Utopia is heaven on earth. A utopian society is where people live in peace love and harmony, where both children and adults live happy with bliss, where everyone’s voice counts; everybody works together for each other. it is also where everybody recycles and nature is not in jeopardy. Life is simply good. Would such a place exist with the demolishment of inequality and disabling of the abuse of power? Knowing human history, intentions and diverse ideologies, one would rationalize that such a place could not exist. Even the greatest mind in history failed to create it, for there will always be inequality, oppression and failure to agree on the concept of good.
The concept of equality argues that people should all be perceived and treated on the same level of privileges. Nevertheless, the scale varies within the essence of ideologies. What particularly defines fairness for one individual does not specifically abide by another in relation to the same given surrounding. Hence, equality does not exist especial in a world divided into classes. Many philosophers talked about the utopian society. From ancient to modern philosophy, all philosophers argued this concept. Although they had different ideologies and set of beliefs most of them still claimed that it is almost impossible to happen. Ancient Greek philosopher Plato talks about the possibility of a utopian society in his book The Republic, only if under strict rules and laws. He believes that in this world of vital living, to avoid greed of the people in charge, they cannot own properties. Therefore ownership and possession of martial things was negated (Plato, 1955). Even though he declares women and men equal still, a lot of factors question the concept of equality in his theory (Plato, 1955). Three classes divided Plato’s utopia, two upper classes and one working class. Meaning that, the upper class, which is the rulers or philosophers and the military class, are the majority of the whole (Plato, 1955). In other words, if we would divide the three classes as percentage to the whole one hundred present we would have 33.3% of each class. Thus, the upper class takes 66.6% of the whole active in the governmental regime. However, that does not mean the population of this class is greater especially after understanding Plato’s qualification request to become from the lower class. Therefore the working class resembles a smaller percentage as a whole but embodies a bigger population of people. Other features of Plato’s utopia were the importance of everyone working together for the good of the state. Nevertheless democracy is not practiced in his utopia since, he thought, a person should be of certain knowledge to have a valid opinion (Plato, 1955). So, if according to Plato utopia is a place where democracy does not exist thus oppression is found, yet one would interrogation equality when classes are made to separate people. Then how exactly is it a perfect world? In our modern history communism was practiced in a number of countries until it failed (Why Communism Failed, 2015). It was proven to be unsuccessful for many reasons. First, no one was allowed any type of ownership to avoid greediness, Second privileges are for everyone and third no one is above the law (Why Communism Failed, 2015). It all sound very promising but, once it was in practice there came to be many defaults. First, people could not work efficiently when they know there is nothing in return for them. Second, not everyone wanted the same thing, people are different and ideologies of happy life varied, so happiness was not exactly evident in everyone’s life (Why Communism Failed, 2015). Instead they all turned into machines, working for no higher goal just serving their country (Why Communism Failed, 2015). Yes, it was a safe place which, was organized and extremely balanced in resources and classes did not exist (Why Communism Failed, 2015), but still it was not a utopian society. Nevertheless, it did not survive. In the movie The Giver, utopian world was illustrated as harmony. People lived peaceful lives that they forgot what humanity means (The giver, 2014). They forgot colors, taste, even culture, and most importantly they objectified emotions to limit them down into small categories of referenced emotions. For example love was considered to be an abstract emotion that cannot be defined. Subsequently, in the world the expression love was not allowed since it has a debatable meaning (The giver, 2014). “Is it worth giving up the experience of beauty, joy and love to end pain and suffering?” says Jonas, the main character in the movie, as he slowly discovers how the world used to be before utopia (The giver, 2014).
If as previously said utopia is a place where everybody counts individually to make part of the whole for the sake of greater good, then democracy is a utopian believe. Democracy according to the Merriam Webster is a form of government in which people choose their leader (Merriam-Webster). Although, in Plato’s theory of utopia not all the people should have the right to choose, He thought to have a valid opinion one should be a philosopher. However, one can only study philosophy after one has served in the military for 10 years, studied philosophy for 20 years and lived for more than 50 years. So that would actually mean a short number of people would be able to express their opinion but, what about the rest of the people in the state? Should they all live in oppression of opinion for the sake of utopia? Would it still be a perfectly harmonious society if most of the people cannot share a thought just because they are not of required age and knowledge? Democracy is one of the five forms of government in our modern age and time. It is wildly spread. There are two types of democrat government direct democracy and indirect democracy. In both cases people get to elect who is in charge. However in direct democracy, they are able to vote directly to all issues thus, state their opinion. Whereas, indirect democracy is when people elect a person that represents them, so he or she would state their opinion in substitution. Either way the core of this ideology is to give everyone the capacity to participate in his or her government. Still, should just anyone have the power to state their opinion effectively if they are not of philosophical, economical and political understanding? In the current situation the United States of American is facing a dreadful situation in their elections for presidency. Although, in their democratic governmental regime citizens participate in the government decision in leadership still, the majority of people might end up electing an unqualified president, like Donald Trump. Not by his level of education nor by his age but by his history of racial discrimination and gender inequality. In parallel, if Trump existed in Plato’s time he would have be suitable for the requirements of leadership, but he would have not survived for the greater good since no good can come of class, gender and racial discrimination. Thus it would not be utopian, but instead will be dystopia, its binary opposite. A real life example of dystopia would be Fascism. Fascism promised to create a new society (What Is Fascism, 2015). It strives nation under a genetic narrative, which, is a racial issue to create a pure race (What Is Fascism, 2015). In theory the main aim of fascism was to solve the problems of materialist capitalism and Marxist socialism (What Is Fascism, 2015). Which is a very crucial point to become fully self-sufficient (What Is Fascism, 2015). However it supports violence to achieve political means (What Is Fascism, 2015). Hence, turned the society into dystopia. In other words, a state of ignorant citizen will never make it a day without abuse or oppression. That is why in a democratic society everyone has at least 15 years of schooling, underage labor is illegal and finally only highly qualified people are allowed to run for presidency. Nevertheless, that does not unify the concept of greater good. Even with equal educational privileges, in a common environment, individuals would still have different hypotheses of what is good or bad, right or wrong and what serves a higher power or goes with the means of contrariety.
The concept of greater good is an individual principle evoked by social perceptions conjoined with experience and exposer. Modern philosopher Immanuel Kant articulates “All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.”(Kant) He explains that every person is born with green spectacles that make everything look green. This green spectacles shapes our perspective and view points. However, ones experience of life with these green spectacles manipulates our idea of what is good. Furthermore ones exposer to advanced life events in juxtaposition with earlier factors stated, shaped ones final rationality of goodness. That is why it is relative and not consistent. Kant explains more about the process of self understanding ones relativity, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not seek or conjecture either of them as if they were veiled obscurities or extravagances beyond the horizon of my vision; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence.” (Kant)
In conclusion, the utopian world is just an illusion like any other “what if” there is just too much at stake. If we were to try to fix the world from all of what it is right now we would fail to even start. It is only if the world would be horrifically demolished and man kind had to start over that they may conceder starting civilization for the sake of greater good and not for the sake of immortality of one ruler over the other. Nevertheless, Utopian ideology is a paradox. It is impossible to happen because humans’ themselves are not idealistic from primary the structure of humanity.
Dec.18.2015
Works Cited
"Democrecy." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2015.
The Giver. Dir. Phillip Noyce. Perf. Brenton Thwaites. The Weinstein Company, 2014. Film.
Kant, Immanuel, and Marcus Weigelt. The Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Max Muller. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, 2005. Print.
Plato, and Henry Desmond Pritchard Lee. Plato, the Republic. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1955. Print.
What Is Fascism? Perf. Lissette Padilla. TestTube News. Youtube, 15 Aug. 2015. Web. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUcYU95kCAI>.
Why Communism Failed. Freedom Philosophy. Youtube, 22 Apr. 2015. Web. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjctCS1kZp4>.
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