Value Of Gold In Thomas More's Utopia

Gold In Utopia Every country in the world recognizes gold as a very valuable metal that people desire. The value of gold is immense because it is malleable and ductile, it is used in many industries, and it has had a high value since ancient times. Although most people perceive gold as an extremely treasured item, Thomas More presents a vastly different perception of gold in the book Utopia. Thomas More was a philosopher in England and the advisor of King Henry VIII but was killed after not accepting Henry VIII as head of the Church of England. More wrote Utopia as a way to denounce the political and religious corruption in Europe and present an ideal society. In one particular section of his book, More talks about how gold is used and how …show more content…
Utopians use gold on chamber pots, chains for slaves, and jewelry for criminals in order to diminish the value of gold and they only use it for emergencies. Utopians view gold as useless and not deserving of its lofty value and as a symbol of pride and domination so they learn to loathe gold and eventually eradicate it. In More’s story, foreign ambassadors mistook Utopians as poor and Utopians mistook the ambassadors as slaves so when the ambassadors realised this, they stopped wearing lavish clothing. The moral of this incident is to understand the contrast between cultures and accept them and that the value of materials do not matter since they are subjective.These issues with gold prompt people in the real world to take into consideration the actual values of materials. What factors decide what is highly valued and what factors decide what is not? In conclusion, people must understand that the looks of something can fool people and cause them to believe it is worth much more or less than it actually is. People should not determine someone or something’s value solely based on what is on the outside, but must also take into account what is on the inside as that is what matters