Utopia‘s proper title is  De Optimo rei publicae deque nova insula Utopia.  The literal translation of the title is “Of a republic’s best state and of the new island Utopia”.  Its original title was even longer.  It is interesting to note that ‘utopia’ translates to nowhere.   That’s exactly where it is to be found – nowhere.

It is a socio-political satire by Sir Thomas More and was published in 1516.  The work was originally published in Latin.  It depicts a fictional island society that is very much like life in a monastery.

Had I not been so much more serious when I was younger, this would have been reason enough to put me off the book.  But, at the time, I had pretensions that I might be someday in some way relevant to the governance of my nation.   Due to this overblown belief, I sought out the most and best wisdom that I might gather.  Misspent youth down on the beach surfing the waves and deciding that if I could not stand the way people play games with each other’s lives I had no business in politics, disabused me of any such illusions.  Still, I do like to think on things and hope that maybe my daughters might go so much further than I dared to pretend myself worthy of doing.

Book 1 is the emphasis of reading tonight.  It is the Dialogue of Counsel.    This part of the work  begins with written correspondence between Thomas More and persons he has met at this “nowhere’.  To create a sense of plausibility, these are real people:  Peter Gilles and Hieronymus van Busleyden, counselor to Charles V.   The Dialogue is filled with the Utopian alphabet; poetry; and that the lack of travel between England and Utopia is because someone coughed during the announcement of the exact location.  There is even a hint that perhaps this satire contains elements of advice on how to rule properly.

Perhaps more importantly is the discussion of how not to rule.  By this, I mean a discussion of the ill affect of the tendency of contemporary rulers to start wars the cannot afford and at such cost for fruitless endeavors.  This might be something that rulers of today might be well advised to think on.  Another thread that seems to have relevance to rulers today is that discussion of punishments that ill fit the crimes committed and how when you prevent the people from making a reasonable living for themselves, it causes subsequent poverty, starvation and the lends itself to causing eventual rebellion.  This might be deeply thought on by globalists and socialists who would rob Paul to pay Peter until Paul’s money runs out.

Interestingly, there is some interplay between the discourses held in Plato’s The Republic and discussion of the need for wise and philosophic governance.   I especially love how More’s character, Raphael, is used to urge that intended rulers be kept from the perverse and evil opinions of the corrupt.  Would but that we keep to this ideal, I believe the world would be a better place almost immediately.  More, however, proves himself a calmer soul than me and sinks into the need to work around the reality that is rather than the world that might be.  He urges that we work within the systems as we find them rather than hoping to recreate them from the first principles.

At a later time, we will examine the legacy of this classic work.  Today’s reading can be found in it’s entirety here:

http://www.bartleby.com/36/3/1.html

Or heard in it’s audiobook form, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvAjS3gIdNw&t=2127s