”Utopia”, is a common word in our daily tasks, is used as an argument or counterargument when talking about idyllic or hypothetical societies, but the term?Utopia, is it deeper than what society shows or uses, so it is important to ask yourself a question: what is a utopia?
First, we can resort to the etymology and origin of this concept. The term utopia comes from Greek and literally means “no place”, which represents a place that does not exist. The first time it was used was in Thomas More’s Utopia. This famous history unfolds on an island with a peaceful and idyllic government and is a critique of the political organization of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
- Throughout the article.
- To fully understand the concept of utopia.
- We will focus on both its definition and its usefulness.
- Which will help us manage the term and not fall into the line that claims utopia as synonymous with impossible.
Society has long dreamed of an idyllic world and a way to manage the perfect society. Hence the use of the term utopia. It is a theory of how a society, state, community or part of them should be perfectly organized. An important aspect is that this hypothetical world is not of immediate use, it does not seek to find a political system applicable in the current context.
When we build this theory, we look for the formula of the best possible system, we try to shape the idea only from theoretical terms, regardless of the degree of difficulty in moving this idea or scheme to reality. perfect society can be created on a hypothetical basis. However, the idea of the perfection of society is ambiguous and interpretative; a fact, throughout history and according to the individual, has changed almost constantly.
We can find many examples of utopias throughout history. Perhaps one of the oldest is Plato’s utopia, in this document society would be divided into three classes assigned according to their skills and abilities: the political class, the military class and the production class, so the proper functioning and management of these classes would ensure a perfect and peaceful society.
We can also find more modern utopias, such as utopian socialism, which was created as a critique of capitalism and the exploitation of individuals through the appropriation of their workforce, this utopia is based on a cooperative and self-managed society. collective work and the decision to come together, it would be possible to achieve the optimal functioning of society.
Utopia is a broad and deep concept, widely used by philosophers, thinkers and politicians, but the next question is: what is the point of creating a perfect society in the abstract, which can meet a lot of resistance in case of a serious attempt to do Many can fall into the wrong mistake of thinking that utopias lack pragmatism or only have a literary or leisure use, but this is not the case.
When evaluating the usefulness of a utopia we can find 4 different functions, which will depend on what the author was looking for when creating this idyllic society, these functions are:
The term utopia is often used as synonymous with the impossible. He is even credited with an idealistic and childish character, however, this conception remains a mistake: utopias can identify the goal to be achieved, act as a compass, and this is not ballad, because one of the most powerful motivations of the human being is to seek the best.