Work
Utopia
Overview
A utopia ( yoo-TOH-pee-ə) is an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its residents. The term was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, which describes a fictional island society in the New World, but some utopian visions predate it.
Hypothetical utopias and existing intentional communities that have utopian elements focus on, among other things, equality in the areas of economics, government and justice, with the method and structure of proposed implementation varying according to ideology. Lyman Tower Sargent argues that the nature of a utopia is inherently contradictory because societies are not homogeneous. Their members have desires that conflict and therefore cannot simultaneously be satisfied. To quote:
There are socialist, capitalist, monarchical, democratic, anarchist, ecological, feminist, patriarchal, egalitarian, hierarchical, racist, left-wing, right-wing, reformist, free love, nuclear family, extended family, gay, lesbian and many more utopias [ Naturism, Nude Christians, ...] Utopianism, some argue, is essential for the improvement of the human condition. But if used wrongly, it becomes dangerous. Utopia has an inherent contradictory nature here.The opposite of a utopia is a dystopia. Utopian and dystopian fiction has become a popular literary category. Despite being common parlance for something imaginary, utopianism inspired and was inspired by some reality-based fields and concepts such as architecture, file sharing, social networks, universal basic income, communes, open borders and even pirate bases.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Philosophers who discussed Utopia
- Étienne Cabet
- John Gray (philosopher)
- Francis Bacon
- Tommaso Campanella
- Karl Marx
- John Amos Comenius
- Karl Mannheim
- Thomas Sowell
- Intellectual
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Marquis de Condorcet
- Ernst Bloch
- Aldous Huxley
- Friedrich Schiller
- Nikolas Kompridis
- Euhemerus
- John Zerzan
- Nikolai Fyodorov (philosopher)
Related ideas
- Egalitarianism
- Ritual
- Étienne Cabet
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- French language
- Jesus
- Faith
- Francis Bacon
- Adam and Eve
- Germany
- German language
- Government
- Princeton University Press
- Book of Genesis
- Jonathan Haidt
- Homer
- Hesiod
- Springer Science+Business Media
- Ancient Greek
- Neologism
- Republic (Plato)
- Justice
- Tommaso Campanella
- Lucian
Place in the tradition
Part of Agriculturalism.