...Utopias can be described as perfect societies which can be exemplified by many modern communities today. Most utopian societies live by a strict set of rules in an attempt to avoid pain and conflict. These societies tend to question their freedom and go against the government. Although utopias live by certain sets of rules, it can be said that they usually are not utopias based on poor choices made by the community and the effects of human nature. Utopias fail in many different ways. When trying for a utopia, a government sets a system to where all homosopians are equal and always happy. A utopia acts as a domino effect, when a society encounters a positive solution, a negative aspect rises. In Why Utopias Fail, this idea is expressed, “any land of milk and honey automatically attracted swords and muskets.” This metaphor explains the concept that with every helpful encounter comes a problem needing a solution. This presents the idea that a utopia is one of the hardest things for a government to achieve. This negative factor proves that a utopia is almost impossible to achieve....
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...Brave New World Brave New World is a form of utopian literature. It’s an imaginary society organized to create ideal conditions for human beings, eliminating hatred, pain, neglect, and all of the other evils of the world. The novel takes place in 632 A.F. (After Ford, the god of the New World). It takes place in a time where man is desperate for beliefs (and structures also a relief from pain.). All civilization has been destroyed by a great war. Then there is another war, the Nine Years War, which begins the era of Ford, ensuring stability through dictatorship. The society in Brave new world is based on a strict caste system. The highest of the five castes enjoy easier and better tasks, while the lower ones perform unskilled and all the dirty jobs. Ten Controllers hold all the power in this new world and peace is maintained by training infant minds and by dulling down adults with the tranquilizer, “soma.” The population is further controlled through scientific methods; marriage is forbidden, and children are not born but produced in an embryo factory THEME: Science and its influences on humanity is the major theme of Brave New World. The novel depicts a new society where human beings have been stripped of individual freedom, programmed to certain types of behavior, and conditioned to respond in scientific ways to specific stimulants. All traces of the old order have been eliminated. No longer are human emotions or relationships important. Infants are created in...
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...common topics that both short stories explore. In “The Lottery”, people kill Tessie Hutchinson because she is the unlucky citizen. The residents of that town throw stones at her until she actually dies. No one tries to stop all these people from killing her, not even her own family. The only person who speaks up at last minute is Tessie. When she feels the fear of death, she speaks up and says, “It isn't fair” (Jackson). Everyone knows that it is not fair, but no one tries to stop this custom because they haven’t felt the danger yet. It is just another day for them, and this is the reason why they do not understand the real problem. People live the utopian life, full of happiness and joy. Even if they know about the child who suffers, they don’t try to help. They recognize that if something changes, they are not going to have the same utopian life as they have now. That’s why, individuals prefer not to talk about it, and just continue their lives in Omela or in a different place, far from Omela, “They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back” (Le Quin 4). From the time when citizens meet the young kid, their feelings are multiple. Some people stay in Omala, trying to forget about the suffering child, and others leave, without saying anything to...
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...own thoughts and ideas? Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain through her writing created her vision of Utopia. She is a feminist writer and social worker and her story “Sultana’s Dream” is a captivating example of a feminist utopia. The narrator travels to the utopian lady land which is peaceful and technologically advanced. She discovers a state ruled by women, where men are timid and passive, and trained to cook and clean. In other words, Ladyland is an imaginary country where women are dominant over men, and women hold supreme power. Additionally, Ladyland turns out to be futuristic ideal world where women are beyond the segregated Purdah, and men live in isolation and secluded in quarters called mardana (Hossain 1905; 8-9). Ladyland is ruled politically and socially by women and they take place in a public sphere whereas men are confined to private and hidden world. Men are not taken into much consideration in Ladyland. By creating a fantasy world in which women play a dominant role, “Sultana’s Dream” compels us to perceive women’s potential to innovate, to create our own world and to exercise power in men’s world in which women are not demoralized. The proverb “Men and women are two wheels of the same chariot, without one the other cannot exist” or “Men and women are two sides of the same coin” tend to equalize men and women in every aspects of life. However, both the proverbs turn out to be fictional. Here, in world of discrimination, no women get equal priorities and opportunities that...
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...Castaneda English 228: Fall Session 2012 The purpose of this essay is to explain how unsuccessful Communism is ideologically in part due to its’ economic shortcomings. For ages, mankind has been in search of a perfect society, a utopia; a society, in which no suffering exists, and everyone is happy. In writing, they are common, from the City of Atlantis to the Garden of Eden. However, there are no utopias, none for which anyone can provide proof of. For better or worse, there have been men who have attempted to bring about these utopias in the form of egalitarian societies. Some of these societies have aimed at removing the differences in social class and material wealth between people in an attempt to establish a utopian society. For example communism which was based on a Marxist utopian ideology, has proven to be ultimately a flawed principle and regime. In recent times, so called utopian societies were identified as either socialist, or communist. True communist societies have aimed to be egalitarian, and perhaps even utopian. While the effects of communist and socialist regimes are not confined to one single aspect of human life, this essay focuses on the economic effects of communism. Unfortunately, they have not succeeded in either; instead these societies have resulted in poverty, violence, and overall failure . Modern communism cannot be explained without first defining it, as there have been many historical and contemporary variations. Communism, as first defined in...
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...hours or, of a space where there is no pollution and diseases. However, despite the fact that such an ideal life has stayed in people’s mind, not too many people believe a real utopia exists. It is similar to when audiences watch a romantic movie with a perfect ending and tell themselves this can only happen on the screen where all the lines have been written and edited carefully. Without any hope for any possible alternatives, eventually, no one would strive to create a peaceful and fantasy world according to their dream. However, there is a country that is making the dream of a lot of people come true. In a recent decade, Singapore has been moving towards the idea of improving their social and economic problems through constructing the modern building projects. Needless to say, their significant achievement in economic social development has brought them opportunities to become one of the most stable economies in the world regardless of a limited space and sacred natural resources. Singapore is among the countries that has the lowest rate of unemployment, highest adequate living conditions and social pension, and fastest economic growth in Asia. Furthermore, it is also well known for the green environment and energy efficiency. Although Singapore is believed to be a clear example of how a utopian plan has improved human development, there are critics argue that its government is directing people in an oppressive setting through a so called utopia and that there is lack of innovation...
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...MY IDEAL SOCIETY Free will is a property of human nature that depends solely on the individual. Every individual in a free society has the ability to make any decision that impacts his or her own life. This means that any one person can use their own free will to alter or hamper the ideals possessed by another individual within the society. This notion goes against the grains of the idea of an ideal society. An ideal society would have to provide the ideal conditions for all those who lived within it. The principles and standards of the inhabitants within the society would determine these ideal conditions. If an individual within this model society could alter the life of another individual within the society, the ideals of the second individual may be broken; this consequently undermines and destroys the concept of an absolute ideal society. Thomas More’s Utopia carries the premise that everyone within the utopian society does what is necessary for the good of the society, and that one’s free will would consist of only what is beneficial to the culture. This, in itself, is limiting free will by excluding the possibility of freely doing what is not beneficial to the culture. More said, the citizens, “(do) not waste their time in idleness or self-indulgence,” but who’s to say that they cannot? Absolute free will gives each citizen the ability to do whatever they feel inclined to do, even perhaps, idle or self-indulge. In Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the idea of free will...
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...journalist at The New Yorker published the book, How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities. In How Markets Fail, John Cassidy describes what he calls utopian economics and how the utopian thinking has led to economic crisis such as job losses, bank bailouts, and corporate greed. Cassidy attempts to convince that utopian economics does not capture the true behaviors of humanity collectively leading to unanticipated and adverse economic outcomes. He presents the history of economics and contrasts the idea of utopian economics with reality based economics. Reality based economics encompass people’s behaviors and thinking identifying irrational self-interests (Cassidy, 9). Cassidy then explains in detail how economic theory and practice influenced the “Great Crunch” (i.e. collapse in sub-prime mortgage lending during last decade). The timeliness of Cassidy’s publication of a book to address how markets fail is certainly ideal in light of the recent crash in sub-prime mortgages. The financial impact of this economic crisis continues to dictate the pace of the current economy. Not only is the topic stimulating to a graduate MBA student, but has value to inform and enlighten individuals in all disciplines. Cassidy uses the history of economics over the last few decades to demonstrate that his idea of utopian economics versus reality based economics is not new, but has been forgotten and/or consciously overlooked in the interest of other gains causing historical cycles...
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...The branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment which is known as technology. Transformation of culture and social institution is social change. Social change occurs in all societies. No society remains completely static. This is true of all societies, primitive as well as civilized. Society exists in a universe of dynamic influences. Technology and social change is related because they are both dealing with an upgrade in people and the technology in their everyday use. Today, people are face with the increasing change of technology in our everyday life. Sometimes the change happens and we do not realize how it affects our lives. The use of computers, internet, and cell phone have a great impact on today’s society. The computers have changed how the information is saved and accessed. Now only with a few clicks on a mouse people can access almost any piece of information. Also the speed at which people can access information has never been faster. Even the use of the internet is evolving every second of every day. When computer networks link people as well as machines, they become social networks. They foster informal workplace communities that are usually partial and narrowly-focused, although some do become encompassing and broadly-based. The Internet is the decisive technology of the Information Age, as the electrical engine was the vector of technological transformation of the...
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...interaction seems as if the television is controlling the way society interrelate. The media creates false expectations for the rest of society. It’s the false accounts- the fictional stuff- that sells but also becomes the expectation in real life as society models the behaviors from the movies. It is a paradoxical concept that the entertainment industry creates movies with actors in roles that need to be exaggerated in order to sell; this obviously implies that the lifestyles portrayed on the television are not representations of the average person’s life. However, when viewers- normal people- watch these television roles, these false lives are assumed to be the norm for real-life so that creates a false system in which we approach interpersonal relationships, such as in dating. Romantic realism deals with creating stories of high-level stimulation, not something boring to bring a movie to life, etc. Unfortunately, this influence from the media and the humane aspect that we are never fully satisfied with what we have are vast contributions for the increase of friends with benefits in contemporary dating culture. When one looks at what plays on the television, the perfect, utopian, or ideal accounts of the characters’ lives raise the standard for how normal people are expected to behave and interact. As television and movies promotes the sense of casual relationships or casual sex without relationships, society assumes that as the norm and, thus, expects real-life circumstances...
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...James Lee English 110 AA Dr. M Brennan February 16, 2014 In the short story “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin the theme is that in order to be truly happy, one must stand up for what’s right, even if it means leaving everything that they know. Society creates traditions and ways of thinking that are not easy for everyone to follow. In Omelas, the citizens have the choice to ignore the suffering of a child locked in a cellar, or leave the life and the city they are familiar with. The people of Omelas must ask themselves whether it is better for a child to suffer for the city’s happiness and wealth, or should the city suffer, just to give the child a shot at happiness? It is ironic because Omelas is a utopian city however they treat a feeble minded child horribly for the good of their city. The symbols and themes of this story play a huge role of how I interpreted the story, such as the horse, bird/swallow, flute player, and the cellar child acting as a ‘scapegoat’. “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” begins with the narrator describing a beautiful utopian city called Omelas. It is a city with more happiness than can be imagined. The scene shifts from a bright Summer Festival to one of a child locked in a cellar. One reads of the isolation, neglect, abuse, and fear that this child suffers, and all of the citizens are aware of what the child is going through. They have also seen the child and decided that they are helpless. They believe that...
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...4 March: City of God – Utopian Reader – include a little bit on it – 22 volumes in all. Christianity – Augustine – classicly trained greek scholar. City in north Africa. Story like apostle Paul – orginially a person who persecuted Christians – north African wealth family from – found enlightenment in Christianity. Once he joined became one of the early scholars trained in greek – regulized Christian theology. Influence on western world – top four or five who influenced. Confessions and City of God his writings…look up! What’s the purpose of improving human society – complex – why do it? Can human society be made better? Why bother, what is the point, justification? Takes effort, misery involved, change, unknowns, takes energy, takes risks. HAPPINESS – justification for improving society. What do you have to have to be happy? What is happiness – PHI 101 – happiness according to whom? Lack of misery; literally the elimination of misery. Secondly, food – gives pleasure – Happiness is lack of human misery and maximizing /pleasure and happiness. Bliss 24/7 – hedonism Epicureanism – eliminating misery and maximizing happiness. The justification of utopianism = why did plato want the republic? Justisifcation for improving human society among the Greeks? Poor always poor, always unhappy, death claims everyone - it is rational to maximize pleasure and eliminate misery. Do eternally accouding to plato. Opinions – 1. Relativism is a retreat in the 20th century. Can’t...
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...trend of a despotic society entering an age of prosperity and undergoing a societal transition from monarchies and despotism to a more humanistic form of government. This transformation occurs because, in times of strife, the state comes to the awareness that internally, monarchical and aristocratic forms of governance results in the bounties of the age are being consumed in ways that do not overall benefit the people or nation. Therefore, these enlightened thinkers attempt to rectify this mismanagement by reforming the systems of the nation so that the national production is allocated where it is most needed. However, these societies have almost all failed in their attempt to create a more equal form of society. Humanity at its core is self-serving and power hungry, and even those with the purest intentions can quickly fall into becoming those that they once fought...
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...century, many definition of terrorism have been elaborated. As today there are several different kinds of terrorism and also different point of view on terrorism nobody can clearly understand what is terrorism. The description of terrorism varies between cultures. Moreover one of the current problems with the word terrorism is that it is easier to define this term by what it is not than define it by what it is. A Universal definition is needed, In order to clearly understand this notion. However, even scholars or governments are not agreeing on the fact that we need a universal definition of terrorism. According to Lutz, “what will be useful is to provide a working definition, as neutral as possible. What is also necessary is to read and evaluate with cares how others use the word. A clear and workable definition of terrorism should cover both groups that individuals agree with and group that they disagree with” . Sebastian Wojciechowski offers several...
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...Levitt’s believed segregation was necessary to ensure the success of a new suburb. However, Levitt’s decision not to sell houses to blacks was “an opportunity tragically lost (Kushner 198).” Post WWII increased the demand for houses so sharply that even if a portion of blacks moved to Levittown, whites still would have moved in. Levittown is the embodiment of how relations between different racial groups befit to dominance and subordination. Through ethnocentrism, competition for resources, and unequal power Levitt & Sons created ‘the most perfectly planned community in America’ (Kushner 61) where middle-upper class citizens enjoyed a utopian lifestyle, one that was completely denied to an entire race. If non-whites had been accepted into Levittown from the establishments of suburbia, the problem of racial segregation that still exists today would be subdued or non-existent. Ethnocentrism: Levitt’s white ethnocentrism reinforced a restrictive covenant that only permitted houses in Levittown to be rented or sold to a member of the Caucasian race. William Levitt explained the firm’s resistance to integration as, “If I sold to negroes 90% of the white now buying...
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