Thomas More's Utopia aka the OG "No Kings" social post

St. Thomas More, the original sh*tposter, progressive democratic socialist ironically trolling those in power, or quirky Godfather of humanism? You decide.

map of Utopia, in case you can't find it on Googlemaps

The word Utopia was invented by St. Thomas More. Unlike most saints, he believed that we don’t need to wait until we die to go to better place. With a little human ingenuity, we could have paradise right here on earth. Or at least improve things.
Is it possible? Or is this just some lemon meringue pie-in-the-sky dreamy sweetness?

I've resolved to trace the idea of Utopia from it's beginning to the present. I'm not necessarily looking for where we went off the rails. I'm looking for anything to salvage.

The year is 1516. Thomas More has just returned to England from a diplomatic visit to the Netherlands. While abroad, he and his fellow diplomat are joined by a mysterious stranger – a seafaring explorer called Raphael Hythloday. Mr. Hythloday tells them about his travels and of an Island country vwhere they have no poverty, no kings, no money, no private property, and everyone gets along just fine. He called the place Utopia.

In questioning Mr. Hythloday’s travels and his visit to this new country, “we made no inquiries after monsters, than which nothing is more common; for everywhere one may hear of ravenous dogs and wolves, and cruel men-eaters, but it is not so easy to find states that are well and wisely governed.”

We have clutch-less shifting, cell phones, and programmable robot vacuum cleaners. But "well and wisely governed." Still not easy to find.  

The book begins with a lengthy critique of the present state of things. As you probably know, 16th century Europe was ruled by Kings, with a 24-year-old King Henry seated on the throne of England. 

There are too many poor people. In fact, it seems that the King would rather support the bootlickers that fawn all over him and leave regular people live miserable, uneducated, poverty-stricken, disease-ridden lives. As you can imagine, this creates A LOT of societal problems.

King Henry the VIII was a “law and order” King – with the death penalty for things like being his wife, treason and for commoners, public hangings for theft of goods valued at 5 pence and up.

Thomas More has some pointed passages on this subject - 

If you do not find a remedy to these evils it is a vain thing to boast of your severity in punishing theft, which, though it may have the appearance of justice, yet in itself is neither just nor convenient; for if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this but that you first make thieves and then punish them?’

And then there are a few ear conversations around making war on other countries that still ring true, 510 years later …

Hythloday says - 
“The king should improve his kingdom all he can, and make it flourish as much as possible; he should love his people, and be beloved of them; that he should live among them, govern them gently and let other kingdoms alone, since that which had fallen to his share is big enough, if not too big, for him:—pray, how do you think would such a speech as this be heard?”

“I confess,” said I, “I think not very well.”

Another great quote runs something to the effect of “I’d rather rule over rich men, than be rich myself, because to be rich and rule over poor people is not a King, but a Jailer.”

The Utopians have a cure for all of these society ills. No one can own private property. They have no such thing as wealth or money. 

“... as long as there is any property, and while money is the standard of all other things, I cannot think that a nation can be governed either justly or happily: not justly, because the best things will fall to the share of the worst men; nor happily, because all things will be divided among a few (and even these are not in all respects happy), the rest being left to be absolutely miserable. 

Thank God the last half millennia have proved Raphael Hythloday to be dead wrong, and I’m really glad to live in a representational democracy where money isn’t the standard of all things. Because that would be horrible. Can you imagine? So much progress over the last 500 years.

Finally, after critiquing England and all of Europe’s present forms of government enough to get yourself beheaded, or at least sent to a detention center, we finally get to the description of Utopia.

The first surprise about Thomas More's Utopia is how un-utopian it is. We think of Utopia as being a land of milk and honey with the lion laying down by the lamb, birdsongs filling the air and all is calm and rest. That's not More’s Utopia. That’s another imaginary paradise, The Garden of Eden.
 
The Utopia that Thomas More describes is a rigid and controlled society. (But what do you expect from a guy who wore a hair shirt, used a log for a pillow, and whipping himself on Fridays - while he was in law school, nonetheless.)

The quick rundown.

First, consider the urban planning. All 54 cities lie at regular distances from each other, are all about the same size, have the same number of governmental representatives, and everything’s as orderly as a Swiss train station. 

No one owns real estate and they trade homes by random lot every 10 years. 

The Utopians have a parliamentary democratic society, with a Prince elected for life who can be sent packing if he sufficiently offends the people or mismanages the country. 

They don’t have money or trade and don’t value gold and silver – except to pay off mercenaries to fight their wars for them. (A little time is spent on the nuances of how this works. They figure they get the worst, most violent, avaricious people to do the worst kind of work – so if they lose a few, no great loss – they were just foreign ruffians anyway.)

They don’t work anywhere near 40 hours/week, and spend their ample spare time attending lectures, reading and otherwise pursuing self-improvement. As opposed to say, doomscrolling, binge-watching, and wagering on sports and random events like when bombs will drop on a school or a bridge in the middle east.  

Oh, and how did they afford this free time? That’s St. Thomas More’s big innovation – instead of putting petty criminals to death, let’s put them to work as slaves. Marginally more humane that drawing and quartering, but to our modern sensibilities, shocking, nonetheless.

To modern Americans who prize person freedom and individual agency above all else, it sort of sounds like a living hell. To paraphrase those trenchant philosophical adepts, The Mamas and the Papas, “You gotta go where you wanna go, do what you wanna, wanna do.”

In his defense, Thomas Moore may have been a saint in death, but he was a statesman and political advisor in life.  So he’s much more interested in governance and statecraft. 

And Thomas knew it was no place real from the get-go. The tip off? It’s right there in the name. Utopia means “nowhere” or “noplace” in in Greek. And as for Hythloday – that means “purveyor of nonsense.”

He couldn't just come out and chant "No Kings" - and so he had to being clever. I could be wrong - but I suspect he was using humor and satire and deeply coded sub-cultural messaging to get his point across, to the right people. 

Like most most social critics and parody-ers he has a point to make. When you’re governing in a way that’s unreasonable, inefficient, and inhuman – the first thing to do is to point out the ridiculousness of it all have a laugh.

Thomas More’s was no Desi Lydic, but he’s serving the same purpose.

So I'm thinking that if Thomas More podcasting, or serializing on Substack, or hitting you up on TikTok, he would be dropping plenty of those wink 😜 emojis.    

That was the big surprise to me. It's hard to recognize through the pre-baroque language, but the guy was actually being funny. 

The takeaway?

You don’t need to be a Proto-Puritan to recognize and despise what’s happened from our unbridled pursuit of plenty. ​500 years of water under tower bridge, not much has changed, when it comes to men, power and wealth - and how the more power and wealth people have, the more they want. 

And when I look at the world through a 3x6 handheld window, it's pretty dark.  

I mean, “Truth” social. What’s more dystopian/Orwellian than that?

But considering the long arc of time, things have improved, in terms of health, education and societal welfare. And we don’t put traitors’ heads on a stick anymore, either. Personally, I'm happy about that - I get squeamish killing bugs, so public hangings? No thanks. 

And I'm more than a guy that captures spiders in a glass and releases them outside. I'm an optimist. And a realist. We will never have the best of all possible worlds, but we can do better. And it might do us all some good to think about what that might look like. Before you can be "great" you gotta make an effort to be good. 

Next stop on the road to Utopia - Plato's Republic. Or maybe The Hunger Games?  idk. Stay tuned. 
 
Coda

Thomas More wasn’t a saint during his life. He wasn't even a clergyman. 

He was Lord Chancellor, an advisor to the king, a powerful administrator and capable of great cruelty. He was martyred not because of a saintliness but because of stubbornness. He said, "I'd rather die than call King Henry head of my Church," and he meant it. Plus he wouldn’t bless his marriage to Anne Boleyn. He went to executioner’s platform in good spirits, still loyal to his ideals, his pope and his Church. He looked up at the executioner, kissed him and said, "Pick up thy spirits, man, and be not afraid to do thine office; My neck is very short, take heed therefore thou strike not awry." The executioner asked for his forgiveness and blessing, and then I assume swung away like Aaron Judge.

How Thomas More died is how we should live. With humor, grace and forgiveness of all – even those who play the ugliest roles in our ongoing human dramedy.

Peace, peace, peace my friends and blessings to all.