Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince and Thomas More’s Utopia were written during a relatively similar time period in the early 1500s. Therefore, both Machiavelli and More’s main character, Raphael Hythloday, both have a lot of the same perspectives on human nature. They discuss the behavioral nature of kings as well as everyday people and outline the ways they conduct themselves. Essentially, both Machiavelli and Hythloday share the same views on human nature, mainly focusing on the fact that…
Almost all of the people seem really happy, you can see they have an attempt to have a have a utopia, they have a solution when they become unhappy with the drug “Soma” so theoretically they should be happy all of the time, Whenever they are frustrated, sad or depressed, they just use “Soma” and bliss out. But is it real happiness when you drug yourself to be happy. It looks like they have a more chemical happiness then a real sort of happiness. Everything is sorted out for them, no issues is to…
Erik Olin Wright’s, “Envisioning Real Utopias” was a lot more scholarly type of reading that I was not expecting considering this was a general education class. Although the reading and studying was more difficult than expected I found that this book was very useful in forcing myself to really study and buckle down with my study abilities. The reason for this is because I found this book too flow more like a scholarly journal rather than a regular book or textbook, the terms and definitions of…
Robert Nozick, an American philosopher born in the 1960s, explores the concept of distributive justice through a minimalist state in his work, Anarchy, State, and Utopia. A minimal state refers to a state that obtains the least amount of power possible without becoming an anarchy. Throughout Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Nozick argues that the minimal state is the only state that can be justified and will not violate people’s rights. By exploring various theories and principles such as the…
chance for utopia in the works Utopia, Brave New World, and Speech Sounds. In Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, the entire society was based on a community of friendship and was structured to promote shared civility and values. The social, political, and economic systems in Utopia are directly affected by the significance of community in their society which focuses on communal property and the net good of society rather than induvial wealth. Moore describes the citizen’s values in Utopia by stating…
Chapter 7 of Anarchy, State, and Utopia begins with introducing a theory of distributive justice called “the entitlement theory”. In a just world, one is entitled to one’s holdings if the holdings are either the original acquisition or there is a transfer of holdings. No one is entitled to their holdings other than by those two principles. However, because we do not live in a just world, Nozick incorporates a third principle: the rectification of injustice. This theory was compelling throughout…
Search for a more perfect world has led various writers to imagine their own ideas of utopia. Aldous Huxley, with both a scientific and literary background, wrote Brave New World in 1932 (Congdon). This book takes the reader to London six hundred years into the future. This stable world is filled with comfort, safety, and control. Everything is industrialized. Perhaps at first glance, this description may appeal to the reader, but a closer look reveals an undesirable and frightening world.…
Rush Limbaugh once said, “Capitalism is always evaluated against dreams. Utopia is a dream. It doesn’t exist.” The figure of utopia we can find in the book “Animal Farm” by George Orwell. Animal Farm is a parody fable where animals of an English farm exasperated of the miserable life, ill-treatment and humiliations under the lash of the brutal master, they decided to rebel and fight for a utopic society of equals. Soon, however, the pigs smarter and richer of the quality organization decided to…
Visons of utopia manifest themselves throughout history as universal and shared ideals, yet the struggle for utopia is most poignantly experienced by the underprivileged and the marginalized. The hope and failure inherent in this struggle is a motif that presents itself in both real and fictional worlds. In 1893, black Americans like Ida B.Wells and Frederick Douglass spoke against the implicit racism of the Columbian Exposition. In 1911, an Italian named Vincenzo Peruggia, reacting to the…
I miss my utopia. My beautiful home built from memories and laughter. I miss the feel of my car, packed to the brim with sleeping bags and footlockers, bumping down the winding gravel road, the anticipation coiling tight in my stomach. The air, eternally smelling of petrichor, heavy with the combined excitement of 200 children piling their way into one space, inadvertently becoming connected, becoming a family for the time we spend together. I miss my paradise, my escape. I miss my home. I miss…