Utopia

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Core Ideas

Cities, Space, and Their Relation to Utopian and Dystopian Texts

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Core Ideas Cities, Space, and Their Relation to Utopian and Dystopian Texts

The description of the cities introduces a general fact of Utopian life: homogeneity. Everything in Utopia is as similar as it possibly can be. According to Hythloday the cities are almost indistinguishable from each other. They have virtually the same populations, architecture, layouts, and customs. It is interesting to note how this theme of sameness is seized upon by both Utopian and Dystopian works of literature. For instance, Brave New World sees in homogeneity an end to injustice while 1984 sees an end to creativity, self-expression, and the autonomy of the individual. It is interesting, also—though as a tangent to Utopia rather than a theme dealt with directly by the work—that More imagines a rational community as being a homogenous community. Such a conception necessarily posits that all rational thought leads in the same direction—toward the same eternal truths. Further, it posits that in matters of social theory there are single, definite truths to be found.

Hythloday trumpets the lack of private space as a wonderful idea promoting friendship and stifling pettiness and gossip. Again, though, in the loss of private space is a correspondent loss of privacy and autonomy. Utopia is a society in which everyone watches everyone else, much as everyone does in George Orwell's nightmare world of 1984. In the end, there is often little differentiating one person’s Utopia from another's dystopia.