Sarah Vessels
HON 201, September 2008
Utopia As Thomas More’s Brainchild
Alistair Fox considers Utopia to be Thomas More’s playground for fleshing out ideas that would not have come to fruition in his life. This proposed purpose of Utopia is evident in how More describes the Utopians, their religion, and their way of life, which all reflect aspects of More’s life. Fox observes that More injects into the Utopian people these similarities with himself: interests in gardening and music and a dislike of material wealth. The Utopian religion resembles More’s own Christianity, and the apparent secret to happiness in Utopia lies in furthering your education, which fits with More’s scholastic nature. One statement by Fox sums up his opinion of what Utopia was to More: “More allowed the Utopians to live as he would have liked to have been able to live, but could not.”1
There are several instances in the essay that indicate Fox is of the opinion that Utopia was More’s wishful thinking for an ideal society, including: “More then allows [the Utopians] a privilege he would never have allowed himself in real life: to explore the implications of an assumption that virtue and pleasure are compatible,”2 “More could… explore the implications of a communal way of living without necessarily proposing it, however much he may have felt emotionally or intellectually inclined towards it, as one suspects he was,”3 and “A large part of book 2… describes the happy place of More’s dream.”4 Fox draws parallels between More’s native London and the structure of Utopia, both geographically and how the houses are structured, which further seems to indicate More was creating a world akin to his own but improved in specific ways, as he deemed fit.
While More may have been satisfied with Utopia, Fox finds several faults with it, writing “beneath the seductive appearance of the Utopians’ simplified, rationalized laws and mores is the human perversity that makes their existence necessary.”5 He goes on to describe this perversity as being comprised of liberal divorce laws, savage criminals, the use of mercenaries in war, allowing women and children to fight in battle, and the sowing of discord among enemies. Fox also disapproves of the sacrifices to personal liberty that come with greater liberty overall and “the moral injustice of the rational justice by which they regulate numbers in their families and colonies.”6 This is in reference to the Utopian practice of letting another family adopt someone within your own, simply because that person wants to practice a trade that is understood in the other family alone. This makes for very loose family ties, which would seem to go against More’s traditional Christian view of life. Another reference this quotation makes is to the sacrifice Utopia is willing to make of a colony, when the main city-states are in danger.
Why More would wrap the details of his imaginary ideal society (contained in book 2) in the lengthy dialogue of book 1, which is irrelevant to the description of Utopia, makes one wonder. Fox also contemplates this in his essay:
Once More had finished describing his imaginary commonwealth, he could have left the work as it was—a self-contained speaking picture; instead, he chose to surround it with an elaborately developed dialogue concerning the question of whether or not a wise man should enter a king’s service.7
Fox later comes to the conclusion that book 1’s purpose is to befuddle and dishearten the reader so much with society’s current makeup (or its makeup at the time of More’s writing) that he or she is receptive to the controversial idea of communal living without private property. Though this is a reasonable conclusion, it does not line up with More’s writing because the reader remains unsatisfied even after having read Hythlodaeus’ story of Utopia. Fox admits this problem by stating “When the Utopian exemplum fails to justify the full extent of Hythlodaeus’ confidence in communal living as a radical cure-all, the reader’s perplexity is compounded because book 1 has made desperately necessary the proof of its success.”8 Because Fox’s conclusion does not fully explain the reason for the existence of book 1, one is left to consider other possibilities. The most likely may be that More was using book 1 to present his inner struggle, and possibly writing it while that struggle was occurring, with whether or not he should join the king’s court himself.
Fox also finds fault with the character Hythlodaeus in book 1 because he seems intent on feeling angry toward Cardinal Morton and the others with whom he dined, purportedly because they scorned his ideas immediately and were sycophantic toward the cardinal. While it is true that the lawyer and a few others scoffed at Hythlodaeus’ ideas without really considering them, the cardinal was open and receptive, saying “I would very much like to hear why you think theft should not be punished with execution, or what other punishment you would enact that would contribute more to the common good,”9 and “It is not easy to predict whether the outcome would be favorable or not without at least trying it out.”10 Fox argues that “Hythlodaeus is so paranoiacally indignant at the behaviour of the lawyer, jester, and friar that he fails to see that Morton’s response confutes him,”11 and also “In short, [Hythlodaeus] reacts with exactly the same kind of judicious receptivity that the Utopians themselves show towards any new possibility.”12 I interpreted this to refer to, for example, how the Utopians treated foreign visitors who came adorned in gold and jewels: by mocking them, calling them childish. This shows a lack of diplomacy, that foreign guests would be treated so poorly and misunderstood without attempt by the Utopians to understand them. This makes Utopia appear an unpleasant place to live, that it is so closed-minded as to think its own practices are superior to those of all others, and to show disdain toward those others.
Fox notes a conflict between the More in Utopia’s book 1 and Thomas More’s real life. “More goes on to assert, with a blend of idealistic cynicism, that there is another kind of practical philosophy, which amounts to acting one’s part in the play at hand, observing the decorum of the piece so as not to turn it into a tragi-comedy.”13 This paired with another quote sum up the conflict: “Since More chose to act according to this pragmatic philosophy for the next 16 years, it comes as a shock to find that Hythlodaeus’ repudiation of it is not refuted.”14 This seems indicative that Utopia was used as a testing ground for More to struggle through internal arguments. Perhaps Hythlodaeus’ dangling argument for living idealistically was not combatted in Utopia only because More wished he could live that way himself, and wanted to allow it within the fantasy world of his novel at least.
More was not decisive about whether Utopia should have been published at all, though at first “he was eagerly awaiting the arrival of his Utopia ‘with the feelings of a mother waiting for her son to return from abroad’”15. This contrasts wildly with a later statement from More, calling Utopia “a book which I think clearly deserves to hide itself away forever in its own island.”16 Fox consolidates these two ideas with the explanation that “More regretted having published Utopia as soon as its publication was irrevocable,”17 attributing More’s regret to the common human problem of regretting an action you can no longer undo.
So it is, as Fox writes, that “Utopia was the last occasion on which More succumbed to the temptation of airing the innermost complexities of his private thought in public.”18 More’s other works were of a decidedly serious nature, and there was not confusion about their intent. Fox comes to this conclusion about Utopia’s uniqueness in More’s anthology: “after Utopia [More] no longer had to struggle to find out what he understood about life and himself,”19 implying that all the struggle had already been done, and is written in Utopia.
Utopia Is Not a Philosophical Treatise
While Alistair Fox considered Utopia to be a serious work by Thomas More, C.S. Lewis saw it as pure fantasy: “It all sounds as if we had to do with a book whose real place is not in the history of political thought so much as in that of fiction and satire.”20 One reason Lewis saw it this way was the difference in beliefs that More held dear versus those espoused in Utopia, evidenced in one example by Lewis’ observation “It is doubtful whether More would have regarded euthanasia for incurables and the assassination of hostile princes as things contained in the Law of Nature.”21 Was More simply testing the waters with these ideas seemingly foreign to his way of life? It is possible that Lewis is correct in viewing Utopia as “a holiday work, a spontaneous overflow of intellectual high spirits, a revel of debate, paradox, comedy and (above all) of invention.”22
There is confusion within the dialogue of book 1 which voice acts as More’s stand-in: “It is, to begin with, a dialogue: and we cannot be certain which of the speakers, if any, represents More’s considered opinion.”23 The More in Utopia could possibly be taken as the real Thomas More’s representative voice, though the real More lets Hythlodaeus run over his true views: “More replies that there is ‘another philosophy more ciuil’ and expounds this less intransigent wisdom so sympathetically that we think we have caught the very More at last; but when I have read Hythloday’s retort I am all at sea again.”24 This is something that Alistair Fox noticed as well, and found it surprising that More did not refute Hythlodaeus’ idealism because More led a very practical life himself.
Despite not taking Utopia seriously as a political writing, Lewis does comment on the politics within Utopia and how More may have really felt about them. Lewis notes the lack of freedom in Utopia with “There is no freedom of speech in Utopia. There is nothing liberal in Utopia. From it, as from all other imaginary states, liberty is more successfully banished than the real world, even at its worst, allows,”25 and “It is not the love of liberty that makes men write Utopias.”26 While Utopia may have been conservative in government, the Utopians somehow maintained a more liberal lifestyle; Lewis states “it is very strange that [More] should make Hedonism the philosophy of the Utopians. Epicurus was not regarded by most Christians as the highest example of the natural light.”27 The tradition of looking at a potential spouse’s naked body before making a decision to wed that person stands out most as an example that goes contrary to More’s beliefs, and it seems very liberal indeed. This kind of behavior in More’s novel is odd, considering how Lewis describes More: “More was from the first a very orthodox Papist, even an ascetic with a hankering for the monastic life.”28
There is also a problem with communism and private property in Utopia, in Lewis’ eyes: “It is even very doubtful what More thought of communism as a practical proposal,”29 and “It is certain that in the Confutation (1532) More had come to include communism among the ‘horrible heresies’ of the Anabaptists and in the Dialogue of Comfort he defends private riches.”30 One of the key points of Utopia is that there is no private property, and the Utopians view private riches such as gold and jewels as child’s playthings. It is interesting therefore that in More’s later writings he would show a completely different attitude toward personal material wealth. This may support Lewis’ theory that Utopia ought not to be taken seriously. Lewis has a comment about the use of gold and other precious items in Utopia:
The suggestion that the acquisitive impulse should be mortified by using gold for purposes of dishonour is infantile if we take it as a practical proposal. If gold in Utopia were plentiful enough to be so used, gold in Utopia would not be a precious metal. But if it is taken simply as satiric invention leading up to the story of the child and the ambassadors, it is delicious.31
More’s differing opinion could be simply the result of him changing his mind. Or, if we hold to the idea that Utopia is a testing ground for ideas about which More was not certain, it is perfectly reasonable for More to treat private property one way in Utopia and differently in his later works.
Another argument Lewis makes for treating Utopia as whimsical deals with how the novel is written: “The slow beginning of the tale… has no place in the history of political philosophy: in the history of prose fiction it has a very high place indeed.”32 This certainly seems a reasonable argument, though it is possible More wanted his novel to be accessible to a wider audience, and not just those interested in political philosophy. That could also explain this point that Lewis brings up:
“[More] says many things for the fun of them, surrendering himself to the sheer pleasure of imagined geography, imagined language, and imagined institutions. This is what readers whose interests are rigidly political do not understand: but everyone who has ever made an imaginary map responds at once.”33
However, this also suggests that More is just letting his imagination run free on paper, with no regard for the audience his book will have or the book’s seriousness. This is not an unimaginable possibility, if Utopia is to Thomas More a way of getting what are potentially his most absurd ideas, and certainly those that go against his current viewpoints, down in writing. If this is the reason for Utopia, then it is quite possible that More did not care one way or the other what kind of audience he had, since the writing of Utopia was mostly for his benefit in organizing his thoughts. However, since Alistair Fox pointed out that More was indecisive about publishing Utopia at all, it is also reasonable to assume that, when writing Utopia, More went back and forth between the idea of keeping his ideas to himself, as a personal reference, or publishing them so that the world could consider what he considered. More’s regret after publishing could have been because he could not change his mind later and un-publish Utopia, or it could have been because he worried what others would think if they thought More even considered some of the ideas mentioned in Utopia. One can only imagine the response those in the church would give at such an idea as letting a man not your daughter’s husband see your daughter fully naked, as if he were examining a side of beef to purchase, before the man decided whether or not he would marry her.
Lewis brings up the point that More never wrote anything like Utopia again, which could be an indication of a few things: More was testing out hypothetical ideas only and needed no further books to flesh them out, Utopia was meant to be taken lightly, or More changed his mind about the ideas he set down in Utopia and did not write about them further. Option three is not mutually exclusive with one of the first two ideas. While Lewis does not address the reason for why no other Utopia-like books came from More, he does confirm it with “Utopia stands apart from all [More's] other works,”34 and “from the literary point of view there is an even greater gulf between the Utopia and the works which followed.”35
Reasonable Explanation of Utopia’s Purpose
Alistair Fox’s opinions of Utopia ring true after having read the book and also having learned about its author. Flights of fancy do not seem like ordinary behavior for Thomas More, and it does not seem in keeping with his character for him to devote a great deal of time and anxiety later (over its publication) on a whimsical book. It seems the rest of More’s writings were serious discussion and arguments; why break the pattern for one novel? It seems a stretch that the ascetic More would write a fantasy novel with no basis in his beliefs or true opinions, but it is not so much a stretch that More would try to convey those beliefs to a wider audience, which would be accessible if More were to alter the style of his writing. That is, to write a more traditional novel, with all its whimsy and description of superfluous characteristics of the land, but which still conveys all More’s real views.
It also seems reasonable that More would use such a novel to work his way through inner struggles, such as the one addressed in book 1 about whether he should join the king’s court, or the one in book 2 dealing with practical and moral societal structure. Perhaps this is another explanation for the different style of writing: More was unsure himself of the opinions embraced in Utopia, and from his reluctance to publish and later regret about doing so, it is evident he worried what others would think of these ideas. However, if he could shrug off the whole book as a work of fiction, he could save face by not associating himself too strongly with controversial, and possibly heretical, ideas.
So perhaps Alistair Fox has a grasp of the underlying reasons for Utopia’s existence, but C. S. Lewis does not hit far off the mark either. It looks as if Fox understands Utopia’s true purpose, while Lewis understands the purpose More may have intended others to see. Regardless of how a person sees Utopia, it may have been More’s wish that the person consider the ideas within seriously, which may have been good argument for More in his struggle with whether or not to publish the book: no one else would ever read his opinions and consider them for themselves if he did not publish. Taken in this light, More seems very generous for having published a work which contains ideas about which he was skeptical, and also ideas that could get him into trouble, either with the law or with his colleagues for having thought such things.
It is therefore one conclusion that More aimed for Utopia to be many things: his own scratchboard for thinking through foreign ideas as well as for debating an important life choice he must make, and also a way of sharing his struggle with others, should they be considering the same things he is and want another’s arguments as a guide. It does not seem realistic that Utopia was only a satirical work of fiction, as Lewis thinks, but rather one or both of the options listed previously. Whether More expected and desired his book’s audience to view Utopia as Fox did or as Lewis did is just as much up for speculation as the book’s true purpose.
End Notes
1 Alistair Fox, “An Intricate, Intimate Compromise,” excerpted from Alistair Fox, Thomas More, History and Providence, in Sir Thomas More: Utopia, trans. and ed. Robert M. Adams, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1992), pp. 156.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Fox, “An Intricate, Intimate Compromise,” p. 157.
5 Fox, “An Intricate, Intimate Compromise,” p. 158.
6 Fox, “An Intricate, Intimate Compromise,” p. 159.
7 Ibid.
8 Fox, “An Intricate, Intimate Compromise,” p. 163-164.
9 Excerpt from Thomas More, Utopia trans. and with an introduction by Clarence H. Miller (Yale University, 2001), pp. 26.
10 More, Utopia, p. 31.
11 Fox, “An Intricate, Intimate Compromise,” p. 162.
12 Ibid.
13 Fox, “An Intricate, Intimate Compromise,” p. 163.
14 Ibid.
15 Fox, “An Intricate, Intimate Compromise,” p. 168.
16 Fox, “An Intricate, Intimate Compromise,” p. 169.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Excerpt from C. S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), pp. 167.
21 Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama, p. 168.
22 Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama, p. 169.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
25 Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama, p. 168.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama, p. 170.
29 Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama, p. 169.
30 Ibid.
31 Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama, p. 169-170.
32 Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama, p. 170.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama, p. 171.