Mustache Utopia of Manliness

In Utopia, no one would dare to ask a guy to step outside in order to solve a problem. I mean man generally have this desire to show their manliness. The desire to prove their manliness seems to get stronger when they start drinking. A simple discussion can turn into a heated argument then next thing you know, some big bloke comes over and ask you to step outside. This might be attempted at a pub but you would probably get kicked out.

Dueling on the other hand was an old-fashioned ritual where arguments were settled with a swords or pistols. It was a ritual where men fought to defend themselves or their possessing. It became a trend that was rising within the aristocracy.

Single combat was the first form of battle where men who did not receive justice in the court system took another man outside to battle it out. This was considered an honorable thing to do. The men in conflict walked out of the court room to continue their fight.

The winner of the duel was often arrested, charged and sentenced. Pistol fighting had standard. The distance of the two duelers was carefully measured in paces before a shot was allowed. The pistols used were not very advanced and fortunately not as advanced as todays AR15s the military carry. Otherwise, history would have been altered by massive violence considering the duelers and most of their spectators would probably been killed.

The other form of dueling was with swords. Two people would quarrel and pull out swords and eventually fight until one was mortally wounded. I remember reading this in Hamlet when one member of royalty picks up a sword and challenges another person to a duel. They clash with swords and who ever win dies because Hamlet’s opponent had poison on the end of his sword. They eventually crown Hamlet after he kills his uncle the king and his mother dies from drinking poison. He gets stabbed and dies in the throne This reminds me of the school bully that you don’t know what to do with. He wants your lunch money. He pushes you often and causes you harm. You can never get anywhere with this person. Sometimes you even like them and they still push you around. Eventually you want to give up and square off.

In Utopia Book I, we have a dueling of words. Words of defense from Thomas More for the old world order against those words describing a far-off impossibility of utopia! These men have come together with the purpose of arguing about the possibility of a perfect civilization. These men after great discourse and debate come up with flawed ideas for society. These ideas are a true dystopia. Everyone loves this perfect society that they have created. There are fires in the streets and dancing around law. 

http://www.artofmanliness.com

I affirm that I “have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this paper”

Alex Cooper

Alexander Stephen Cooper                                                                                              2016 10 18

A Perfect Society Of Slave Trade

           

Slavery is a major topic in Utopia. I have researched and found that slave ships were an interesting form of human transportation. This transportation was not a violation of law during this time, however in my opinion it was at that time, nevertheless, a violation of human rights. European countries such as France, or Spain took to the sand and jungle of Africa where they came across kingdoms of Africans. These African kingdoms often willingly sold their own people into slavery for much needed revenue. African people were sold to work mainly for other civilizations such as in Rome or Muslim cultures where slaves were essential during this ancient time period. Carthage is a civilization which is a good example that comes to mind. Carthage makes me think of rhinos and elephants, gold or ivory. I think of white men with jet black hair coming to Africa with their metal guns and their advanced equipment to cull the labor needed to fortify their European homes and to expand their drive for empires.

            In Utopia Book II, slave buyers spoke to a few natives or kings and asked for a few relatives or anyone that needed to be dealt with or was a threat or a problem. People that they could take off their hands or buy easily. The sellers earned their little bit of gold. They were selling everyone they could into slavery and sometimes the sellers were even brutally forced into servitude. Slave traders bound and gagged people with fabric or tied wool over their heads then chained together those who were overtaken and enslaved. Newly trapped slaves were forced onto ships with cargo holds with multiple levels on which layers of slave body next to slave body was laid down. There was a lot of disease and illness that spread rapidly throughout the ship. This disease ripened and spread to the ships destination where the disease spread quickly to native populations in America. The natives lacked immunities to these foreign borne diseases and often native American populations were wiped out. If disease didn’t kill the slaves, then it was the sun where slaves were forced to do backbreaking labor where most slaves died.

            So, what do we do with slaves in Utopia? Who was in control of the slave population if violence was a threat without teeth? You couldn’t kill your slave since you had money invested in that slave. How did farmers working every daylight hour fit into this slave society? Some farmers do not own the food they produce, so maybe a slave does not own his body. You don’t actually own that house because you still have to pay taxes or it’s confiscated. With taxation, you don’t really own anything at all either. Ultimately, utopia was a brutal dystopia based on complete slave labor. So who owns what or whom? In death, you don’t own anything at all.

            Utopia to me is a modern socialized democracy where government is a very happy organism. It passes law after law to protect its people humanely from other countries. It passes law after law to protect its people from themselves. The whole question is what is humane, or what is not humane? I mean you could think like some sixteenth century philosopher who stayed in bed all day and slept around the clock because he could not survive without his pillow and cover. How many pillows did he have? I’m talking about De Cartes who was found dead in his bed all very suddenly. This was only after he had counted his pillows a couple hundred times or folded his sheets every possible way like he was folding the flag or making paper animals out of linen. He just sat and thought. Now the whole idea of this book was to establish a Utopia or perfect society. Did everyone believe this was a Utopia? Was he just keeping that name around to rationalize dystopia? It is all wrong to me. Yes. It is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. No one should actually over intellectualize a society. This means no society can or should title themselves by history’s definition as perfect. There is nothing perfect about slavery or farming, or using heathens for a military. It makes a mockery out of the art of manliness.

I affirm that I “have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this paper”

Alex Cooper

Alexander Stephen Cooper                                                                                              2016 10 18

http://americancivilwarphotographs.blogspot.com/2012/06/african-slave-ships.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2256774/The-Nazi-eavesdroppers-How-wartime-refugees-listened-conversations-horrors-Holocaust-secret-German-plans.html

http://www.gradesaver.com/utopia/study-guide/summary-book-one

https://repeatingislands.com/2011/09/27/antigua-barbuda-demands-reparation-for-african-slave-trade/

http://worldwideimperialism.weebly.com/slave-trade.html

I Wonder If Utopia Has a National Anthem...

Utopia seems like a great and ideal society, however I do not think all of their ideas are for me. In addition to that, it makes me wonder how much country pride they have. Are they as proud to be from Utopia as we are to be Americans?



I personally do not want to have all of my days and activities planned for me (although I like the idea of scheduled naps because sleep is a beautiful thing). Sometimes a little spontaneity is fun and a good thing in my mind!





In regard to work, I'm not sure how they managed to get people to work for the same amount. That might work for them, but I don't think it'll work as well in many other places. I will say, though, that a 6 hour work day sounds amazing! The reason I'm not sure this society will always work is because it reminds of a communist society. Yes, I know it works, but I also know that many people dislike it and flee to other countries because of it. People need incentive to work and improve. That's not going to work as well if everyone is getting paid the same amount for different (and possibly more difficult) jobs.





Side note: It also makes me think about the society in The Giver because everything was planned out for them too.

Welcome to Utopia!!!

Utopia seems like it would be a pretty cool place to live in moderation, like for six months at a time then go somewhere else for the next six months. It is a medium sized society which is good because you do not have too many or not enough cities to govern. Everything is so organized and on a schedule. The cities are distributed evenly and have the same amount of land all around. Your nap times are even scheduled!

The idea that everything is pre-planned doesn’t really sit well with me. It seems like a great idea in theory. It allows everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing and aren’t just wasting time doing meaningless things. However I think it would be different when it’s actually applied in society. Having everything pre-planned seems like it would make everything mundane and boring.

When everything is planned there aren’t any surprises or spontaneity. A life without surprises or something different every once in a while seems weird. Maybe it works for the Utopians but I'm not sure if I'm sold on the idea yet.

The workload isn’t bad, they only work for 6 hours. which is divided into two parts 3 hours before lunch and 3 hours after lunch. It seems like it is fairly divided among the people and among the genders. Women aren’t given hard laboring work because they aren’t as strong as men. Which that can be taken as a negative or as a positive. On one hand women don’t have to do hard labor and on the other had shouldn’t they be given the opportunity? The short hours of work seems like a good idea. Especially since it allows the people to engage in other activities as long as it doesn’t go against the rules.

 

Utopians and their crazy work ethic

At first glance, (or I guess at first read) Utopia just seems so darn perfect! There are 54 cities, which isn't so many that maintenance of order would be difficult, but also not too few to make the whole land a "small world." And they're all evenly spaced out with equal land on all sides and the whole thing is a freaking island so they don't have to worry about disputes over land borders! (Shout out to Utopus and his ridiculous idea to separate Utopia from the mainland by excavating 15 miles of land all around it.....) Sounds like a great place to live, and I'm sure that it is in theory, especially for the younger generations who didn't have to live through the founding of the rules of the land. Because I can only imagine how much work it took to create such a meticulous society.

Utopia is the mother of all neat freaks! Every part of this society is planned, and every possible problem is already covered with a preplanned solution and every person knows and does their job well. They are so organized in their laboring that they only have to work six hours per day (with a 2 hour nap in between) and they still have an abundance of products.

I think that the near perfection of almost every aspect of this Utopia makes it out to be more of a "no place" than of a "good place". And while I do approve of their form of government in which all officials are elected and all precautions are taken to ensure every decision is just, I don't think that this Utopia is somewhere worth living, except maybe to visit. They lack qualities that make a society lively, like unpredictability. All decisions made by utopians have a predictable outcome and a definite path and the decisions they make are for functionality. Although I do find it kind of comical when that two people who are going to get married see each other naked first so that they definitely know if they're going to be attracted to their spouse, and that they compare this to buying a horse.. there is no end to the practicality.

Utopia seems like a great place in Raphael's eyes, but I'm still not totally sure how I feel about it.

Insert Clever Utopia Title Here

Right off the bat, Thomas More gave me a kind of annoying vibe. His letter to Peter Giles had quite a few humblebrags and he's super shady about Raphael. Literally (used in the literal sense not the figurative one) within the first paragraph he's saying that Raphael is "hurried and impromptu" in his way of speaking, as well as speaking with "careless simplicity".

Thomas also talks for like a paragraph about how he's so busy doing so many things for other people, if Raphael had not been so simple, and were his job more difficult than just transcribing Raphael's story, he would not have been able to finish. Okay Thomas, we get it. That being said, he clearly respects Giles' opinion; on page 24, he's telling of how he questioned his children's tutor on something but if Giles concurred More was comfortable changing his opinion on the matter, a seemingly big step for such a pompous guy. (I'm not sure if this is actually how More feels or if he's projecting a character?) 

I also respect the fact that More asks Giles to contact Raphael and make sure that nothing is wrong or forgotten. It seems that while More is arrogant and condescending, he also really cares about the work he's putting out into the world which is a great quality to have. 

actual video of Thomas More

Another thing: oh my god this title. "Utopia: The Best State of a Commonwealth, The Discourse of the Extraordinary Character, Raphael Hythlodaeus, as Reported by the Renowned Figure, Thomas More, Citizen and Sheriff of the Famous City of Great Britain, London" [sic]. That's all I have to say about that. 

Book 1 didn't really pull me in. This introductory letter grabbed me more than Raphael's monologue did. However, from what I gathered, Raphael thought that being in service to kings was no better than being a slave to them and would rather not be involved. He has some great one-liners which would make for nice sound-bites. 

Examples: 

• "Almost all princes prefer to occupy themselves in the pursuits of war rather than in the honorable activities of peace" (32)
• "It is only natural for everyone to like his own brainchild the best: the crow is delighted with his chick, the ape pleased with his cub" (33) 
• "...it is never safer to follow a wicked purpose than to repent it" (42)

So, it is safe to say that Raphael goes against the grain, and as many others have pointed out in their blogs this week, that he dislikes the "sheeple" in society. 

I wikipedia'd More and found out that, "More insisted upon giving his daughters the same classical education as his son, a highly unusual attitude at the time." That's irrelevant to this blog post but I think it's awesome. So maybe he's not so annoying after all. 

Politics...Evil sheep ruling the world.

    So Raphael has some pretty strong political beliefs. He knows what he wants to see in a perfect society and what he does not want. He also has plenty of examples that help him prove his point about a belief. I guess that comes from his age and wisdom as well as all  of his travels and how he was able to see how other societies worked and did not work. 

    His idea that no matter how good a policy is it will always look insane to someone who sees the world differently is spot on. That idea is still relevant now. If people have a different view and idea of how the world works it will be hard to get them to abandon that idea. 

       I also liked how he did not think that thieves should be getting the same death penalty as murders. Yes they committed a crime but the crime is not that bad that they need that severe of a punishment. Killing them off also really doesn’t realistically stop people from stealing. To stop someone from stealing you would have to find the root of the problem, the reason why they are stealing, and try and fix that. He says that the reason why some have resorted to stealing is because of sheep farming. They are being run off of their land and have no choice but to beg, since they aren’t needed as farmers since their land is being used for something else.

 

      Sheep really do get a bad name due to the practice of enclosure. When Raphael mentions how sheep used to be mild and content but now they are so greedy and wild that they devour men, all I see is a demonic sheep. I just imagine a secret gathering of sheep plotting on how to kill off the humans. That is a really creepy thought to have enclosure compared to it seems like he has a problem with the idea of landowners using their power to fill their pockets and starve the little guy.