By Amber Zheng
World Literature class last spring devised their own Utopias. Students drew their ideas from Sir Thomas More’s “Utopia”–agreeing or disagreeing or elaborating upon the model. Of course, “Utopia” translates into “No where.”
Utopia is broadly considered to be the ideally perfect society. However, it’s far from reality. David Kocen, last spring, expressed his own thoughts about Utopia. He believes that Utopia is an idea with flaws. From his perspective, Utopia is not going to work. The following are some excerpts from his World Literature essay.
“I do not condone the creation of a utopian society if it cannot be done without excessive bloodshed and hardship for the people. Since I believe that this is the only way to accomplish the creation of Utopia, we should instead focus our efforts on making what we already have better, instead of completely overhauling all of society.”
David asserts that it is necessary to get rid of people who don’t fit the idea of Utopia. Moreover, certain number of population needs to be removed in order to give all people in the society enough opportunities: “It is my personal belief that the only way to succeed in forming a Utopia is to get absolute support. This would mean exiling or killing those who do not support you.”
Unfortunately, the Utopian society still won’t work even if we remove those who are opposed to it, because: “Humans, by their very nature, tend to be more interested in accomplishing their own goals rather than bettering the whole. We are not to blame for this. It is simply evolution trying to be as efficient as possible in insuring the survival of humans. Sadly, evolution has only one tool and that is survival of the fittest. The fittest could help the week, but unless everyone else helps the weak as well, the fittest will be taken advantage of by those who seek only their own gains. It is sad but true……we are too unstable to create a truly utopian society without negative emotion. It just does not work.”
Having said that the Utopia itself will never be a success, David doesn’t think striving for it is a bad thing: “feelings and thoughts are what make us unique. Everyone responds to different things in their own ways. Without individuality and variability, life would be too bo
ring. What is the purpose of living for eighty something years if it is just false smiles and blissful repetition? …… A Utopia, in the common sense of the word, is just a nation filled with meaningless joy. That does not mean that we should not strive to m
ake the world a better place. One of our main purposes in this life is to create a better habitat for the children that we bring into the world. While complete success is impossible and meaningless, motivation for improvement keeps us going through life. We will never succeed in creating a complete Utopia, but we can strive for it. And, with each success, we will achieve a genuine smile on our faces. If we are lucky, we may even get some other people to smile with us.”
*Introductory graphic by Amelia Wang, for World Literature class.