Not many books on my “To Read” list are 500
years old, but Utopia was on that
list until I read it recently. “Utopia” was a term coined by the author, Thomas
More, for his book with that title published (in Latin) in 1516.
Introducing More
Many of you probably remember that More was
a staunch Catholic who opposed King Henry VIII breaking away from Rome and
declaring himself the head of the Church in England. Accordingly, in 1535 More
(b. 1478) was convicted of treason and beheaded.
A few of you also may remember that “A Man
for All Seasons” was the movie which won the Academy Award for Best Picture of
1966. That is a fine film about Thomas More, a fine man.
During the seventeen semesters I taught one
of the required theology classes at Rockhurst University, a Jesuit school in
Kansas City, Thomas More was always a part of my lecture about the beginnings
of the Church of England. I would always tell my students how I admire More
because he was a man of great integrity.
It is hard to know what to make of his Utopia, though
More’s Utopia
“Utopia,” from the Greek words meaning no place (ou topos), is said to be
a pun on the Greek words meaning good place
(eu topos). The first definition of
utopia in the online Miriam-Webster
dictionary is “an imaginary and indefinitely remote place.” But when
capitalized, it means “a place of ideal perfection especially in laws,
government, and social conditions.”
The island of Utopia in More’s rather complex
book was inhabited by people who lived quite differently than people in
England—or in other parts of the world, for that matter. It was a socialistic
society where people lived with little interest in gold (and all that that
represents) and with a high level of equality—and satisfaction.
Attempts to create Utopia
Since the time of More’s intriguing novel,
there have been several actual attempts to create a utopian community. One such
example was New Harmony, which I mentioned in my Aug. 20 blog article. Started by one idealistic group in 1814, the
whole town was sold to Robert Owen, a wealthy Welshman.
The Wikipedia article about Owen (1771–1858)
says, “In 1824, Owen travelled to
America to invest the bulk of his fortune in an experimental 1,000-member colony
on the banks of Indiana’s Wabash
River. . . . New Harmony was intended to be a
Utopian society.”
But guess what?
It didn’t work. In spite of all the grand plans and lofty ideals, they were unable
to create a utopian society—and so has been the case of similar experiments
throughout the last 500 years.
Pride, greed,
sloth, and other inherent human weaknesses (sins) seem to have doomed most (all?)
attempts to create Utopia.
The best
examples I know of utopian societies that have existed for any length of time
are those which did not seek to form Utopia but rather simply to follow the
example of Christians in the Book of Acts.
For example, the
Bruderhof, the Hutterites, and to some extent the Amish all seem to have been successful,
at least to some degree, in creating utopian communities. Those groups all have
roots in the Swiss Anabaptist movement that began in 1525, just a few years
after More wrote Utopia—and a
movement he would have opposed.
Does More’s Utopia, or especially the groups I just
mentioned, have anything to teach us today? Most likely—if we just had the will
to put the needs of all ahead of the privileges of the few.
