Literary Utopian Societies
"The vision of one century is often the reality of the next..." (Nelson 108). Throughout time, great minds have constructed their own visions of utopia. Through the study of utopias, one finds that these "perfect" societies have many flaws. For example, most utopias tend to have an authoritarian nature (Manuel 3). Also, another obvious imperfection found in the majority of utopias is that of a faulty social class system (Thomas 94). But one must realized that the flaws found in utopian societies serve a specific purpose. These faults are used to indicate problems in contemporary society (Eurich 5, Targowski 1). Over the years, utopian societies have been beneficial in setting improved standards for society. By pointing out the faults of society, improvement is the most likely next step. Citizens should take advantage of utopian literature in order to better future societal conditions (Nelson 104). Because it is impossible to create a perfect society in which everyone's needs can be met, society must analyze utopias in order to improve their existing environment.Plato's Republic was the first "true" work considered to be utopian literature. In fact, the Republic influenced almost all later text written on the subject
In addition, different forms of propaganda were used to keep the citizens in check (Manuel 5, Bloom xiv). While utopias point out problems in contemporary society, they also point out ways to fix these problems (Mumford 2). And, without the creative thinking process, intellectual growth as a whole also slows (Mumford 4, Benz 3). When something did happen to go wrong, citizens were instructed to take soma, which made its users forget about all of their worries. Yet another famous Utopian society that appears to thrive on the surface is that of Sir Thomas More's Utopia. Yet a further disgust that Plato had was the role that women played in society. Although the Republic was one of the most influential works in utopian literature, the society that it represented also had many obvious flaws. Validation of Electronic SourcesPhillip Benz received a Master's Degree in English Literature and currently teaches in France. The privileged class that ruled the society also enforced censorship in order to keep control over the Republic (Manuel 5).
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