UTOPIA- THOMAS MORE

Utopia (published in 1516) attempts to offer a practical response to the crises of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by carefully defining an ideal republic. Unlike Plato's
Republic, a largely abstract dialogue about justice, Utopia focuses on politics and social
organization in stark detail. The books begin a conversation between Thomas More and
Raphael (Hebrew for 'God has healed'). Raphael is a traveler who has seen much of the
world yet is impressed by little of it. Before long, it becomes clear that Raphael offers
shrewd analysis of various communities around the globe - and that he finds most of
them to be faulty in some way. Even Tudor England offers little in the form of
civilization. Raphael illustrates this rebuke by noting that thieves in English society are
executed when, instead, they should be pitied and helped. The seizure of land by
oligarchs, the maintenance of a wasteful standing army, the practice of gambling and
gratuitous ornamentation .
Of course, Raphael remains an outsider to civilization - despite his wisdom. When More
asks if he might serve as counselor to some king, Raphael responds that no king or court
would tolerate a counselor who might challenge their strongly (and wrongly) held
assumptions. Referring to Plato's Republic, Raphael notes that the likelihood of a king
acting as a philosopher, or merely tolerating one, is coincidental at best: "I'd be promptly
thrown out, or merely treated as a figure of fun" (p. 57). More responds that social reform
is a pleasant ideal, but that conservatism is more appropriate to these precarious days:
"what you can't put right you must try to make as little wrong as possible. For things will
never be perfect, until human beings are perfect - which I don't expect them to be for
quite a number of years" (p. 64)! Raphael concludes Book One of Utopia by responding
that cures for social ills demand systematic healing of the body politic. No improvement
in public life can occur without the elimination of social illness at its deepest level. This
is not mere fancy, Raphael reminds his friend; the good life can be realized, if it can be
visualized. Throughout the second book, Raphael helps More visualize the perfected
story by sketching his recollection of a distant island: Utopia. I've chosen to organize his
narrative according to four principles
• elimination of private property