a very strong rhetorical message, a matriarchal world functions better than a patriarchal one. Of course, like all rhetorical stances, Gilman's theory is up for debate.

            Debate, that’s another way that utopias are similar to classical rhetoric. Many utopian fictions, take More’s Utopia for example, are presented as conversations, allowing many different perspectives to be established at once. In classical rhetoric, rhetoricians paid close attention to a concept called stasis. This concept referred to the “stand a rhetor takes in order to form his or her perspective on an issue” (Portolano 120). Orators were concerned with both where they would stand and how they would stand; in order to gain the best apprehend the reality of what was at issue. Conversations really aid utopian authors in delineating their positions to a mass audience. Isn’t that what utopian fiction is all about? Impressing a way of life onto the minds of readers? 

            Ruth Levitas, author of The Concept of Utopia, claims that the rhetorical aspect, inherent in utopian novels, is mainly aimed at control. Domination is the term she actually uses. Subjective and Objective domination is the rhetoric that is common to all utopian societies, fiction and non-fictional. Participants in utopian communities are indoctrinated into a structured society. They are told how to dress, what to eat, how to work, and when to work. And as is made evident in all dystopia novels, any deviation from the desires of the collective results in excommunication.

            At the beginning of this semester the utopian ideals sounded similar to cultish practices. Believers in utopias seemed to be a little too convinced that their way of life was superior to popular notions of society. I thought that people sympathetic to utopian ideals where weak-minded. However, it is not weakness that is the common characteristic of utopian adherents. It is a willingness to accept the rhetoric disseminated by utopian author. Utopian rhetoric is so powerful because of the human desire for the ideal. People fall for utopian edicts because they want more than what they have. Most people create verbal and visual ideas of how to make the world better, of course most people just want equal voting rights and lower taxes, but in a utopian society none of that really matters. Utopia equals perfection. And humans don’t appreciate anything more than perfection. 

Works Cited

Kateb, George. “Utopia and the Good Life.” Utopias and Utopian Thought. Ed. Frank E. Manuel. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965. Print.

Levitas, Ruth. The Concept of Utopia. Syracuse: Syracuse UP. 1990. Print.

Miles, Malcolm. Urban Utopias: The Built and Social Architectures of Alternative Settlements. New York: Rutledge, 2008. Print.

Portolano, Marlana. “The Rhetorical Function of Utopia: An Exploration of the Concept of Utopian Rhetorical Theory.” Utopian Studies 23.1 (2012): 113-141. Print.