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Utopian Laws

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When people talk about Utopias and utopian societies, it is really easy to think about perfect places in which everyone does whatever they want, without any rules and regulations. But then, reading the classical utopian novels like “Utopia” by Thomas More and “A Modern Utopia” by Herbert George Wells, it is possible to see how some kind of legislation always exists. For several people, this presence of laws is seen as something inevitably negative and in contrast with the idea of an utopic place; this is probably also because the common definition of law suggests a strict and restrictive concept: “A rule of conduct imposed by authority.” “The body of rules, whether proceeding from formal enactment or from custom, which a particular state or …show more content…

Analyzing More’s and Wells’ Utopias, I will demonstrate how these laws always have the purpose to motivate the citizens to take active part in the society, to contribute to the community and, so, to keep them living in a good, fair and secure …show more content…

In fact, since they are promulgated for the end that “every man may know his duty”, they have to be clear and accessible to anyone, also to the people who are “so dumb, and so much employed in their several trades”, or do not have “neither the leisure nor the capacity requisite for such an inquiry.” (More, 2008, p. 129) This was clearly a critique of the body of laws in More’s time. In facts, as Eliav-Feldon points out in her book “Realistic Utopias. The Ideal Imaginary Societies of the Renaissance 1516-1630”, More thought that rules and norms were “too long, extremely complex, open to different interpretations, and written in a language that most people do not understand.” (Eliav-Feldon, 1982) For this reason, the solution of utopian thinkers is really easy: in their novel, in order to improve the societies, they simplify the complexity of the legal system, “so that it will be possible to have a system in which every individual knows exactly what is right and wrong and that will happen if the taboos of the society are violated.” (Sergent, 1975, p.

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