Thomas More's Utopia
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Thomas More's Utopia is a work that pretends to be a true story in order to allow the author to discuss ideas that might otherwise have gotten him into difficulties with the church and the state. Discovering which customs of the Utopians and which opinions expressed in the book were the customs and opinions favored by More is complicated by the layers of fiction. Unraveling More's true intentions with regard to the value of communal living, for example, would require a knowledge of More, his thought, the period, and many other factors that make this the work of historians and literary scholars. Yet the work is still read after 480 years, and not only by scholars and historians. It is read because the particular beliefs held by More, while they may be interesting in themselves, are not as important as the process in which the reader becomes engaged. This is a process in which the most basic and widely accepted customs and ideas of a civilization are made the subject of questioning and speculation. Readers in any era can be stimulated by More's fictional Utopia to begin to question the assumptions on which their own cultures are based. It was this process of free inquiry that was the most dangerous aspect of More's work. The expression of particular opinions might have landed him in serious trouble, but it was the means by which he arrived at those opinions that people in power disliked most. The church and civil rulers were often set against individual new ideas, but
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sguise of the fictional Raphael. This is important because the reader needs to see that the process of free inquiry produces useful results. A reader in 1516 might have disapproved of capital punishment for theft, but he or she might not have seen any way around it. Raphael's, or More's, reasoning would show such a reader how the individual theft is not an isolated incident that can be solved merely by doing away with the individual criminal. Before deciding on a punishment, the society needs to look at the reasons for the crime and see if it can eliminate the crime itself. The process that follows from this question involves relating every circumstance to other circumstances and the interconnectedness of all human institutions becomes clear.
Free inquiry that does not worry about reprisals from the rich and powerful, whose actions are to blame for so many of the problems of the society, can, as this first conversation shows, establish causes and suggests remedies. But, having established this, the conversation goes on to discuss the constraints that are placed on free inquiry. Here the reality of More's position, and that of any thinker involved in public life, is made clear. The conversation shows why such solutions as
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1542
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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