Utopia - The Impossibility of Perfection
Utopia - The Impossibility of Perfection "The latter end of [this] commonwealth forgets the beginning." William Shakespeare, The Tempest From Plato's The Republic to Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, the search for a perfect social state has never stopped; its ultimate goal of achieving a human society that exists in absolute harmony with all due social justice, however, has proved to be woefully elusive. The pure concept of a utopia can be theoretically visualized as a perfect geometric circle: one that is seamless, all-inclusive, yet impossible to draw out in reality. In 1516, Sir Thomas More depicted in his famed Utopia what he envisioned to be an ideal state, one that frees its citizens from material worries by mandating economical equality amongst them and dividing social responsibilities impartially. More's work, however brilliant, cannot conceal the serious fallibilities and troublesome limitations of the utopian thoughts; and being the ambivalent creator that he was, More consciously emphasized the paradoxical nature of his ideal society. A century later, in his last work The Tempest, the great playwright William Shakespeare presented his audience with a mystical Commonwealth that is a reflection of the Golden Age from the classical literature. This fantasy, wrapped in the larger still whimsy that is The Tempest, will have the human race return to the purest state of nature. The Tempest, on the other hand, can be interpreted as a critique of the Utopian state. If the apparent paradise can only be sustained by magic and the deconstruction of human civilization, Shakespeare seems to imply, then utopia is altogether unachievable and impracticable. There is little doubt that Sir Thomas More's Utopia is a work of social criticism on the harsh social reality in King Henry VIII's England. Through the mouth of the idealistic and fiery character Raphael Hythloday, More uncompromisingly railed against the then-present society and its endless
evils. Among the most important of which were the Closure Movement (consequently, loss of land possession by farmers) and the unreasonably harsh law system that fathered a vicious circle, "if you do not find a cure for these evils, it is futile to boast of your severity in punishing theft what else is this, I ask, but first making them thieves and then punishing them for it?" (More 14) What, then, is the root of all these evils? According to Hythloday, the economic system is built upon the fundamental principle of private ownership. "So long as private property remains, there ...
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evils. Among the most important of which were the Closure Movement (consequently, loss of land possession by farmers) and the unreasonably harsh law system that fathered a vicious circle, "if you do not find a cure for these evils, it is futile to boast of your severity in punishing theft what else is this, I ask, but first making them thieves and then punishing them for it?" (More 14) What, then, is the root of all these evils? According to Hythloday, the economic system is built upon the fundamental principle of private ownership. "So long as private property remains, there is no hope at all of effecting a cure and restoring society to good health" (More, 29) Utopia has no currency, no use for precious metals or luxury of any sort, and most importantly abolishes private ownership. The result, as Hythloday mythically describes it, is a perfect world in which people leave in accord because they are cut off from the source of greed and envy. In this world, people develop a complete detachment to the unnecessary material life because they do not own anything except for their own bodies. Yet despite its apparent seamlessness, this theory is doomed to fall apart when it is subjected to examination from the capitalistic perspective. When the fictional More, the representation of the author's other philosophical half, raises the question about the apparent lack of motivation for people to produce in a such a society that disavows private ownership, Hythloday only replies that the concern is not uncommon. This question one that is crucial to the understanding of Utopia remains unanswered, and indeed unanswerable. While Utopia can be regarded as crossover between an awkward blue print for a social system and a fantasy state that can only exist in one's wistful imagination, the Commonwealth from William Shakespeare's last play The Tempest is much more explicitly a creation of fancy. It is plausible that Shakespeare at least knew of More's work; and while The Tempest may not be a direct response to Utopia, it does offer a different angle of views on the utopian ideals. It is difficult for one to take Gonzalo's proposal any more seriously than to take Trinculo's ravings for the truth, but a glimpse into the other side of Utopia is captured one that is completely free of human designs and machinations. Gonzalo's speech calls for a revival of the Golden Age that is first depicted in Ovid's Metamorphoses: "All things in common nature should produce / Without sweat or endeavor? but nature should bring forth / Of its own kind all foison, all abundance / to feed my innocent people" (Shakespeare 135-136) The fantasy of a bountiful nature that spares humankind the need to till the earth is not an uncommon one, nor is the total rejection of the idea of human government. When compared with Utopia, what is noteworthy about Gonzalo's speech is its evident anti-intellectualism and the glaring contradiction in its supposed order of governance. Contrary to More's belief that a perfect world must be human made through painstaking organization and even manipulation, in The Tempest the utopia is to be produced by nature alone. In fact, according to Gonzalo, the creations of human civilization such as trades, arts, and social institutions all but tarnish the pristine condition of the Golden Age. The human intellectual tradition, arguably the only realistic hope for achieving a near-perfect society, becomes the very scapegoat for its absence. Whereas More put his faith in men and the possibility of a flawless system designed much like a bee hive, Shakespeare's Gonzalo cannot envision an artificial Eden. Furthermore, through the ironic contradiction between a blessed anarchy and a benevolent autocracy, the audience is again presented with the paradoxicity of utopian thought as a whole. It can also be argued that Gonzalo's Commonwealth is but a concentrated microimage of the even bigger utopia in The Tempest that is, the play itself. Just as Utopia is a refuge (and literally so for shipwreck sailors and travelers like Hythloday) from the outside world that is filled with social injustices and moral fallings, the mystical isle in The Tempest is the refuge of Prospero and Miranda from the schemes in Milan and the earthly evils that are associated with them. Prospero, the protagonist and designer of the entire work, plays the Hand of God throughout the plot progression. At the ending of the play, Prospero asks the audience to free him from both the play and the fantasy. Just as Raphael Hythloday must return to the world that he claims to despise for its complexity and sins, Prospero is bound to leave his contemplative life behind on the mystical Isle. The Commonwealth is, in the end, but a play within a play, a dream within a dream. Though drastically different in their approach and vision of the perfect states, More's Utopia and Shakespeare's Commonwealth share two common fatal flaws. Both of them are built on the purposeful yet overly optimistic assumptions that 1. Human evil is fostered by environments, not born into nature itself; and 2. This evilness can somehow be purged out of individuals. The widely assumed democracy and personal freedom enjoyed by the citizens of Utopia is limited at its best. As Raphael Hythloday had declared, "there is no chance to loaf or kill time no chances for corruption. Because they live in the full view of all, they are bound to be either working at their usual trades, or enjoying their leisure in a respectable way." (More 45) This can hardly be labeled morality but rather coerced conformity, as those who refuse to obey to the social rules and standards, both de jure and de facto, are either punished by law or become stigmatized by the community. This method of achieving so-called social harmony cannot but remind one of Fredrich Nietzsche's views in "Morals as Fossilized Violence": "by [methods of punishment] the individual was finally taught to remember five or six "I won'ts" which entitled him to participate in the benefit of society." (Nietzsche 253) In Utopia, this system of intimidation is further reinforced by religion and the belief of an afterlife in what is a shockingly cynical view of human nature: "Without religious principles, a man would have to be actually crazy to pursue harsh and painful virtue, give up the pleasures of life and suffer pain from which he can expect no advantage." (More 50) Thomas More's Utopia and William Shakespeare's The Tempest offer two visions of utopian societies. Both models, however, are flawed in essence. If one is to accept the possibility of a utopian state, then he must embrace the belief that men are inherently good, or at least can be made to observe good rules without fail. In the Golden Age this was, we are told, the reality: "No law or force was needed; men did right freely without law or judge all men were safe" (Ovid 89). Yet in a society such as Utopia, "good" is in a sense merely what the law dictates and the majority agree to; while in The Tempest, "good" is understood to be "innocent" which is by definition without knowing the distinction between good and evil. At the heart of a social system's imperfections are the defects and weaknesses of human nature. After all, separate individuals are the atomic components of an inclusive society that is the sum of all their virtues and faults. The utopian philosophy falters because it refuses to address the darker side of the fundamentals of human nature the foremost of which is greed and malice. It needs to be remembered that human evils breed oppressive systems, not vice versa. By revolutionizing the societal system into a form that is supposedly just, one does not redeem nor remedy the intrinsic moral defects of its citizens. The Utopian philosophy remains, after all the pursuits, a hollow icon on the altar of aspiration. Works Cited More, Thomas. Utopia. Robert M. Adams. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992. Nietzsche, Fredrich. "Morals as Fossilized Violence." The Prince. Robert M. Adams. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992. Ovid. "The Golden Age." Utopia. Robert M. Adams. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992. Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Stanley Wells. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
