Thomas Moore in his work Utopia attempts to reprimand and critique the society of 15th century Europe, of which he was an unfortunate citizen. The flaws of his generation are pointed out by contrasting the society to a fictional Utopia, a society of no flaws. Moore communicates his assessments of his society through the character Raphael Hythloday, an explorer who stumbles upon this exemplary society of utopia. Hythloday recounts his amazement with the hierarchical, social, infrastructural and cultural aspects of Utopia. His goal is to illustrate the flaws of his generation by offering an alternate and more efficient methodology of how to conduct a society.
The biggest issue that More noticed in his society was the pursuit of wealth and self-glorification. In these times, “the poor were getting poorer and the rich were getting richer” (Kishlansky, Geary, & O'Brien, p. 314). The inequality was blatant. “Most agricultural lands were owned not by those who worked it, but by lords who let it out in various ways”. (Kishlansky, Geary, & O'Brien, p. 303). Conversely, Eastern Peasants owned little if any land. As much as one-quarter of the entire population was destitute and the population was forced to resort to casual day labor, charity or crime and a majority of town dwellers lived by unskilled labor. Given the overabundance of day laborers and the tremendous increase in population, a lot of individuals found themselves without a job and a lot of them suffered from starvation.
More himself was of the poorer members of society and witnessed these atrocities first-hand. His solution to this vicious cycle of poverty, which he illustrated in utopia, was to structure society in a way that everyone would have an equal opportunity at jobs. To do so, members of this community were not allowed to own their own land. Rather, they would surrender all of their land and belongings to the government. All males were tasked with working the land, as they promoted an agrarian society because farming was the most important job in maintaining the sustenance of the nation. In addition, each member was to engage in a trade of their choice. Trades included masonry, carpentry, and blacksmithing. Women were obliged to work as well and performed tasks like spinning and weaving. These five jobs consisted of producing the essentials of life and everyone’s contribution in society was productive and beneficial to the society as a whole. Also, laziness and lack of productivity wasn’t tolerated, and measures were taken to avoid idleness. To Moore, this was what made a society survive. Furthermore, he was presenting a society where people have the liberty to pursue their jobs of interest, which isn’t the case in Europe during that time. People were forced into low paying jobs and poverty was rampant in Europe. Produce was shared and redistributed between the cities of Utopia, so as to never lack any food or commodities. In Europe, however, the communities ate well on years of good harvest and starved on years where land was less lucrative. One in every three crops was bad and one in every five was disastrous. Moore wanted to remove this inconsistency and fortify the notion of unity between the different parts of society.
The intention of Moore was to sensitize his readers that the biggest poison of the 15th century was the self-centredness of individuals and their pursuit to amass wealth. Money was the driving factor of Europeans at the time. All of their actions revolved around increasing their wealth. Conversely, People in utopia weren’t busy accumulating wealth because it would anyways be redistributed to the needier. Also, utopians were always well taken care of by their higher-ups and they were a thoughtful nation who cared for the well-being of one-another.
A catalyst to this inequality in Europe was the importation of precious metals from the new world. “Gold and silver from America flooded the international economy, rising commodity prices” (Kishlansky, Geary, & O'Brien, p. 304). A 500 percent inflation in agricultural products followed the importation. In contrast, utopians did not give any importance to these precious metals. Utopians “are amazed that any mortal can take delight in the dubious sparkle of a tiny gem or a precious stone when he can look at a star or even at the sun” (More 78). In fact, they made pots and pans, and slaves’ chains out of them. They were willing to give it away because it is was looked at as “parting with a trifle.” Similarly, the pearls and diamonds that they found on the island were given to children to play with. This was done in order to demean these items in the eyes of utopians from an early age. Thus, when the adults need to give them away for trade purposes, it would be done in a completely painless and mechanical fashion.
Another aspect which was better in Utopia was housing. Houses were well built well with brick or flint facades. Each house was three stories high. In Europe, “Homes were inadequate shelter against Cold and Damp. Most were built of wood and roofed in thatch. Inside walls were patched with dried mud, and windows were few and narrow. Piled leaves or straw covered the ground and served as insulation” (Kishlansky, Geary, & O'Brien, p. 300).
From a cultural perspective, Utopians engaged in music, physical activity, gardening and other intellectually stimulating topics such as astrology, philosophy, and arithmetic. Their ability to engage in such hobbies was due to the fact that everybody’s workday was limited to six hours. The children were also well versed in science and other topics. This was Moore's vision of a perfect society where education was accessible to all and all individuals had the opportunity to engage in mentally and physically engaging activities. The Utopians believe that it is through education that the values and dispositions of citizens are molded.
Surely one can envision that this was not the case in Europe. The peasants were reduced to a life of constant labor in order to amass a living to feed their families, and leisure and education were exclusive to the noblemen and richer individuals who had ample free time. However, even these aristocrats used their free time unwisely and engaged in drinking and gambling and other non-lucrative hobbies.
Utopia was a society that despised and loathed war. Their military operations were rarely for seizing or expansion purposes, as the island was large enough to support its population, and constant warfare would drain resources at the cost of the population as a whole. The main reason that Utopians went to war was in order to aid its allies. Also, Utopia hired the Zapoletes to fight their battles in order to avoid the bloodshed of their citizens. They did, however, have an army ready if they were to ever face a surprise attack or if zapoletes were unavailable. Furthermore, when attacking, they fought in a dignified manner and tried to the best of their abilities not to destroy the enemy’s lands or soils. In Europe, wars were rampant. The Hundred Years' War, The War of the Roses, and the Italian Wars are but a few examples of the wars going on across Europe at the time. The wars were not helpful to the nation as a whole, and “were fought to further the interests of princes rather than the interests of national sovereignty…they were certainly not fought in the interest of their subjects” (Kishlansky, Geary and O'Brien 256). Furthermore, Kings had little value of their subjects’ lives, sending troops on death missions to capture riches from other countries.
Another dissimilarity between Utopia and Europe was the governing bodies. In Europe, the countries were ruled by monarchs or powerful families like the Medicis. They tended to live
for their own pursuits and fight for glory. A peasant or even a high-standing citizen didn’t have a chance to enter the monarchy. Also, “In most parts of central Europe, the nobility alone composed the diets that advised the monarch” (Kishlansky, Geary, & O'Brien, p. 306). Rulers were self-imposed, and any opposition was very rare. In contrast, the land of Utopia was run democratically. Households were split into groups of thirty, and every year each of these groups chose an administrator, called a phylarch. Every ten phylarches operated under a higher official called a senior phylarch. Senior phylarches met in a committee chaired by the chief executive. Committee meetings were to be kept off the record. To ensure confidentiality, those who were found recounting the details of the meetings were punished by death. In addition, they operated under the rule that no issue brought to the committee can be decided upon until the next day, so as to remove any chance of over-hasty action.
Through His works, Thomas Moore was able to convey his views on the flawed Europe in which he lived. He masqueraded his views and reflected them through Hythloday the explorer. He even created an opposing character to Hythloday, which he wittily named after himself so as to remove any suspicion regarding his own opinion, and to be able to express himself freely without the fear of the authorities in Europe. Moore’s society was ideal to him and directly addressed the many issues which his society was facing, and offered solutions which, to him, seemed ideal. The Word Utopia is a contraction of the words Eutopia, meaning a good place in Greek and Outopia meaning no place. This suggests that although the living conditions in Utopia were optimal, Moore realized the distance between his fabrication and Europe, or the rest of the world for that matter, and realized that hoping for such a drastic transformation would be far from realistic.