Utopia 400-6

On the doorstep of Utopia

Thus we come to the eve of the great North American election, after a decade of debate. Tomorrow Camp A or B will be installed as the new ruling authority. Their plans will be made into reality, one Utopia or the other will begin the transition from a city in speech to a city in stone – to paraphrase Plato’s comment in The Laws.

This paper has been an attempt to outline the arguments between the two Camps over how Utopia should be built. It may be taken as the introduction to a much longer volume, as each section would properly require an entire chapter and involve greater examination of what the established authors have said on the subject. Because of time and space restraints I have presented my thoughts on the matter with minimal reference to the works that helped form my opinion.

Critical Analysis

What has this got to do with Alternate Political science as a field of study?

It is a thought experiment in how we understand power. It offers two views: Camp B which is a slight exaggeration of the modern world and Camp A which pushes many aspects of society into unpopular extremes. Both examples were constructed with the aim of being credible societies that you may want to live in; as opposed to the creation of a clearly good and evil set of examples.

What I found by following the logical inference of positions for both Camps is that neither one will provide an ideal civilization if it rigidly upholds its basic ideology. In other words to provide a good society for humans Utopia must include some contradictions. Policy cannot always follow the obvious logical path from the underlying ideology through the specific issue at hand into the practical realm.

Bibliography for Utopia A or B

Bradbury, Ray. “Fahrenheit 451” Del Ray Books, 1979.

Chomsky, Norm. “Necessary Illusions; Thought Control in Democratic Societies”

House of Anansi Press, 1991

Editor: Bruce, Susan. “Three Early Modern Utopias” Oxford University Press, 2008.

Editor: Fishman, Robert. “Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century” Classic Books Inc. 1977.

Editor: Freedman, Robert. “Marx on Economics” Harvest Books, 1961.

Editor: Rabinow, Paul “Ethics, Subjectivity & Truth; Essential works of Foucault”

The New Press, 1997

Editor: Tucker, Robert. “The Marx-Engels Reader” W.W.Norton Company, 1978.

Editor: Pangle, Thomas. “The Laws of Plato” University of Chicago Press, 1980

Ellul, Jacques. “The Technological Society” Vintage Books Edition, 1964 (unread)

Foucault, Michel. “Dicipline & Punish” Vintage Books Edition, 1995

Franklin, Ursula. “The Real World of Technology” House of Anansi Press, 2004

Orwell, George. “1984” Penguin Books, 1989

Parijs, Philippe. “What’s wrong with a Free Lunch?” Beacon Press 2001

Saul, John. “The Unconscious Civilization” The Free Press, 1997