It's kind of like CSPAN meets the Discovery Channel. Thomas More practically invented this dys/utopian genre (Plato, in his Republic, was an early model too) by mixing together a whole bunch of other ones: philosophical dialogue (hello again, Plato!), fantasy, travel stories, adventure. So, that's right, The Giver, Fahrenheit 451, and, oh, The Hunger Games all owe a big whopping debt to our guy Thomas More. Dystopias are just inverted utopias: instead of being (supposedly) great places, they are visions of obviously terrible places. You might be even more familiar with the utopian genre's evil twin brother, dystopian literature. Utopia is where we get the English words "utopia" and "utopian," both of which describe an imaginary or unreal place very different from reality and having all the best qualities we'd like the real world to have. When's the last time you read a book that was so influential, its title actually became an English word? We're guessing a while to never ago. What is Utopia About and Why Should I Care? To really understand the ground-breaking power of this one, little book, you have to go read it for yourself. So, sure enough, he wrote a book that requires some serious individual responsibility to decide what it's saying.Īnd you know what? That kind of responsibility turns out to be hugely empowering, making Utopia an incredibly influential book that has been inspiring (and confusing) authors, philosophers, artists, leaders, teachers… okay, practically everyone, since it was published. While we'll never know exactly what its author, Thomas More, intended, we do know that he was a major figure in the English Renaissance who cared deeply about the moral and political responsibilities of individuals (kind of a radical, new Renaissance concept itself). But the trickiest part of Utopia is that it's never entirely clear whether what we're hearing about is supposed to sound awesome, horrible, or a little bit of both. It was also written kind of "backward:" More wrote the first part after he wrote the second part. But also because a lot of what it describes was-and still is-pretty controversial and can seem incredibly modern: more rights for women, no private property. Yep, Utopia has been confusing its readers since it was written in 1516, and not only because it was written in Latin (which was actually not that unusual). Yikes, yikes, and huh? You thought we were talking about the best country. Yes, please.īut before you jump up and start packing, you might want to consider some other Utopian customs: slavery, government restricted travel, and 24/7 uniforms. What makes them so super-duper? Try zero-poverty, six-hour work days, and almost-no-wars-ever on for size. Fed up with the greed and corruption he sees in European countries, he goes around explaining (to whomever will listen) how amazing these Utopians are. Arguably one of the first books to invent an imaginary world, Thomas More's Utopia describes the travels of one man, Raphael Hythloday, to an undiscovered island that he considers to be the best country on earth. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away was the commonwealth of Utopia.
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