Utopia by St. Thomas More, Part 3

This is the third post in a series on St. Thomas More’s Utopia. 

You can find the first post here.

Second post here: 

 

As I look at More’s key life experiences prior to the writing Utopia, you can connect a number of the subjects he brings up in the book to his life.  He brings up the Utopians’ religion and rituals; he lived a good deal of his life with religious clerics and even at a monastery.  He brings up the Utopians’ organization of towns and population; he was a member of parliament and presumably charged with the responsibility of civil management.  He speaks of the Utopians’ sense of justice and jurisprudence; well, he was both a lawyer and a sheriff.  He speaks of the Utopians’ trade policies, and he was a legal representative for merchants across international barriers.  He speaks of the Utopian’s household arrangements, and marital and social conventions; he was a man in midlife, having married and fathered four children, and by the writing of the work a widower.  He speaks of the Utopians’ high level of education and value in philosophy, and More himself was a well-educated man in classical philosophy. The one aspect of the work where the connection back to his life is tenuous, if actually nonexistent, is with that of the Utopians’ military organization and war-fighting doctrines.  There doesn’t seem to be any military service in More’s life.  But nonetheless as a parliamentarian and servant to the King he must have come into contact with issues of warfare.  

Now when I say in the paragraph above that More “writes” of these aspects of Utopians’ life, he puts those words in a character’s mouth.  There are several characters in Utopia and one of them is Thomas More himself as a fictional character.  It should be noted that More the author does not put those words in Thomas More the character’s mouth.  It is not More the character who is speaking of and praising the Utopians; it is a character named Raphael Hythloday.  And this is where I think the difficulty lies in understanding the intent of Utopia.  Do Raphael Hythloday’s opinions and values represent the author’s?  Or is Raphael Hythloday just a foil for More the author to knock down and satirize?  Clearly there are passages that could not rationally be supported by More, but then there are passages that might.

Even the name Raphael Hythloday is ambiguous.  Raphael alludes to the archangel, and so on one hand his name may be suggesting the bringing forth of divine wisdom.  But Hytholday means (I am told) “speaker of nonsense.”  So which is it, wisdom or nonsense? 

More the author makes Hythloday a strange character.  He’s a bearded old man, a Portuguese sailor, and explorer who traveled with Amerigo Vespucci where he learned of many cultures and where he found the perfect in the Utopians.  He is certainly an eccentric in that he prizes the strange aspects of Utopian life.  Perhaps “eccentric” is putting it too mildly.  Perhaps we, the reader, are to look at him as an oddball or a kook.  He speaks at length in what must have been several hours of rambling.  I found his support for the marriage customs hilarious:

 

Before marriage some grave matron presents the bride, naked, whether she is a virgin or a widow, to the bridegroom, and after that some grave man presents the bridegroom, naked, to the bride. We, indeed, both laughed at this, and condemned it as very indecent. But they, on the other hand, wondered at the folly of the men of all other nations, who, if they are but to buy a horse of a small value, are so cautious that they will see every part of him, and take off both his saddle and all his other tackle, that there may be no secret ulcer hid under any of them, and that yet in the choice of a wife, on which depends the happiness or unhappiness of the rest of his life, a man should venture upon trust, and only see about a handsbreadth of the face, all the rest of the body being covered, under which may lie hid what may be contagious as well as loathsome.  (p. 94, Kypros Press. Kindle Edition.)

 

Now that is an example of Hythloday as a kook, and More the author lampooning the values of the Utopians.  In other places it’s not so clear.  For instance, here Hythloday explains the nature of the Utopians’ laws.

 

“They have but few laws, and such is their constitution that they need not many. They very much condemn other nations whose laws, together with the commentaries on them, swell up to so many volumes; for they think it an unreasonable thing to oblige men to obey a body of laws that are both of such a bulk, and so dark as not to be read and understood by every one of the subjects. (p. 98)

 

Well, that sounds rather practical, a body of laws that are short and to the point.  Who could be against that?  All in all, it’s not always clear whether More is satirizing or conceptualizing an ideal. 

Perhaps the one notion that is a sticking point to modern day readers is what appears to be Hythloday’s endorsement of communism, and, because in this case it doesn’t appear to be satire, coming as an endorsement from More the author.  More the character himself at the end leaves open the possibility of such an endorsement. 

 

When Raphael had thus made an end of speaking, though many things occurred to me, both concerning the manners and laws of that people, that seemed very absurd, as well in their way of making war, as in their notions of religion and divine matters—together with several other particulars, but chiefly what seemed the foundation of all the rest, their living in common, without the use of money, by which all nobility, magnificence, splendour, and majesty, which, according to the common opinion, are the true ornaments of a nation… (p. 133)

 

So “many things” of the Utopians seemed rather absurd but not the living in common and the elimination of money.  Is More really endorsing that?  Is More the character in lock step with More the author?  On the one hand, what is being conceptualized is the Benedictine rule of living in common.  On the other hand, the Utopians apply it not to a monastery, where individual bachelors of a single gender choose such a life, but across a nation where families form the basic unit of society.  More the author and married man would realize that a monastic lifestyle could not work in a lay society because the family would no longer be the basic unit.  Indeed, I know of no example of one where it has.  Unfortunately the tone of the writing is not indicative of the author’s intent. 

As one thinks about it, however, the entire economic concept propounded in the book through the Utopians is absurd.  Families living together?  The majority of people idle, and yet agriculture being the primary means of sustenance, where the few that do work only labor six hours a day?  In what farming community could that possibly be true?  It’s impossible.  It’s nowhere! 

So what are we to make the book?  The book fails for me because it is impossible to distinguish what are serious propositions to improve society and what are “nonsense” ramblings of an eccentric old man, and if all is to be taken as nonsense ramblings, to what end?  “Utopia” means “nowhere.”  So why should we read about this nonexistent and not even possible ideal?  Ultimately then it would be a farce, but the tone of the work doesn’t feel like a farce.  Why should we go through a 134 pages of silly notions?  Is More satirizing the Utopians?  Is he satirizing the exploration writings that was becoming a formal genre in his day?  Or is he satirizing philosophic treatises with kooky old Hythloday as a silly savant?  Ultimately I can’t tell.

But on a second read, I have to admit, I was entertained.  Once I came to the conclusion that Hythloday is just an oddball not to be taken seriously I enjoyed the zaniness of the monologue.  As a philosophic work, Utopia has its issues.  As a tongue-in-cheek farce I found it a worthwhile read. 

I thought this was a very informative video on St. Thomas More and Utopia.