Utopia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Utopia - Essay Example Sargent starts by pointing at the need for utopia for individuals in the society. But the utopia Sargent envisages is not that which presents a perfect state as this is impossible in the contemporary world. Instead, he describes utopia to be situations that strive to better humanity and give hope to individuals. The critical thing in her redefinition is not the perfect states but a better state, which sees the betterment of all situations and circumstances. A good life gives hope to those leading it and provides quality for human life, it is so critical because when people lose hope they lose their worthiness of life. In these situations humanity stares at extinction as a hopeless generation has no future. Sargent stresses that utopia is not at fault but what is at fault is the notion that there only exists one type of utopia. This is because there exists three segments of utopia that are the design or theory, the utopian movement and the utopian studies (Sargent 11-17). Sargent poin ts at the need for humanity to sustain hope; hope is the gateway to a better life and a wonderful future. Sargent points out that the link between a successful life and a life of despair is the ability of humanity to cling to hope. If one ever loses this vital component then they lose their sight on a bright future, which would definitely lead to betterment of life. According to Sargent utopia is the mother of humanitarian movements, these seek to ensure a better society by facing off with retrogressive groupings or practices in the society. Another example of a believer in utopia is John W. Friesen and Virginia Agnes Lyons Friesen who detail existence of several different utopian societies. Through their book The Palgrave Companion to North American Utopias, the two authors assert that every human being in the past and in the current aspires to live in a utopian society. The illustration of this statement is given by citing a number of utopian North America societies. They go furth er to point that achieving a utopia society is possible at least to the extent of Sargents definition, the way to achieve such a society is well detailed in their book (Friesen & Friesen). Defining Utopia brings more problems than it solves, as people have different conceptions on what it is and how it can be defined. Some of the definitions that have been forwarded define utopia as a creation of the mind where people and systems act and operate efficiently. In trying to define utopia other related terms come into the limelight such as dystopia and anti utopia. Dystopia is the extreme opposite of utopia and represents a situation where all things and people are messy. However, Sargent holds that utopia is not an extreme condition of goodness but a more realistic situation of a better society or situations. Situations that give people a chance to better their lives and embrace change which is beneficial to them. The ability to better lives and embrace change is the drive behind socia l movements which share in the dream of a utopian community. These movements seek to help people embrace change and motivate them to better their lives by remaining hopeful. This also explains why these movements seek to be all inclusive, because they hold that unification is not a divided calling but an inclusive call which seeks to integrate humanity in entirety. Dystopia also becomes an integral situation in defining a utopian state as dystopia represents a situ