Prophets and Predictors 173

References and notes

This definition is to be found in
Robin Clarke, The Science of War
and Peace (London, Cape, 1971),
page 321. A general discussion of
soft technology definitions appears
in Peter Harpers, Soft technology:
a proposal for alternatives under
conditions of crisis (Unesco grant
application, 1971)
A brief outline of the background
and organisation of the Brace Re-
search Institute (Miscellaneous
Report M.19) and Brace Research
Institute Annual Report (Report
No. M.24), available from T. A.
Lawand, Brace Research Institute,
McDonald College of McGill Uni-
versity, Ste. Anne de Bellevue 800,
Quebec, Canada
See, for example: Tools for Progress
(London, Intermediate Technology
Development Group, 1967) and
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Robin Clarke, The Great Experi-
ment : Science and Technology in the
Second UJV Development Decade (New
York, United Nations, 1971)
Lewis Herbers, Towards a libera-
tory technology, in Anarchy 78, 7, 8
(August 1967) is one of the most
thorough analyses.
See, for example, Jerry Ravetz,
Scientz& I&o&edge and its Social
Problems (Oxford University Press,
1971)
Jerry Ravetz, Paper for the London
New Science group (1971)
See Jvew Alchemy Institute Bulletin
(Fall 1970 and Spring 1971) and
John Todds articles in Organic
Gardening and Farming (US edition:
September, October and November,
1971)
Robin Clarke, The third alter-
native, paper for the London New
Science Group ( 1970)
Prophets and Predictors
3. MORES UTOPIA:
THE MYTH AND THE METHOD
I. F. CLARKE describes how Mores portrayal of a unique social scheme-in
which all the contradictions that afflict human society are reconciled-as a new
engine in the business of human communications. The narrative form of
Utopia became a powerful method for the analysis and description of ideal
states; but the content of the book should not be construed as advocating an
early form of socialism, but rather a society guided by moral values.
The long-sustained popularity of
Mores Utopia is a clear indication
of the power of myth. Although our
world has changed in almost every
respect since Erasmus supervised the
first printing of De optima reipublicae
statu deque nova in&a Utopia in
Louvain in 1516, the permanent
appeal of Mores ideal state shows
how completely the utopian myth
corresponds to, and answers, a pro-
found psychic need in human per-
sonality. For the ideal state is our
world renewed and purified, a place
in which mankinds longing for
justice, brotherhood and general
well-being is fully and finally satisfied.
The dream-like quality, so charac-
teristic of most utopian writing,
begins as Mores narrator reports on
FUTURES J une 1972
174 Prophets and Predictors
what he has found in the unknown
land across the seas. Ralph Hythlo-
day describes a perfect and con-
tented commonwealth : The island
contains 54 city states, all spacious
and magnificent, identical in lan-
guage, traditions, customs and laws
. . . the lands are so well assigned to
the cities that each has at least 12
miles of country on every side . . .
and everywhere in the rural districts
they have, at suitable distances from
one another, farmhouses well equip-
ped with agricultural implements.
Thus, social justice and a sound
economy provide the basis for a
happy community in which all
men and women work for their
living, and any head of family may
take whatever he requires from the
produce and supplies in the city
warehouses. And why should any-
thing be refused. 2 First, there is a
plentiful supply of all things and,
secondly, there is no underlying fear
that anyone will demand more than
he needs. Why should there be any
suspicion that someone may demand
an excessive amount when he is
certain of never being in want ?
In this way More takes on the
role of prophet in his Utopia, and his
revelation for the 16th century starts
from a protest against the corrup-
tions, social maladies and political
failings of his times. First, in Book 1,
he attacks the new style in absolute
monarchy by showing how utopian
ideas of justice and rational be-
haviour are very different from
European political practice. Second,
in a famous passage that Marx was
to quote in Dar Kapital, More
attacked the new economic system.
He shows a nation divided between
the rich and the poor-a land in
which the wealthy are predators, for
ever seeking greater wealth at the
expense of the peasantry by enforc-
ing enclosures in order to increase
the pasturage for sheep: They
enclose every bit of land for pasture;
they pull down houses and destroy
towns, leaving only the church to
pen the sheep in. And, as if not
enough English land were wasted on
ranges and preserves of game, these
good fellows turn all human habita-
tions and all cultivated land into a
wilderness.
More writes vehemently and at
times with real anger in Book I,
which he uses to introduce the moral
prelude to the revelations in Book II
of the wise policy and wholesome
customs of his ideal world. It was a
clever arrangement. The opening
conversations between the author,
Peter Giles of Antwerp and Ralph
Hythloday combine the convincing
circumstances of real life with all the
vigour of a just indictment; and so
More is able to establish the co-
ordinates of his social scheme by
condemning the injustice and cor-
ruption of the day. From this one
can observe how the temperament
and experience of an author act
together to make the ideal state the
social and personal response of one
man to the conditions of his time.
In the Utopia it is apparent that the
author writes from an unusually wide
range of knowledge and experience.
More is many persons: he is the
honest lawyer and learned judge ; he
is the man of affairs with a sharp eye
for political behaviour; he is the
humanist and Greek scholar; and he
is the saintly Christian, philosopher
and theologian. In every way, a man
for all seasons.
Mores handling of the narrative
in Book II shows very clearly how
much the power and attractiveness
of an ideal commonwealth depend
FUTURES J une 1972
Prophets and Predictors
175
Figure ! 1. The Island of Utopia-
after a I contemporarv drawina
Figure 2.
To each hall are
assigned thirty families, fifteen
on either side, to take their
meals in common.
FUTURES June 1972
E*
176 Prophets and Predictors
Figure 3. For those disgraced by some crime they
have gold ornaments hanging from their ears, gold
rings encircling their fingers, gold chains thrown
round their necks.
- .-.. - ~,....,~,.i
Frgure 4. In choosing mates.. . the woman, whether
marden or wrdow, is shown naked to the suitor by a
worthy and respectable matron, and similarly the
suitor is presented naked before the marden by a
discreet man.
FUTURES J une 1972
Profhets and Predictors 177
on the way in which a writer is able
to associate the psychology of human
needs with the sociology of human
society; for More is always careful
to note that social justice and
private virtue are the foundation of
happiness in Utopia. In doing this
More artfully introduces a deliberate
paradox for the greater instruction
of the reader. He reveals that the
inhabitants of Utopia, although far
more virtuous than the Europeans,
live out their benign lives without
the benefit of revelation. The point
is that by the light of human reason
the Utopians have come to the
knowledge of one God and-for the
purpose of the demonstration-the
steadfast practice of their religion
makes them far better than the
Christians. In an exemplary manner
they exhibit the Four Cardinal
Virtues-Wisdom, Fortitude, Tem-
perance, and Justice-which were
the foundation of Platos Republic;
for they share all things in common,
they obey the law, and they foster
the best in themselves. And so, by
way of an object lesson for Europe,
the Utopians thank God that they
are born under the happiest govern-
ment in the world, and are of a
religion which they hope is the truest
of all others; but if they are mistaken,
and if there is either a better govern-
ment in the world or a religion more
acceptable to God, they implore
His goodness to let them know it,
vowing that they resolve to follow
Him whithersoever He leads them.
It is important to see the natural
religion of the Utopians for what it
really is-a device for the more
effective castigation of Christians-
because it helps to explain Mores
intention in describing the structure
of communism in his ideal common-
wealth. This is a trap for the
unwary, since many assume that
More was advocating an early form
of socialism. For instance, in the
view of Vyacheslav Volgin, Vice-
President of the USSR Academy of
Sciences, More was intent on out-
lining an order free of the evils that
private property brings with it. In
fact, More was doing something
very different; for the description of
communism at work is Mores way
of saying that the common good
must be the common concern of
every man, and that the true
commonwealth must be based on a
just economic system in which there
are neither rich nor poor. More
makes his points by emphasising the
contrast between the happy Utopians
and the wretched Europeans. As he
says : In all other places it is
evident that, while people talk of a
commonwealth, every man seeks
only his own wealth; but there,
where no man has any property, all
men zealously pursue the good of the
public; and, indeed, it is no wonder
to see men act so differently, for in
other commonwealths every man
knows that unless he provides for
himself, howsoever flourishing the
commonwealth may be, he must
die of hunger, so that he sees the
necessity of preferring his own con-
cerns to the public. The inference
is that wherever moral values guide
a society there also will be universal
justice.
The Utopia, therefore, demon-
strates the reign of law and the
application of those principles pro-
fessed but rarely practised by the
Christians of the 16th century. At
the centre of the universal harmony
in Utopia there is the family, the
social and economic unit of the state,
for life begins with and ends in the
family. The government is pure
FUTURES J une 1972
178 Prophets and Predictors
democracy : one magistrate elected
from every 30 families, and in their
turn the magistrates elect the Gover-
nor who holds office for life. Pru-
dence marks all their proceedings:
One rule observed in their council
is never to debate a thing on the
same day on which it is first pro-
posed ; for that is always referred to
the next meeting, so that men may
not rashly and in the heat of dis-
course engage themselves too soon.
That, of course, is More writing with
all the experience of a high officer of
state. Another aspect of that good
man appears in the utopian con-
demnation of hunting. He writes
with indignation of the weak, fugi-
tive, timid and innocent little hare
torn in pieces by a strong, fierce and
cruel dog; and because he can
arrange things as he wishes in his
perfect world, More notes that the
utopians have imposed the whole
activity of hunting, as unworthy of
free men, upon their butchers.
And so More goes on describing
these happy people with their wise
laws, sensible dress and virtuous
customs, who hate war and so
despise precious metals that from
gold and silver they make chamber
pots and all the humblest vessels for
use everywhere. The undeclared
proposition running through the
book maintains that there is-there
must be-a unique social scheme in
which all the contradictions that
afflict human society can be recon-
ciIed. In Mores view everything
depends upon orientation; it is the
spirit with which things are done
that counts. As he demonstrates,
once the community has established
the primary co-ordinates-God,
virtue, justice-then the perfect geo-
metry of the idea1 state can be con-
structed. In this way the Utopia
unites the magic of myth and the
potentialities of real policy. More
had discovered how to convert the
theorising of the dialogue in Platos
Republic into a true-life story of
marvellous discoveries, all written
in the I was there style that the
De Insulis Inventis letter of Columbus
had made so familiar. Mores Utopia
was a new engine in the business of
human communications. It made
concrete what had been abstract in
the Republic: dialogue became con-
vincing demonstration because the
careful realism and circumstantial
details of Hythlodays story en-
couraged the willing suspension of
disbelief.
Mores gift to posterity was the
revelation of a new and most power-
ful method for the analysis and
description of ideal states. The narra-
tive becomes a voyage into a fourth
dimension, where time and space
are what the author makes them and
the social system is a working model
of things as they ought to be.
Everything remains in the eternal
now of a perfect society. That is the
secret of utopian fiction-the brief
release it offers from the tribulations
of mortality. The smiling citizens,
the happy families, the dutiful chil-
dren, the perfect summer weather,
and most especially the absence of
war and disease-all these compose
the marvellous music of a new world
harmony. As Pascal said: The
heart has its reasons which reason
knows nothing of.
FUTURES J une W72