Utopia

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Here's my thing about Utopia and Utopian societies...

The term Utopia comes from the Greek words “no” and “place”, meaning “place that does not exist”. It can also mean “happy place”. Utopia is an island Thomas More wrote about in his book, Utopia. This fictional island had a perfect social, legal, and political system, and the word Utopia has now come to mean an ideal society.
This ideal society has been attempted many times. The Utopian Socialist movement of the early 1900’s promoted ideas such as people distributing goods, often without any money involved for them, and people only doing work that they enjoyed and that was for the common good. This uprising of Utopian philosophies was mostly due to the harsh economic pressures of that time. But of course, this Utopian structure of society didn’t last long – the movement slowly moved away from Utopianism. Karl Marx in particular became a rather harsh critic of some of the earliest utopian socialist movements.
The Utopian Socialist movement was an example of Economic Utopia, but there are other forms of utopianism, as well. In Religious Utopia, most religions have a utopia in their religious stories. The Jewish, Christian, and Islamic ideas of Heaven and the story of the Garden of Eden all represent a Utopia. The Buddhist concept of Nirvana and the Hindu concept of Moksha also represent a Utopia. However, the usual idea of Utopia is mostly caused by people wishing to create a Heaven-on-Earth aspect to their lives. They want a society that represents the values and beliefs that they believe await them in the afterlife. Not surprisingly, there are many other forms of Utopian societies, but they all carry the same goal: to be an absolutely perfect society, with no flaws whatsoever.
I personally don’t believe that a purely Utopian society is feasible. If a society were perfect, with everything mapped out for us, our lives a piece of cake, then what would be the point of living? There would be no struggles for us to overcome; we would become completely and utterly lazy. I do not believe in any extremes, whether they are good or bad. Utopia is an extreme. A good extreme, but an extreme all the same. You have to retain some degree of moderation.
Of course, I’m not saying that I think this world is good the way it is right now. I’m not saying that it doesn’t need to change, because it does. Everyone should have their rights, their freedoms. Every person should have the same life chances as the next. And I think that it’s up to us, the people who have some rights, to fight for others’. When every human being on this planet can boast that they have freedom – that will be Utopia.