Utopia

Extract: Description of Utopia The basis of utopian organization is strict equality between beings. To ensure this equality, there is neither property nor money. This is the central point on which the debate begins with Thomas More (himself a personage of the work) who at first seems skeptical about this idea, which he believes would encourage laziness. It is then that the traveler Raphael describes the whole organization of Utopia: everyone is lent a house for 10 years. All are farmers for 2 years (or more if they wish), and work 6 hours a day. There are no idlers (no "nobles" for example). All have the same clothes. They eat their meals together. Free time is spent on recreation such as chess or learning beautiful letters. There are free classes for adults, the culture must be accessible to all. The Utopians are not superstitious, there is no form of divination or augury. Gambling is forbidden, non-existent luxury. Hunting is forbidden, except for butchers (who are slaves), out of necessity, so it is not an amusement. Gold and silver (material) do not matter. A system of equalization between the cities helps the poorest. It is only by such a system that we can truly care about the general interest when the fortune of the State is well distributed. There are no poor in Utopia. On the contrary, in the other forms of organization, each must always think of himself, and there is a "conspiracy of the rich," who make the laws, and who succeed by these laws in maintaining their domination and exploiting the poor. They want to remain superior and rejoice in comparing themselves to the poor, lower than themselves. "Pride does not measure happiness on personal well-being, but on the extent of the pains of others. ".... INTRODUCTION Sir Thomas More, son of Sir John More, a justice of the King's Bench, was born in 1478, in Milk Street, in the city of London. After his earlier education at St. Anthony's School, in Threadneedle Street, he was placed, as a boy, in the household of Cardinal John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor. It was not unusual for persons of wealth or influence and sons of good families to be so established together in a relation of patron and client. The youth wore his patron's livery, and added to his state. The patron used, afterwards, his wealth or influence in helping his young client forward in the world. Cardinal Morton had been in earlier days that Bishop of Ely whom Richard III. sent to the Tower; was busy afterwards in hostility to Richard; and was a chief adviser of Henry VII., who in 1486 made him Archbishop of Canterbury, and nine months afterwards Lord Chancellor. Cardinal Morton-of talk at whose table there are recollections in "Utopia"-delighted in the quick wit of young Thomas More. He once said, "Whoever shall live to try it, shall see this child here waiting at table prove a notable and rare man." At the age of about nineteen, Thomas More was sent to Canterbury College, Oxford, by his patron, where he learnt Greek of the first men who brought Greek studies from Italy to England-William Grocyn and Thomas Linacre. Linacre, a physician, who afterwards took orders, was also the founder of the College of Physicians. In 1499, More left Oxford to study law in London, at Lincoln's Inn, and in the next year Archbishop Morton died.........