Thomas More's Utopia - serious joke?

While reading in preparation to write an essay on Thomas More’s Utopia (ISBN: 0521403189) (which is the ‘father’ of subsequent utopian works), I stumbled across a few interesting points. But firstly, anyone interested in modern utopian (or dystopian) literature should read More. I would also like to note that I regard Utopia as a serious work, although many people don’t. Some scholars argue that the unwillingness to accept More’s work in its entirety (there are some ‘acceptable’ bits that gets discussed and praised; and there are ‘unacceptable’ bits that are dismissed and ignored) results from paying too much attention to what we as modern readers want to read or don’t want to read. So for this reflection, I stand on the side that takes all of Utopia seriously, even the satiric parts.

But I wanted to briefly comment on 3 things: 1) Utopian military foreign policy; 2) it’s depiction of human nature; 3) is the Utopia described in the book desirable?

I’ll list down a few aspects of Utopian military foreign policy. Firstly, ‘they utterly despise war as an activity fit only for beasts’ (p.201) yet they go to war for ‘good’ reasons: to protect their own land, to drive invading armies from the territories of their friends, or to liberate an oppressed people, in the name of compassion and humanity, from tyranny and servitude’ (p.201-3). I think this sounds fair, but later we hear about some of their practices that might make us squeamish. For example, ‘they war not only to protect their friends from present danger, but sometimes to repay and avenge previous injuries,’ and the example of a war over ‘a wrong (as they saw it)’ – this sounds suspicious to me – follows (p.2013). When war is declared, they also send spies to incite rebellion against the current enemy ruler and offer rewards for assassinations of high-profile enemy targets, among other things. They also hire mercenaries (especially from a people group called the Zapoletes) and basically put them on the front lines and are unaffected by the implicit genocide they are committing. I think we are right to feel disgusted about these military policies, but I wonder whether the Western world needs to rethink theirs as well. Just today Prime Minister David Cameron made his case to MPs for UK airstrikes against IS in Syria. Scholars have suggested the imperialistic slant in the Utopians’ militaristic practices, and I think there are corollaries between them and that proposed by Cameron.

Secondly, its depiction of human nature is bleak. The character More in the book offers a stinging reason why things really aren’t getting better (despite we wanting it to be so): ‘For it is impossible to make everything good unless men are good, and that I don’t expect to see for quite a few years yet’ (p.97). We’ve waited for about 500 years and Jacob Needleman seems to concur with More in his book ‘Why Can’t We Be Good?’ I think the title speaks for itself. So More in the book proposes institutional structures as a means by which human happiness or flourishing can be achieved. Using human reason – that faculty so celebrated by the Enlightenment that it became the god of the modern age – More conducted a best-commonwealth exercise which probably surpasses Plato and Aristotle in numerous ways. And yet, his conclusion is not positive as there are problems aplenty in Utopian society that modern readers will be terribly uncomfortable with. In this exercise, More shows the limits of rationality in achieving ultimate human happiness.

          This leads to my final question of desirability. I was in a tutorial a few weeks ago and when our tutor asked us what we thought of the book, 6 of 8 students said they couldn’t connect with the book and they found many of the Utopian governing principles distasteful, perhaps verging on outrageous according to modern standards of ‘human rights.’ But I found the book relevant in that 500 years after its publication, the book still critiques a predominantly capitalist society that exhibits all the vices More talks about in his book. One of the differences is that these have now somehow become acceptable norms. Realistically, Utopia cannot be achieved. No amount of technology or self-help can overcome the innate problem within us – that which Christians call rebellion against our Maker. At our core, we aren’t good people, and we know that, that’s why we have laws. We know that left to our own devices, we will tend towards harm instead of good.

          So what options do we have? As a Christian, this reminds me not to desire a ‘heaven on earth,’ not to desire a ‘Christian’ nation. Because Jesus will return, and he will restructure society totally - all evil will be wiped out and the new world that he ushers in will be perfect in every way. So what shall I say as I sit reading Utopia and seeing the mess that we’ve made the world into? Only this: ‘Come, Lord Jesus!’ (Rev. 22:20b). 

Poem: I asked God in a tiny voice

       I wrote this poem about not knowing why I am facing the things that I am facing. And I needed a space to articulate. 

I asked God in a tiny voice

I asked God

In a tiny voice:

Why do I feel alone?

I asked Him

In a soft whisper:  

Why do I feel afraid?

I asked God:

If You could just –

Just show me!

So I can understand…

Christ replied

In a still small voice

Swept in from Calvary:

Hush, my child.

I hear, I feel, I know.

Poetry as Perceiving

          I was in a seminar and we were reading Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Fish.” It is a great poem about perceiving, about the difficulty of knowing something accurately and poetically. In this sense, we could say that it captures the poetic angst that language fails to completely describe a scene; and to extend it, emotions. I have realised that when I read poetry, I carry a lot of baggage, I want it to teach me something: maybe about grappling with life, or how poets deal with life – because I think that they are oftentimes the most acute observers of it; maybe about social ills, how poets challenge – or even promote – the ‘ideologies’ we are enslaved to. I want it to be didactic, similar to how liberal humanists approached literature.

          Yet going through this seminar, I’ve realised that my mind needs to be trained to see, not recognise. But perhaps more than see, I need to perceive. I need to be sensitive to sound, to syntax, to diction and the ways words on a page relate to one another. I think poetry is poetry because it is unfamiliar, there is an element of ‘enstrangement’ (to borrow from Shklovsky) so that we are led ‘to a knowledge of a thing through the organ of sight instead of recognition’ (Art as Device).

          However, to be attentive to words is, I think, at the same time to be aware of its inadequacy to fully convey meaning. Bishop’s poem certainly does suggest that. It is a picture of perception, showing us its difficulties but also the ‘rainbow’ moments when we finally see. I think that kind of epiphany is akin to the ‘road to Emmaus’ seen where after Jesus shows how all Scripture points and is fulfilled in him, Cleopas and his friend said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).

          Sadly, I think those moments are hard to come by, because we are swamped with the automatising and desensitising effects of the media empire. We as people don’t see anymore, because everything happens so quickly, there is no time to stop and stare and be amazed – amazed at how beautiful and ugly this world we live in is. Words and images do not make us think anymore, because to stop is to be left behind.

          So then I should be more attentive to words, and because words do not exist in a vacuum, to the people who say them or write them. Perhaps this will grant me a greater awareness of what others are thinking and feeling. Because I believe reading poetry is a process of training the mind’s eyes to see rather than recognise, then I hope I will be trained to see people rather than recognise them.

          There is probably an unspoken criterion that good poetry has to meet: universality. And on Calvary, the living Word who became flesh perceived human existence in all its glory and horror; he is both the particular and the universal. He is the light that gives people the ability to perceive. In other words, He is the perfect poetry. 

Poem: There is a Terror - Greater

I wrote a poem in response to the news of the Paris terror attacks, knowing that Paris gets coverage because it is an ‘important Western city.’

I didn’t spend much time on it and it’s not a good poem, and I must admit that reading Emily Dickinson has caused me to uses lots of dashes and to capitalise certain nouns. As I was writing, I realised that these two elements did help me in my attempt to articulate my thoughts. And I’m beginning to understand Dickinson a bit better.

But anyway, here’s what I wrote:

There is a Terror - Greater

There is a Terror – greater

Than the carnage in Syria, Beirut or Paris.

It’ll be a day of reckoning

Where none pleads innocence –

For we all like sheep have gone astray.

There is a Comfort – greater

Than the hashtags and profile picture changes can provide.

It’s news that justice will – nay – has been served

On all the evil of this world –

Meted out on a perfect man.

Let’s pray for Syria, Beirut and Paris –

And for all the suffering there is.

But will our hands and feet be equally as earnest

To bring murderers – of which we all are - 

The good news of Tree and Tomb. 

Thinking of Home

         After studying away from home for the past 3 years, I have realised that I find it extremely difficult to focus on my duties and responsibilities when I head back to my accommodation at the end of a day.

          I never was really lost when I was in primary or secondary school. I would come home and know what had to be done. Sure there was structure and routine, but those existed in a familial context; and it has taken me 3 years living away from home to realise that there are missing elements when a young bird leaves its nest.

          Sure there is freedom, yet there is also a sense of restlessness. I believe it is easy to overcome the uneasiness of leaving home by indulging in activities that occupy our time, mind and energy, yet these lines from George Herbert’s poem ‘The Pulley’

                   When God at first made man,

Having a glass of blessings standing by;

Let us (said he) pour on him all we can:

Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie,

                   Contract into a span.

So strength first made a way;

Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:

When almost all was out, God made a stay,

          Rest in the bottom lay.  

          For me, this sense of restlessness is perhaps due to a lost sense of real community. I know I am much more hardworking when I am out of my current rented house, but when I am inside my room, I often am distracted.

          I don’t believe there is a quick fix to this issue. Perhaps I could be more meticulous when I am planning my timetable, or perhaps I should be more disciplined in implementing my proposed plan for when I get back. Yet, I think there is a deeper issue that I have to resolve. Should I seek a permanent sense of rest and security on this earth? Should I seek to establish a comfortable hearth and home? I certainly think that the answer is ‘no’ even if I want it to be in the affirmative.

          The Apostle Peter calls Christians exiles (1 Peter 1:1; 1:17), and he wants us to have a future-focused framework. He says ‘therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ’ (1:13).

So I am living today waiting for the time when Jesus returns to me home. If today, or tomorrow, or the day after, I feel rootless, like a fleeing refugee, I have to remind myself that this shouldn’t be unusual. Instead, I should relish in the hope that one day, those memories I have of my childhood spent with family will be perfected when my Saviour and my King returns to take me and my Christian brothers and sisters home. There, we will find perfect rest.