Label usually applied in a hostile sense to those who advocate – or are wildly optimistic in thinking they can achieve – a state of affairs perfect in some or all respects.
One charge is that the excessive and unrealistic pursuit of some good can lead to gross neglect of other goods and even of elementary justice. The term derives from an essay written in 1516 by English statesman and humanist SIR THOMAS MORE (1478-1535), who constructed it from the Greek for, roughly, ‘no place’ (or, if he had in mind another etymology, ‘good place’).
Utopias are frequent in literature, the earliest serious one being Plato’s Republic (c.380 BC).
Recently Utopias have tended to be replaced by ‘dystopias’ (on the analogy of ‘dyspepsia’, ‘dyslexic’ and so on), such as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1931) and George Orwell’s 1984 (1948).
Also see: negarive utilitarianism
Source:
Krishnan Kumar, Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times (Oxford, 1987)
Table of Contents
- 1 Videos
- 2 Related Products
- 2.1 Utopianism: A Very Short Introduction
- 2.2 Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism
- 2.3 Utopianism
- 2.4 Dialectic of the Chinese Revolution: From Utopianism to Hedonism
- 2.5 Historical Dictionary of Utopianism (Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements Series)
- 2.6 From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism
- 2.7 The Vision from Bill McDonough
- 2.8 Utopianism
- 2.9 Utopia and Utopianism in the Contemporary Chinese Context: Texts, Ideas, Spaces
- 2.10 Rastafari: Roots and Ideology (Utopianism and Communitarianism)
Videos
Utopianism: A Very Short Introduction
- Oxford University Press
- Sargent, Lyman Tower (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 160 Pages - 10/21/2010 (Publication Date) - Oxford University Press (Publisher)
Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Jennings, Chris (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 467 Pages - 01/12/2016 (Publication Date) - Random House (Publisher)
Dialectic of the Chinese Revolution: From Utopianism to Hedonism
- Ci, Jiwei (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 292 Pages - 08/01/1994 (Publication Date) - Stanford University Press (Publisher)
Historical Dictionary of Utopianism (Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements Series)
- Hardcover Book
- Morris, James M. (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 432 Pages - 03/15/2004 (Publication Date) - Scarecrow Press (Publisher)
From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Turner, Fred (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 327 Pages - 10/15/2010 (Publication Date) - University of Chicago Press (Publisher)
The Vision from Bill McDonough
- Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
- Wanda Urbanska (Actor)
- Frank Levering (Director) - Frank Levering (Writer) - Wanda Urbanska (Producer)
- English (Playback Language)
- English (Subtitle)
Utopia and Utopianism in the Contemporary Chinese Context: Texts, Ideas, Spaces
- Hardcover Book
- Ge, Zhaoguang (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 232 Pages - 06/21/2020 (Publication Date) - Hong Kong University Press (Publisher)
Rastafari: Roots and Ideology (Utopianism and Communitarianism)
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Chevannes, Barry (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 324 Pages - 02/25/2015 (Publication Date) - Syracuse University Press (Publisher)
Last update 2020-04-08. Price and product availability may change.