American Utopia - Essay Sample

Utopia was an imaginary republic which had all the social conflict and distress overcome. There has been the emergence of many versions of Utopia over the years, and a lot of them include visions of socialist society. Utopia describes how people would live if everyone were to adhere to the social ethics. It inspires the oppressed to struggle and sacrifice for the better lives, and it demonstrates that that socialism is ethical and the precepts of socialism can be applied without excluding or even exploiting anyone. The fact that socialism has been made to interact with utopia raise several controversies of whether they can be compatible. Different readings from Edward Bellamy, Ernest Callenbach, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman can be able to give precise information on the topic.

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The readings from Looking Backward examines the perceptions of evils the economic and social of the nineteenth-century society was entailed with. In his book, the transportation of Julian West, who is the hero is taken from the nineteenth century to a utopia of the twentieth-century society (Bellamy, Looking Backward). Having been born into an aristocratic family, the gap between the rich and the poor was vast, and any remedy was seen as impossible

Julian used to see himself as above everyone and as a result he used to carry the masses hunger strikes with contempt and anger. He was engaged to marry Edith Barlett who was not only beautiful but also a graceful Boston Aristocrat. They had planned to marry after their home was completed, but the building trades delayed their marriage for a year. Julian was a sufferer of insomnia, and he used the help of Pillsbury to go into a mesmerized sleep in which he would be woken up.

One night Pillsbury had to travel, and Julian was in his secret sleep chamber and unfortunately, that night the house was on fire. Julian was never burnt due to his chamber, but he stayed asleep for one hundred years (Bellamy, Looking Backward). After Julian had been discovered by Dr. Leete, he was taken to his home where he was able to learn few things about the twenty-first century. He learned that the society was based on public owned capital rather than private as in Julians days. The government controlled the means of production and divided the national product between all the citizens. He also learned that every citizen received a college-level based education and there is freedom in career choices.

He learned that in the twentieth-century people embraced the idea of brotherhood and they would need not to suffer from the evils of poverty and hunger. He is much relieved when he discovers that his trip to the twentieth century was not a dream but a reality (Bellamy, Looking Backward). He prefers the twentieth-century society to the nineteenth century which was full of cruelty and inhumane. In the book, it states that from the moment that men begin to live together and constitute even the rudest of society, self-support becomes impossible (Bellamy, Looking Backward). Social utopia has been very influential in the twentieth society where the essence of brotherhood is maintained.

The readings indicate that in the era of Julian, everyone lived privately with his own ideas and that is why no one knew exactly where he was for one century. Social utopian is made inevitable through social interaction and sharing goal, ambitions and also challenges. In the twentieth century, Julian sees a very different society with humanity, a society with unity and which disregard cruelty. He is even afraid that he is in a dream. The author takes Julian to the journey through his tactics to sleep so as he can help people way the difference between the nineteenth and the twentieth centurys interactions and how different they were in terms of economic and social actions.

The book of Ecotopia was developed in the 1970s when there were issues to do with recessions, inflation, and economic turmoil. The issue spread misery and undermined the confidence of Americans in the progress of their economic (Callenbach, Ecotopia). The book deals with the hopeful antidote to the environmental concerns of today which can be set in an ecologically sound future society. The book was founded during the time when Washington, California and Oregon seceded from the union so they could form a stable state ecosystem. A quote that state, Of course the Ecotopian situation has allowed their government to take actions that would be impossible under the checks and balances of our kind of democracy (Callenbach, chapter 2, p 20). He claims that the new green world was finally allowing zero tolerance to pollution, ritual wars and was advocating for democracy where women were given a chance to be in power.

The book presents hope for people who only dreamt that they would live sustainably. The stable state is what is referred as sustainable in this era where practices like manufacturing, construction, transportation and agriculture are well monitored to help the individual in the society overcome the economic and social strains (Callenbach, Ecotopia). The utopia in this book does not mean only in the ecological perspective. Weston meets a girl who devolves his fantasy and desires. The idea, therefore, implies that it was time for free love, free choice, and change.

In the readings found in Herland, three curious men decide to go and discover the place they had heard inhabited by only women. The three men were Vandyck Jennings, Terry Nicholson, and Jeff Margrave. After landing in the place, they realized few things that left them dismayed. Although Herland was a settlement with no men, their society was well organized along the most rational lines possible (Gilman, Herland). They had a peaceful and orderly society which did not have competition, crime, and other prosocial behavior. Van reflected his psychology and tried to understand the women independence. He stated that I found that much, very much, of what I had honestly supposed to be a physiological necessity(Gilman, Herland).They respected and honored motherhood, and they were in fact astonished to hear from the three men of how the outside world was full of social vice like abortion, exploitation, violence, diseases, and poverty (Gilman, Herland). Herland society observed social togetherness; they held issues like poverty together, and they had a sense of wisdom with experienced knowledge and authority. In the society of Herland, socialism was particularly compatible with Utopia since they had vision and dreams in which they fulfilled in unity.

In conclusion, a lot of people have constructed different communes in which they have used to put their ideas into practice just like all the readings from the three authors have indicated. Utopia and society have created goals on what an ideal society should be like and afterward try to sell the ideas to a larger community. There is superiority in social unity, and it should be noted that the person who proposed a system for society was trying to bring equity and sustainability. Utopia and socialism can, therefore, be compatible.

Work cited

Gilman, Charlotte P. Herland. , 2012. Print.

Callenbach, Ernest. Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston. New York: Bantam Books, 1981. Internet resource.

Bellamy, Edward. Looking Backward: From 2000 to 1887. Auckland: Floating Press, 1888. Internet resource.