A name for a fictional republic, invented by Sir Thomas More in Utopia (1516); hence, any imaginary (and by implication, unattainable) ideal state. Later works include Samuel Butler's Erewhon (= Nowhere), 1872; William Morris's News from Nowhere (1891); and Aldous Huxley's Island (1962). The term dystopia refers to the reverse, a nightmare state such as in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).
Utopia, in its most common and general positive meaning, refers to an imaginary, ideal civilization, which may range from a city to a world, regarded to be attainable in the future by some.
Human efforts to create a better, or perhaps perfect society are called utopianism.
"Utopian" in a negative meaning is used to discredit ideas as too advanced, too optimistic or unrealistic and impossible to realize.
It has also been used to describe actual communities founded in attempts to create such a society in order to better themselves in an economic and political fashion. Although some authors have described their utopias in detail, and with an effort to show a level of practicality, the term "utopia" has come to be applied to notions that are (supposedly) too optimistic and idealistic for practical application. Utopia, however, is difficult to achieve.
Related terms
Dystopia is a negative utopia: a world wherein utopian ideals have been subverted. Eutopia is a positive utopia, roughly equivalent to the regular use of the word "utopia". The novel offers several conflicting perspectives on the concept of utopia.More's Utopia
St. Thomas More depicts a rationally organized society, through the narration of an explorer who discovers it - Raphael Hythlodaeus.
Utopia is largely based on Plato's Republic. The society encourages tolerance of all religions, but not of atheism, since the people believe that a man must fear some God, else he shall act evilly and their society will weaken. This interpretation is bolstered by the title of the book and nation, and its apparent derivation from the Greek for "no place" and "good place": "Utopia" is a compound of the syllable eu, meaning good, and topos, meaning place.
Types of utopia
Economic utopia
These utopias are based on economics. One classic example of such a utopia was Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward. Another socialist utopia is William Morris' News from Nowhere, written partially in response to the top-down (bureaucratic) nature of Bellamy's utopia, which Morris criticized. (for more information see the History of Socialism article)
Utopias have also been imagined by the opposite side of the political spectrum. Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress portrays an individualistic and libertarian utopia. Capitalist utopias of this sort are generally based on perfect market economies, in which there is no market failure—or the issue of market failure is never addressed, any more than socialist utopias address the issue of planning failures. Also consider Eric Frank Russell's book The Great Explosion (1963) whose last section details an economic and social utopia.
Political and historical utopia
Political utopias are ones in which the government establishes a society that is striving toward perfection.
A global utopia of world peace is often seen as one of the possible inevitable endings of history.
Sparta was a militaristic utopia founded by Lycurgus (though some, especially Athenians, may have thought it was rather a dystopia).
Religious utopia
These utopias are based on religious ideals, and are to date those most commonly found in human society. Their members are usually required to follow and believe in the particular religious tradition that established the utopia.
The Jewish, Christian and Islamic ideas of the Garden of Eden and Heaven may be interpreted as forms of utopianism, especially in theirfolk-religious forms. Such religious "utopias" are often described as "gardens of delight", implying an existence free from worry in a state of bliss or enlightenment. In a similar sense the Hindu concept of Moksha and the Buddhist concept of Nirvana may be thought of as a kind of utopia.
However, the usual idea of Utopia, which is normally created by human effort, is more clearly evident in the use of these ideas as the bases for religious utopias, as members attempt to establish/reestablish on Earth a society which reflects the virtues and values they believe have been lost or which await them in the Afterlife.
In the United States and Europe during the Second Great Awakening of the nineteenth century and thereafter, many radical religious groups formed utopian societies. Among the best-known of these utopian societies was the Shaker movement, which originated in England in the 18th century but moved to America shortly after its founding.
(See also: End of the world, Eschatology, Millennialism, Utopianism)
Scientific and technological utopia
These are set in the future, when it is believed that advanced science and technology will allow utopian living standards; These utopian societies tend to change what "human" is all about. Other kinds of this utopia envisioned, incments, and a significant body of religious and secular literature, based upon the idea of a Utopia on earth.
In many cultures, societies, religions and cosmogonies, there is some myth or memory of a distant past when humankind lived in a primitive and simple state, but at the same time one of perfect happiness and fulfillment.
These mythical or religious archetypes are inscribed in all the cultures and resurge with special vitality when people are in difficult and critical times. However, the projection of the myth does not take place towards the remote past, but either towards the future or towards distant and fictional places (for example, The Land of Cockaygne, a straightforward parody of a paradise), imagining that at some time of the future, at some point of the space or beyond the death must exist the possibility of living happily.
These myths of the earliest stage of humankind have been referred to by various names, as the following examples will demonstrate:
Golden Age
The Greek poet Hesiod, around the 8th century BC, in his compilation of the mythological tradition (the poem Works and Days), explained that, prior to the present era, there were other four progressively most perfect ones, the oldest oicted in all the other accounts mentioned above.
There is a medieval poem (c.
Finding utopia
All these myths also express some hope that the idyllic state of affairs they describe is not irretrievably and irrevocably lost to mankind, that it can be regained in some way or other.
One way would be to look for the earthly paradise -- for a place like Shangri-La, hidden in the Tibetan mountains and described by James Hilton in his Utopian novel Lost Horizon (1933).
Another way of regaining the lost paradise (or Paradise Lost, as 17th century English poet John Milton calls it) would be to wait for the future, for the return of the Golden Age. (Kumar 1987)
Still, post-war era also found some Utopianist fiction for some future harmonic state of humanity (e.g.
Characteristics of Fictional Utopia
Many works of utopian fiction depict an outsider, a time-traveler or a foreigner, who can be shown the features of the society so that they can be shown to the reader.
Virginia Woolf was deeply critical of the level of characterization shown in many utopias, flatly asserting in her 1924 essay "Character in Fiction," "There are no Mrs. Browns in Utopia."
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