Sunday, December 9, 2012

How many miles 'til Utopia?

Sometime in our lives we'll all strive for perfection, frantically searching, but realizing later on that perfection is impossible to achieve. The reason is that a perfect, ideal society, doesn't exist. Utopia doesn't exist. The quest for utopia began many, many years ago, and continues to this day. Growing up we even experienced utopian influenced works, such as the well-known Aesop's fable The Grasshopper and the Ant. 
However, we saw that even in the fable utopia couldn't pull through. The ant worked hard all summer long, far beyond the extent of the work the grasshopper put in, which resulted in an unfair balance. In an ideal society, laws, government, and social conditions would be at the same level, with no flaws, and no reason for conflict.

According to Google Images, these images below are all images of utopia. Although all incredibly beautiful, could you image living in such a desolate, remote place for your entire life? I know for a fact I couldn't. So now only will a utopian society never be possible because it's imaginary, there's no way to really know if the conditions in such a society would end up living up to stands of the ideal, of perfection. 

To further my case against the utopian society, let's take a look at The Truman Show. 
What image of utopia do we get from this film? It's the suburban society with the white picket fences. The overly charismatic, overly friendly, unoriginal society. While the society may seem so great, there should be something very alarming. This alarming factor is just how fake anybody in a society like this would be. 

What view of utopia did you have growing up or still have today? Is it an actual destination instead of the imaginary utopia created by Thomas More? Do you believe you will ever reach your perfect place?

2 comments:

  1. I agree that utopia is impossible to reach. No one and no society is perfect nor can reach perfection. I directly relate to the inequalities of this world. Perfect equality would be our Utopia, yet this is virtually unattainable. The majority of the world is just but with this justice does not come equality. Even in the U.S. opportunities, are had and lost because of inequalities. The eye-opening thing is that even if the Utopia of perfect equality was reached we, as a society, would not be in a position to grow. This relates to our readings in the manifesto and capitalism. There needs to be diversity in wealth for different functions of society to run. It is hard saying this but maybe not reaching Utopia is what is best for us as a whole. All in all I like the idea of Utopia being an unreachable aspect of life. The question is should we be trying to reach it in the first place for societies sake.

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  2. I like to think of utopia not as a single destination, but as a psychological concept. I know it's defined as a beautiful place with perfection everywhere, but everybody knows that it's unreachable, so we should consider it a little bit differently. I have my version of a utopia, just like everybody else. My perfect is different from your perfect, and, now that I think of it--it is obtainable! We just can't be so expecting of it. There's plenty of potential to feel like you're in a perfect situation, you just have to realize that in perfection lies inherent imperfection. It's a way of life.

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