Student Essay:
The Mirage of Utopia

There is a part of humanity designed to seek heaven as an ultimate goal, where all worldly troubles will cease. The desire to create heaven on earth reflects a universal human problem of humanizing heaven. In the earthly realm, this perfect place is called “Utopia”; it can be conceptually defined as “a perfect world or state, or, the pursuit of it.” (The term and the concept both come from St. Thomas More’s famous book of that name.) Although “heaven” and “Utopia” are often used interchangeably, they are in fact antitheses. The idea of an earthly paradise is in fact an evil pollution of the truth about heaven, God, and the salvation of mankind. 

There are three main avenues by which humanity explores Utopia: literary and philosophical thought; government; and media. These avenues form a cycle of control over societal behavior, one leading into the next. Utopia is first portrayed as an ideal by authors, and then the popularization of this ideal leads to political applications. Then, the realization that the applied model is not fulfilling a Utopian vision causes it to be abandoned. Finally, Utopia is once again conceptually pursued in media and culture, which goes on to shape the formation of literature.

The search for Utopia in literature began in Greece with Plato’s Republic. The fictional dialogue between philosophers who serve as The Republic’s characters begins with a discussion of justice, or morality. The philosophers’ conclusion in the narrative is that justice is a natural balance of the human soul’s three parts: the thinking part, the emotive part, and the appetitive part which controls the pursuit of bodily desires. Socrates theorizes that this justice can best be seen through a hypothetical society where everyone plays their just part, and where there is perfect and unquestioning allegiance to the most supreme of rulers, the philosopher king. Only true justice as carried out by the philosopher king can prosper without individuality interfering. Plato theorized that a society acting as a controlled, coordinated whole is perfect.

This thinking, however, is flawed, because his society operates on the assumption that a perfect system can exist on earth, which it unfortunately cannot. Plato’s system serves as a model for Utopian thinking that authors and philosophers have built upon, and his thinking has greatly influenced the eras and epochs that followed him. Utopian literature can serve either as a dangerous or beneficial influence upon its readers, but it represents only the first of the three parts of the Utopian cycle. We must now move on to government.

Many forms of government represent the real-world applications of Utopian ideals, but none more so than Communism. We can see this from two main aspects of Communism. The first is universal equality, contained in the meaning of the term “comrade.” Jodi Dean, a Marxist theorist, defines the term in her book Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging. “‘Comrade’ names a relation characterized by sameness, equality, and solidarity.” The problem here is that pure equality can never be achieved, because the system requires someone to determine the benchmark of equality—effectively creating a hierarchy which negates the idea of sameness. In reality, pure Communism has never functioned in practice, even through the most meticulous application. 

Another important element of Communism is the destruction of culture and history. The founder of the Communist Party in Russia, Vladimir Lenin, is credited with saying “Give me just one generation of youth, and I’ll transform the whole world.” He saw that only when the old is completely destroyed can Communism begin its transformative work in creating the new; but in practice, this has created Utopias of death, poverty, and misery under the guise of progress. Essentially, Communism is a grand illusion that falsely promises perfect equality can be achieved.