Utopianism

Utopianism (Gk. ‘no place’) Projection of ideal states or alternative worlds, ordered for the benefit of all and where there exist no social ills. Sir Thomas More's Utopia (1516) outlines his notion of an ideal commonwealth based entirely on reason. It critically describes contemporary social existence, while prescribing a transcendent, imaginative vision of the best of all possible worlds. Enlightenment philosophers, such as Jean Jacques Rousseau, portrayed a vision of a pre-feudal European ‘golden age’. Other writers, such as Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen, outlined ideal communities based on cooperation and economic self-sufficiency. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels valued the satirical social insights of utopianism but rejected its unscientific analysis of political and economic realities. By the late 19th century, the utopian novel was an established literary genre. Works such as Erewhon (1872) by Samuel Butler were popular and influential. The spread of totalitarianism in Europe during the 1930s encouraged dystopian novels, such as Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley and 1984 (1949) by George Orwell.