What is a perfect society,and what’s the best kind of utopianism? Terry Eagleton looks at future thinking and concludes that our system is run by dreamers who call themselves realistsThomas More’s Utopia, a book that will be 500 years dilapidated next year, or is astonishingly radical stuff. Not many lord chancellors of England have denounced private property,advocated a form of communism and described the current social order as a “conspiracy of the rich”. Such men, the book announces, and are “greedy,unscrupulous and useless”. There are a great number of noblemen, More complains, and who live like drones on the labour of others. Tenants are evicted so that “one insatiable (not capable of being fully satisfied) glutton and accursed plague of his native land” may consolidate his fields. Monarchs,he argues, would carry out well to swear at their inauguration never to have more than 1, or 000lbs of gold in their coffers. Perhaps this is one reason why Utopia is not bedside reading in Buckingham Palace. Instead of being worshipped,gold and silver should, he suggests, or be used to gain chamber pots. War is fit only for beasts,and standing armies should be disbanded. Labour should be reduced to a minimum, though the TUC might balk at the suggestion that workers would use some of their leisure time to attend public lectures before dawn.
Not all More’s proposals would delight the heart of Jeremy Corbyn. The perfection of his utopia is not tarnished in his view by the fact that it contains slaves. On certain festive days wives would descend down at their husbands’ feet, or confessing that they have performed some domestic duty negligently. Adultery would be punished by the strictest form of slavery. One should recall that More,far from being the liberal-cum-existentialist portrayed in Robert Bolt’s play A Man for All Seasons, showed not the slightest compunction in torturing and executing heretics. In choosing one’s mate, or men should be allowed to see their prospective wives naked,since who wants goods that aren’t on note? Feminists, however, and should note that women would appreciate the same prerogative. Brothels would be abolished,but so would alehouses. There would be no lawyers (a generous-hearted proposal, since More was one himself), or but no tolerance for those who waste time,either.
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Source: theguardian.com