Thomas More's Utopia as criticism of sixteenth century England

Utopia

Thomas More's Utopia is particularly interesting piece of satirical literature precisely because it does not offer any easy readings. That is to say, however one wants to interpret More's point there is complicating evidence that forces one to reconsider; for example, imagining that Utopia represents More's proposal for an ideal society is complicated by the fact that the name means Noplace, and reading it as a criticism of European society forces one to consider the differences between Utopia and More's own views, expressed throughout his lifetime and career. With this in mind, one must attempt to read Utopia not as a piece of fiction intimately related to More's own views, changing and indeterminate as they are, but rather as a kind of public work, intended to instigate discussion and contemplation about the issues discussed within without offering any easy answer. Thus, as will be seen, Utopia functions not so much to describe an idealized society, but rather to highlight the ills of European society by offering a sometimes fantastical, sometimes realistic depiction of a society that, while markedly different from sixteenth century Europe, nevertheless demonstrates the same degree of positives and negatives present in almost any society.

The first area in which More's Utopia seems to critique European society without offering a clear alternative is in the make-up of Utopia's agricultural economy, if one may call it an economy absent any personal property. According to More, work is shared more or less equally, particularly in regards to working in the country sewing and reaping the island's food, because every year "there are other twenty sent from the Town, that they may learn Country Work, from those that have been already one Year in the Country, which they must teach those that come to them the next Year from the Town" (More 46). At first glance this appears to be a relatively ideal set-up, with individuals sharing the workload and living space so that everyone has enough food and no one is forced to endure hard work in the agriculture sector more than anyone else. This stands in stark contrast to the problem with the enclosure of land discussed earlier in Book I, and so one might be forgiven for thinking that this represents More's argument for an ideal society.

However, this ignores a crucial element of More's construction of Utopia that reveals it as something far from ideal, namely, the fact that slavery exists (More 46). While one might suppose that viewing slavery as a problem is an inherently presentist perspective, in reality slavery was not especially common in sixteenth-century Europe, namely because the feudal system made slavery irrelevant (although this is not to suggest that there were no slaves in Europe). Furthermore, More's inclusion of slaves reveals that Utopia is not an ideal society, because apparently there is some form of work that regular citizens would rather not do, and thus delegate to their slaves. The fact that Utopia includes slaves (as well as criminals!) demonstrates that it is anything but ideal, because otherwise it would not include human suffering and captivity as an integral part of its society. Thus, one cannot accept More's formulation of Utopia's economy as ideal, but rather something to instigate discussion. In this light, the absence of private property and the sharing of hard labor hints to a more egalitarian future for humankind, but the presence of slavery reveals that even in ostensibly equal societies, hierarchies of power will inevitably arise.

The problem of power hierarchies also shows up in More's representation of Utopia's political functioning. While in many ways it functions as representative democracy, there are some disturbing elements to this government that reveal Utopia is dependent upon a kind of coercion through fear of violence in order to keep its citizenry from organizing into factions. While Utopia includes a "fundamental rule of their government that no conclusion can be made in anything that relates to the public till it has been first debated three several days in the their Council" which seems to suggest that their form of government is open, deliberative, and relatively just, there is another rule which demonstrates that this open deliberation actually comes at the expense of individual liberty (More 52). This is because "it is death for any to meet and consult concerning the State, unless it be either in their ordinary Council, or in the assembly of the whole body of the people" (More 52). While this ensures that there will be no plotting against the state, it also means that dissidents must fear for their lives if they disagree with the dictates of their rulers and desire to talk about it. This is essentially censorship and control of speech coded in the language of open deliberation, and it reveals another problem inherent in Utopian society.

Here, More is not attempting to present an ideal alternative to European society, but rather demonstrate how any society that sits at the extreme end of an ideological spectrum, as Utopia and Europe both did, will have problems which stem from the actions necessary to maintain that social order. In Europe, kings fought seemingly pointless wars in order to maintain their power and legitimacy, and in Utopia, the state executed anybody who talked about it outside the officially recognized channels. In both instances, human life becomes subordinate to the perpetuation of the state, revealing how seemingly disparate societies can nevertheless create and perpetuate the same problems, albeit flavored differently depending on the specific society. This same phenomenon is true when one considers the religions of Utopia.

In Utopia, "there are several sorts of religions," and they are, in general, treated equally, but atheists are roundly condemned, based largely on a faulty assumption about what motivates or demotivates religious and non-religious people. More notes that atheists are viewed:

As scarce fit to be counted men, since they degrade so noble a being as the soul, and reckon it no better than a beat's: thus they are far from looking on such men as fit for human society, or to be citizens of a well-ordered commonwealth; since a man of such principles must needs, as oft as he dares do it, despise all their laws and customs: for there is no doubt to be made that a man who is afraid of nothing but the law, and apprehends nothing after death, will not scruple to break through all the laws of his country, either by fraud or force, when by this means he may satisfy his appetites. (More 121)