Another short book that has been on my list for a while. Utopia was published in 1516 and while preceded by several utopian style books before it (most notably Plato’s Republic) it was one of the earliest utopian novels created after the printing press had been invented (1436). Partly serious, partly satirical it seems to be a pretty gutsy book to have been written when it was considering the Spanish Inquisition started in 1478. This book describes a fictional island called “Utopia”. The island had the following interesting attributes:
- No private property
- No personal wealth
- No diversity of clothing -everything standard issue
- No money (gold was stored for war)
- Greatly reduced capital punishment (Criminal would first be forced to be a slave and if they didn’t comply eventually, they would finally be killed)
- Aversion to war
- 6hr working days
- Ruled by a prince
- Freedom of religion (except Atheism)
- They make their chamber pots and the chains of slaves out of gold to promote a culture that does not esteem gold
- Bonus- Prior to being married the bride would be stripped naked and presented to the groom for inspection and vice versa groom to bride. This would assure that there were no “hidden” deformities that would cause the marriage to be more difficult than necessary. These details and many others made this island a pretty revolutionary idea. There are several details in the book that seem are borderline satirical. For example the last name of the character in the book who is describing this Utopia (which is from the Greek ou-topos which means ’no place’) was Hythlodaeus means “dispenser of nonsense”. This has caused commentators some confusion. My personal opinion was that these details provided him a way to say his opinion without becoming a crispy critter, a big old “just kidding” appended to his book. To me this seemed pretty forward thinking, but still has its problems. Mostly in the fact that the society is built off the incorporation of other people’s greed or criminality. For example, all their slaves come either from criminals of the state, prisoners of war. Or volunteers from nearby countries that don’t have it as good as the Utopians. So, they are really opposed to war, and it doesn’t seem like there would be many people “volunteering " to be slaves, which leaves criminals. This would then put a premium on creating slaves. Which doesn’t seem great. This is a genre is something I intend to look more into. I spend so much time reading about deconstructing ideas it is nice to read people’s best attempts to construct something for a change.
Rating 7.8/10