Talk:Utopia

Unsupported Claim?

..indicating that More was utilizing the concept as allegory (true) and did not consider such an ideal place to be realistically possible. (really?)

Any support for this? I see no reason why one would assume "impossible" from the raw statement of "doesn't exist" (perhaps "doesn't exist currently"). I'm not claiming the interpretation is wrong, just that it's an interpretation of More's intent that appears in the first paragraph, and is not supported elsewhere in the article. 24.17.180.126 (talk) 12:58, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

American Example

Even though it may sound a little bit silly, the big rock candy mountain would be very tast and an example of an imagined utopia in american folklore. 70.16.204.109 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 17:15, 26 February 2008 (UTC) ==Old talk==--203.199.15.46 (talk) 18:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

( This list can't possibly be a complete one, but it's something to get started on. Do the Shakers count as a utopian community?

That whole portion of the 2nd Great Awakening is often called the Utopian Society movement. I don't know how accurate the term is, but it is in fact used. Could that be mentioned in the article? User:Fishal

Robert Owen's New Lanark?

And all those millenial cults of the middle ages? )

---

Don't confuse a utopia with a commune.

Utopian ideals are also not the same as a Utopia.

As long as we have sewers that have to be unstopped, we'll never have a utopia.. (hmm. might make a nice .sig )

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More's Utopia even mentions the conveniences. Of course, in his day, they were chamber pots made of gold....

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.60.221.xxx (talk • contribs) 21:34, 16 August 2001

Do the Shakers count as a utopian community? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Conversion Script (talk • contribs) 15:43, 25 February 2002 (UTC)

That whole portion of the 2nd Great Awakening is often called the Utopian Society movement. I don't know how accurate the term is, but it is in fact used. Could that be mentioned in the article? User:Fishal (19:38, 25 August 2004 (UTC))

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A talk-type note moved out of article. Bky1701 08:11, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Note: The article Utopian and dystopian fiction is an old placekeeper with notes on various books and should be refactored into the Utopia and Dystopia articles.

Mikkalai 03:30, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I read the Giver last year and it talked about Utopia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.162.62.161 (talk) 01:28, 6 November 2004 (UTC)

RHaworth knows I would like New World Order Utopia included here. But he feels it to be original research. This is not an argument I think I will win until it sinks into people's skulls a bit more. See the Utopian Guidelines at my MySpace Blog under Daniel Christoph if you wish. That change and the fact this article should more be about the philosophical concept and politcal system of Utopia and only mention the 1516 (?) book. And Titles and Subtitles of an article should be more appropriately capitalized as I have added a minor edit here. Or I'll just put my Guidelines here as exposure and concensus will help shape it and not be Original Research any longer. Utopianism:

1. We must do away with all form of monetary funds; we are just supplying a service.

2. We must do away with competition. Company A and Company B are making the same thing. There is simply no point.

3. The issue of a practical energy source. We need to develop other sources of energy in lieu of eventually getting of this planet.

4. We should initially refurbish housing of all to pleasing and acceptable standards then for every family unit to inhabit equitable residences.

5. We develop a free universal health care system.

6. The issue of the penal system. Prisons need to be less cruel and inhumane.

7. Education is free.

8. Our world governments shall dissolve under the above system concentrating a great extent on space exploration in lieu of the fact that Earth will not last forever.

9. The above steps will allow for an alleviated workload on ourselves meaning our times of labor will be cut in half if we wish.

10. Lastly not least, the above will allow us for more time to create a world of art.

Ezdan1022 12:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Death to false Utopias!

Alright, after noticing that there wasn't actually an article for Thomas More's Utopia, I went through and fixed all the ones I could find in the list of pages linked to Utopia. I think I found them all, but if someone else wants a really crappy job they can re-check my work.--[[User:TheGrza|TheGrza]] 22:52, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

Why merge with Eutopia

There is a difference between the two, so why should they be merged? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tooto (talk • contribs) 18:26, 11 December 2004 (UTC)

YEAH - I AGREE - I put up the article on "eutopia" because someone specifically requested for this word, even though "utopia" was up. And what's more, someone has put a link from "utopia" to "eutopia" which right now gives a redirect straight back to "utopia"... Utopia is "no-place", with a play-on-words between "no-place" and "good-place" (eutopia). In utopian studies literature, eutopia is distinguished from the broader phenomenon of utopia, as a specific type or genre of utopian writing/thinking dealing with social dreaming of better, perfected, and/or good societies, as opposed to the broader phenomenon which refers to social dreaming of any kinds of societies including dystopias, arcadias, etc.

So can we have eutopia back please?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.253.32.6 (talk) 23:38, 7 February 2005 (UTC)

Hear-hear. And maybe we should have EUtopia to? Marcus

Omnitopiae

All right, I fixed up the bullet point which defined omnitopia, but for the life of me I can't figure out what the sentence is supposed to mean. Asking Al Gore's Information Superhighway gives about 450 hits, most of which seem to be parts of adventure games' dungeon maps. (Nintendo apparently used the term in Secrets of Evermore, but a cursory inspection doesn't tell whether or not all uses stem from that source.) According to A. Wood's "A Rhetoric of Ubiquity",

The places that describe us seem to be increasingly mobile. Not fixed for permanence, they are built for change. Within them, we stream atomized from space to space, finding the ever-present structure of these fluid locales difficult to discern. Analysis of this structure as a matrix of text and context demands a rhetorical approach and a guiding concept: omnitopia.

Omnitopia represents the construction and performance of geographically distinct spaces as perce,kibjvhukjhudn,rkdhyukybiquitous place.

...and so on. While maintaining a higher coherency quotient than the Dada Engine's output, it still sounds like academic hyperbabble discussing things Chuck Palahniuk described much more fully. (Funnily enough, the article does cite Fight Club, but only as a movie.) I'm sure somebody has professional training in making this jargon make sense; if you do, please help me out.

Anville 22:25, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thomas More

We need an article on Thomas More's book.. currently [Utopia (Novel)] (It's not really a novel) redirects here. I dont have the background on the topic, but came here looking for info. --Stbalbach 15:01, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Definitely. I think Utopia (book) would be the place for it, assuming we didn't want to go all out with De Optimo Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia. For the record, Utopia (Novel) is wrong for two reasons: it's not a novel, and it's miscapitalized. I'll put in a request for deletion on the redirect. --Quuxplusone 01:20, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Has any one noticed that the opening paragraph starts of talking about Plato's republic, but then switches to Moore's Utopia with any indication what so ever? ~Anonymous Reader

Dinotopia

Dinotopia should be on the "Example" list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bky1701 (talk • contribs) 08:11, 19 April 2005 (UTC)

Utopian Socialism

I need someone to give me information about people who worked on utopian socialist ideals exactly like it is described in the Economic Utopias section, referring to Utopian Socialism..

thanx, Waldir ([email protected])

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.13.33.178 (talk) 20:35, 3 June 2005 (UTC)

Why nothing on Roosevelt NJ?

Utopia (game)

i believe that Utopia the game, given its long-running popularity and irrelevance to this article, should be given a separate article. --Plastictv 06:01, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It?

It was an inspiration for the Reducciones established by the Jesuit to Christianize and "civilize" the Guaranis.

Is this 'it' referring to More's book, or to the idea of Utopia?

--babbage 30 June 2005 02:21 (UTC)

Moved Utopia (Web Game) to it's own page

I forgot to type it into the edit summary, so I thought I would clarify it here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.61.20.228 (talk) 17:54, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Hello, I need some advice concerning the link between UTOPIA and American culture for my M.A. dissertation! [email protected] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.28.107.113 (talk) 21:32, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Biblical Refs

The article reads: "The Christian and Islamic ideas of the Garden of Eden and Heaven..." - well, to mention the obvious - it was the Old Testiment that first mentions the Garden of Eden and Heaven, so to leave this out seems an oversight of no small degree. I would include that in the sentence as follows: The Jewish, Christian and Islamic ideas of the Garden of Eden and Heaven..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.186.252.156 (talk) 12:18, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Merge Utopia and Utopianism

Basically, all beyond the very original Utopia book is utopianism, and having the two (both very poor, BTW) articles leads to clumsiness and repetitions. mikka (t) 18:15, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

• Both articles do need a lot of work, but I'd like to see a clear suggestion of the new article's structure before I vote in favour of the merging. I'm in favour of it in principle at this time, however. Nach0king 14:06, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

• I'm also in favor of the merger. The article ought to be called Utopia. Like NachOking, I would like to see someone suggest an outline here, or see them just be bold and start modifying. CGMullin 18:42, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

• I 'm also favouring it. Both of these articles needs lot of work and it will be easy if they both are merged.Sauron 09:17, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

• Support merger, there doesn't seem to be much significant difference at that point. Gathering info in one articles will give us a more comprehensive info, and the even combined, both articles are far from reaching any significant 'size limit' we may have.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:54, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

• If you are to merge Utopia and Utopiansim there should be a clear divide as Utopianism can be described as an utopian impulse and not necessary a vision of a eutopia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.206.129.25 (talk) 15:49, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

• I also think that Utopianism should be moved to Utopia. I have just added a picture and I am planning a lot of hard work in these two articles, is someone else here so interested in them as me? --Pichote 18:03, 24 June 2006 (UTC) 22:54, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

• To satisfy CGMullin, Nach0king, et al. I will be bold making the following proposal of a structure for the merged utopia article. (Warning! :) I favour an explanation of the topic focused on the evolution the concept has undergone throughout History) --Pichote 18:03, 24 June 2006 (UTC):
• BEGINNING OF PROPOSAL
  • Introduction: Rewrite the current Basics of Utopia in a more encyclopedic tone rather than an anecdotal one including all the missing secondary ideas (poetry, fiction, etc.). Additionally, to mention the two main categories distinguished by the literature: i) The traditional utopia (before the revolutionary movements emerged halfway the 18th and 19th centuries); ii) The revolutionary utopia (after those). Finally a brief outline of some historically important figures and their contribution to the utopia concept.
  • The traditional utopia will include the following subsections:
    • The early utopia: Golden Age (Hesiod, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Plutarch), Garden of Eden, etc. Trying, when possible, to make use of the best contents from the utopianism article.
    • The exemplary utopia: Plato's dialog Republic, etc.
    • The first religious utopia: Old testament (Amon of Judah, Hoses, and above all, Isaiah), Church Fathers (Augustine of Hippo's City of God). Also worth mentioning the Middle Age's reformers and early revolutionaries: John Wycliffe, John Ball and Girolamo Savonarola inspired by a somewhat utopic impulse.
    • Middle Ages and the popular utopia: Cockaigne (that is, Cucaña, Cocagne, Schlaraffenland, Pomona, Venusberg, The land of the loafers, The land of the children, The land of milk and honey, The paradise of the poor, The sugar hill, The big rock candy mountain).
    • The Renaissance utopia and the New World:
      • El Dorado, Jauja, Hy Brasil, but also the influence exerted by the just discovered western paradise on the works of José de Acosta, father Mariana, Matienzo, the very Thomas More's Utopia itself, Francis Bacon's technocratic utopia, Novum Organum, (the minor Samuel Hartlib's Macaria), Tommaso Campanella's The city of the sun, Johann Valentin Andreae's Christianopolis.
      • After Bacon, Andreae and Campanella's utopias, a lot of them where written in the 17th and 18th century:
        • British utopias include: John Milton's The lost paradise, James Harrington's Oceana, Henry Neville's The island of the pines, Gerrard Winstanley's The New Law of Righteousness, as well as the works of John Bellers (precursor of Robert Owen)d
        • 17th century French utopias include: Cyrano de Bergerac's The other worlds (influenced by Campanella), François Fénelon's The Adventures of Telemachus (the first pedagogic utopia) and Denis Vairasse d'Allais's The History of the Sevarambians.
        • In this period a great amount of artistic works included an utopic inspiration: i.e. Insula Barataria in Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, Jen Johson, John Marston and Geroge Chapman's Eastward Ho comedy presenting North America as a new El Dorado. Neither of these works is an utopia by itself, but their framework is indeed utopic, as in these three great novels: Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Émile, (influenced by Vairasse's works). A curious precursor of Swift's works is Margaret Cavendish's Description of a New World, Called The Blazing World that together with the Gulliver, are considered the first somewhat ironic utopias (and by the way, almost dystopic in their arguments). Another similar vision is Robert Paltock's The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins where the utopia is the European lifestyle, ready to be exported to the New World
      • Apart from the fiction, it worths mentioning the specific experiments by the jesuite Diego Torres in the Reducción de Paraguay (a region comprising Paraguay, eastern Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and part of Brazil), by the quakers Peter Cornelius Plockboy and William Penn (in Pennsylvania).
    • The century of the lights utopias
      • Return to the natural state', Voltaire, Rousseau... (expanding this subsection soon)
      • The pedagogical utopias, about the first feasible utopias, Pestalozzi, Goethe, William Godwin... (expanding this subsection soon)
      • The utopist poets: Shelley, Wordsworth, Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the visionary William Blake... (expanding this subsection soon)
  • The revolutionary utopia will include the following subsections:
    • Coming soon
  • The other sections coming soon...
• END OF PROPOSAL

Please, feel free to share your opinions about my idea :) --Pichote 18:03, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

1. I favour your idea in the sense that it should follow a historical pattern (as opposed to a purely genre-based pattern) but I think it is perhaps very slightly too specialised in some places and should give the most emphasis to Plato and the Renaissance, which seem to be quite briefly covered in your proposal. However, I realise that it is simply that - a proposal - and that good content will come with time and editors. Ergo, I think yours is a good idea. Nach0king 18:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Example of Examples

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia#Examples_of_utopia could suggest that the links are a subset of a wider group that actually do illustrate a Utopia. So could it be altered to "Examples of examples of Utopia" ? or something else that shows that the links attempt Utopia ? --Podz2 17:17, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Americanisation

I note that one of my compatriots, apparently oppressed with a surfeit of leisure, has taken the trouble to Americanise every -ise spelling: Bush league. Our apologies, folks. --Wetman 08:29, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

• Was this, perhaps, in response to that compatriot of yours' who went through and attempted to Anglicize the "-ize" spellings a little while back? ;) --Awakeandalive1, 14 May 2006

Leibniz and utopia

under the headline Examples of utopia is listed "Gottfried Leibniz's assertion of the best of all possible worlds". Leibniz was talkiong about this world as the best of all possible worlds, thus it can't be described as an utopia, since it exists. I think the reference should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.81.58.103 (talk) 17:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Several of the examples don't belong

Many of the examples listed here (1984), Brave New World, and others aren't generally regarded as Utopias (except perhaps from POV of the rulers) but are in fact usually regarded dystopias. 168.166.196.40 19:19, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

The Giver

The Giver is mentioned two times in the examples section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Starwarskid (talk • contribs) 05:25, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Lede

Utopia is a place/society/location. It is not the efforts to reach it. Goldfritha 22:46, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Plural of words ending in -topia

What is the plural form of -topia words?

I'm writing my English coursework and struggling to find the plural of dystopia!

Help!

Geollyn 20:55, 2 January 2007 (UTC) Well, I'm two months late... but, er, it's -topiae, I believe. ~Switch ^{t c g} 05:37, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

related terms & concepts / outopia, utopianism

The "related terms & concepts" section has basically become a "see also" section. For instance, "outopia" and "utopianism", like many other terms on the list, were not separately defined; instead they simply linked to pages that redirected right back to this page. I took them out for now. However, if this section is really going to stay basically a "see also" section, then we should rename it in conformity with wikipedia practice ("see also"); otherwise, if the desire is still to have this be a "relaetd terms & concepts", then it needs to get more glossary-like content, like presently there for "omnitopia" and "heterotopia". --lquilter 05:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

list of utopian literature

I propose the creation of such a page, in parallel with List of dystopian literature, and cutting out the section here of Utopia#Examples of utopia. BrainyBabe 15:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. There's also the article Utopian and dystopian fiction which supports this. I would suggest rewriting the section to be two sentences long, mentioning Thomas More and one or two other works, and then linking to separate list. (When separate sections are spun off from a major article, they're still supposed to be summarized in originating article.) --lquilter 15:52, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for responding so quickly. I can't always log on as often as I would like. I have read your user page and think you might be very well placed to help me, by interest as well as by Wiki-knowledge.

I am aware of the article you mention, and had made some edits to it when it occured to me how much overlap -- and areas uncovered -- there are in the whole field. For example, there is ecotopian fiction, which I agree is a major subgenre, but not feminist utopias, which is surely as big. How much of science fiction is utopia, and vice versa? There's also an overlap, potentially quite big, between lesbian science fiction and feminist science fiction. Many novels broadly within this field derive some dramatic tension from placing utopia and dystopia next door to each other, with the latter posing a threat: how then can these books be characterised? I am not sure of my position on this, but think I would prefer to see them grouped together on one page.

Is it sensible to list these utopian works of imagination divided into sections labelled novels, films, manga (as I did see at one of the related pages, though annoyingly I can't track it down now)? I would prefer chronology to be the main sorter, as often a book is turned into a film, or one medium merges into or is re-imagined as another.

I have worked on other unrelated sets of articles, where long lists get confused. We took the approach with one to herd the lists and definitions into one article that could have a lot of eyes on it to keep it up to date and unvandalised, and "patrol" the other articles, removing incorrect additions and pointing readers towards the master list. I am not sure if that approach is relevant here.

I will start adding titles and brief descriptions now, and when this discussion is resolved (assuming this gets some response!), will carry out its recommendations. BrainyBabe 12:04, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm just sort of jumping in here with an opinion. You've given folks here a couple of weeks to respond, now write this up, seperate it out and post it up the way that you feel it should be done. Make it . . . .... your Utopia. Carptrash 16:08, 1 March 2007 (UTC) Just do it and deal with what comes as it comes.

I can't work on things this week, but I can help out with thinking next week, or editing whatever you do. --lquilter 20:12, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

As you see below, I'm back in wikipedia and thinking about structure of this article. I think this proposal works well with my proposal below for a restructuring. --lquilter 18:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Inclusive classroom

A person who believes in inclusive education is a utopian. Inclusive education is not possible. It may be true that we will be in perfect happiness. I'm going to add inclusive classroom. Please comment on this if you don't agree with me. thanks. (69.117.20.128 - Talk)

Do you have a reference for this claim? Goldfritha 22:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Picture of Utopia

I think that the picture here doesnt represent real Utopia as it shows a false garden of Eden (there is a two headed bird and the cat has caught the mouse...something that doesnt occur till Adam and Eve eat the fruit.)

i think another picture of Eden or something else (shangrila) would be more appropriate.

71.230.25.109 05:18, 16 April 2007 (UTC)Maraudingmuggle 23:51, 15 April 2007

I think that it does depict the lafe that utopia portrays. You are mistaken good sir.

Level of characterization and Mrs. Browns

The article says:

Virginia Woolf was deeply critical of the level of characterization shown in many utopias, flatly asserting in her 1924 essay "Character in Fiction," "There are no Mrs. Browns in Utopia."

It is unclear to a reader unfamiliar with this matter (myself, for instance) what is meant by the "level of characterization" (is it too involved? too undeveloped?) and "Mrs. Browns" (is she an everywoman? a reference to some specific character?). Christian Campbell 08:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this level of analysis should move to utopian and dystopian fiction, where it can be explored in greater depth without the distraction of dealing with social movements in the same article. .... --Lquilter, 18:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Outopia = Utopia

I think Outopia should be removed from Related terms, since it just seems to be a different spelling of the article's topic - Utopia. See the first line - Utopia (from Greek: οὐ no, and τόπος, place, i.e. "no place" or "place that does not exist") and compare to Outopia derived from the Greek 'ou' for "no" and '-topos' for "place" "a perfect place" a fictional, non-realistic place. It is the same thing. --V111P 18:44, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, I think the existence of outopia and eutopia prove that the word Utopia has a dual origin: ou-topos and eu-topos. I have been surprised to notice most dictionaries opt for the former etymology: did they ask Thomas More? As he first used the word, have they any grounds for favouring ou-topos over eu-topos? Usage would seem to indicate the latter, and I would be happier to see the lead paragraph indicate at least the play on words. Kevin McE 09:14, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Kevin. As a student of Greek, I always liked what I saw as the pun in eu-topia and ou-topia--that such a good place doesn't exist--and am similarly daunted by the unlimited supply of short-sighted etymologists. Mfryc 06:53, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Raphael Hythloday

I'm not sure the translation of Hythloday to be "knowing in trifles" accurately depicts the wry and ironic intent that More seems to have. The Norton Critical Edition (2nd Ed) has a very interesting footnote relating to Hythloday that reads as thus:

Raphael will not be known specifically as the "affable archangel" till Milton writes Paradise Lost a century and a half hence; still, he is already known as a comfortable, sociable, archangel, as contrasted with Michael the warrior: witness his befriending of Tobias in the apocryphal Book of Tobit. The first root of "Hythloday" is surely Greek huthlos, meaning "nonsense"; the second part of the name may suggest daien, to distribute, i.e., a nonsense peddler. A fantastic trilingual pun could make the whole name mean "God heals [Heb., Raphael] through the nonsense [Gr., huthlos] of God [Lat., dei]."

I'm not sure if it's worth mentioning in the article but I think it's interesting enough to warrant discussion on the matter. Bellfazar 17:11, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

lede & structure

The structure of this article is a bit all over the place. It starts by defining utopia as a fictional place (which would be better discussed in De Optimo Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia), but the rest of the article addresses primarily the current uses of the term. That makes more sense, so I tweaked the lede paragraph to better reflect the content of the article.

However, the structure should be better revised. In particular, an article (utopian and dystopian fiction) has been developed that could address the literary genre (although it, too, needs substantial work; you can't even tell the hallmarks of the genre from the article), but this article didn't link to it or refer to it in any way. Also, the intentional communities article should be closely referred to in this article, since it picks up and discusses the other major thread of this article.

I propose that we work on this article to make it more closely reflect what the disambiguation describes it as: a "philosophical concept". Then we can track the development and concerns of the philosophical concept, and how it has been explored in literature, other arts, and social movements (including intentional communities). --lquilter 18:34, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Problems

I don't think dividing utopias into the types currently listed on the page is useful. The types listed are pretty flimsy: most "economic utopias" are also "political utopias," most "technological utopias" involve descriptions of some economic or political change, etc. In fact, if we accept Lyman Tower Sargent's definition of a utopia - any imaginary human society described in some detail (if memory serves)- then, by definition, all utopias would include at least mention of the imagined society's politics and economy. Unless someone can come up with a source for these "types," I think we should rework these sections. It'd be better to frame them as overlapping themes running through a variety of utopias rather than distinguishable types.

I also think that the section "political utopias" is strange. Not only does it fail to give any examples from literary utopias, it also seems somewhat biased against utopianism. While a number of utopias describe an increased government or community involvement in private affairs, I don't think we can say that this fact is what defines utopian politics, or that utopias are "based on dictatorship."

The paragraph on eugenics is beside the point and should be deleted.

The other thing that really bothers me about the article is the emphasis on perfection or the ideal. While some utopias are presented as "ideal commonwealths," many utopian scholars require only that the society be considered significantly better than the author's for it to count as a "utopia".

I also think the omission of utopian philosophy is glaring. And Tom Moylan's influential concept of "critical utopias" would be good to include, as well. Jordansc (talk) 04:31, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Examples of Utopia section needs a clean-up

This list seems to be out-of-control, unsourced, containing a lot of 'trivia' bits, and other items that are questionable. For me, at least, the list leads to more questions than actual examples of utopia. TheWizardOfAhz (talk) 22:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I quite agree! The list is getting longer and longer, and most of the examples are literary, not historical, which begs the question: Do we need an article entitled List of utopian literature? The current list needs a serious trimming. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 23:21, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea to clean up this article, which is quite a mess, and to add a List of utopian literature voice. I think this Utopia entry shows all the problems inherent to Wikipedia. --Piccic (talk) 10:44, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

removed from Utopianism section

I don't know if anyone else can make use or sense of these fragments, which I've removed in tidying up:

• such as Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four became the primary method of Utopian expression and rejection. (Kumar 1987)

• Still, the post-war era also found some utopian fiction for some future harmonic state of humanity (e.g. Demolition Man).

BrainyBabe (talk) 16:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks like WP:OR. I wouldn't worry about them. Dr.K. (talk) 21:46, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Al Farabi

Does Al Farabi fit in the picture of an utopia? Does his ideal city need to be mentioned in this article?Mallerd (talk) 18:23, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Stop repeating the root of the word.

In the second paragraph, we have the root of the word. Great. We have a discussion on how the root is often confused, and we understand the etymology of the word.

In related terms we see descriptions of Eutopia, and Outopia, including their relation to Utopia.

I think that should be the end of it.

In case anyone was confused however, we have a little discussion after that: "people in history have used utopia to define a perfect place, as utopia is a perfect but unreal place. A proper definition of a perfect and real place is eutopia"

Personally I got that in the definition of Eutopia, the definition of Utopia, and the explanation of the root of the word. Yet it doesn't end.

The end of the related terms has more repetition, "the implication that the perfectly 'good place' is really 'no place.'" as if two lines earlier saying "apparent equivocation between the Greek for 'no place' and 'good place'" was not quite enough to convey the message.

Do we have to have 6 to 9 lines saying the same thing in the first two paragraphs of the article?

Baalthazaq (talk) 11:37, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Akira

How is 'Akira' a dystopia? It seems more like a dismal, futuristic society breaking down, not a totalitarian dictatorship. The film barely mentions politics, focusing instead on Tatsuo and his 'awakening'. 201.242.100.181 (talk) 02:04, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

As I have never seen it, and know little about it, I am not going to comment on whether Akira should or should not be listed. However, who said that a dystopia has to include or involve a "totalitarian dictatorship"? There are any number of examples of dystopias that are not totalitarian, merely dismal. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 02:07, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

The article defines dystopia as ' a totalitarian and repressive world'.

201.242.100.181 (talk) 04:39, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

In any case, I'd say that the list of examples is too long. 2 or 3 should be enough. Listing Brazil is absurd since the movie was originally intended as an adaptation of 1984, which is already listed.King Klear (talk) 14:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)