Utopia 3rd Edition for Society

Question: Describe about the Utopia 3rd Edition for Society. Answer: More's Utopia is a representation of an ideal society that every society would aspire to have. A society characterized by communal property ownership, a shared culture, and religious tolerance, a stable economy without external interference, classless society, no poverty, reduced crime and immorality as well as secure from conflicts (More). Utopia is simply a society dictated by homogeneity to the extent that all the cities have similarity regarding architecture, population, customs and even layout. Therefore, it is arguable that homogeneity impedes individualism and personal freedom within a society (Yang, Song and Wang: 28). As a matter of fact, individualism and freedom are key pillars of a true community. Individualism in this sense can be perceived as a person's entitlement to moral significance and certain rights. As such, an individual is capable of developing independent thoughts and decisions as well as think and act within his/her personal space and time. In essence, individualism and freedom promote creativity among individuals and is no a devaluation of social cooperation. Human beings are distinct and unique as well as rational. Additionally, individualism promotes autonomy. Autonomy, on one hand, enhances the development of voluntary ad mutually beneficial societal relations that results to authenticity in human communities. Individualism, freedom, and the resultant independence are essential in modeling a value driven and principled persons who are capable of executing life priorities thereby forming enduring and productive relationships with others. Consequently, there will be a society where people act rather than being acted upon. Genuine societies embrace the primacy of free individuals and that justice, freedom, happiness, prosperity, dignity, and value are better understood in the context of individualism (Sztompka: 251). For this reason, an attempt to develop More's Utopia-like society is deemed to fail in the contemporary society where individualism permeates human life. 2. More characterizes himself as the narrator in the Utopia. More, the character in Utopia is seen as a character that represents authority on the issue to do with philosophy, scholarship, and politics. He is also the voice of cynicism of Hythloday's view about the European word and attractiveness to the Utopian way of life (Logan: 48). More's appearance in the text as the narrator who thinks Utopia to be hilarious, on one hand, he also phrases himself as a character who perceives Utopia with all the philosophical and moral seriousness. More despite being the narrator models a protagonist Raphael Hythloday. More presents Raphael Hythloday as a character who has traveled widely and had a taste for adventure. He is also a bibliophile philosopher and possesses a wide range of skills and ideas (More: 48). Nonetheless, going by his name, More poses a dilemma in the reader whether anything that Raphael Hythloday postulates is anything to be taken seriously or not. The name Hythloday has the connotation of an "expert in nonsense." Judging from a critical perspective, More's choice of such a name for the protagonist challenges his authority as a speaker. Raphael Hythloday's role in Utopia is ambiguous. While Gile describes him as a wise man that has excellent exposure to the world and his merit to comment on a wide range of issues, More is seen to challenge his (Hythloday's) credibility due to close association with Vespucci the fraud. Works Cited Logan, George M. The Meaning of More's Utopia. Princeton University Press, 2014. More, Thomas. Utopia: A Revised Translation: Backgrounds: Criticism. Ed. Robert M. Adams. WW Norton, 1992. Sztompka, Piotr. "Society as social becoming: Beyond individualism and collectivism." Agency and Structure (RLE Social Theory): Reorienting Social Theory (2014): 251. Yang, Song., and Wang, Tingting. "A Study of American Individualism: Taking Friends as an Example." Cross-Cultural Communication 12.6 (2016): 27-32.