Utopia; fantasy or reality?

Utopia....a fantasy land created by our minds as a way to escape our depressing reality.As stated by Ira Shor about her basic utopian ideas, Utopian Societies are based on "Futurism: hope, invention, experimentation, imagining and designing a better way to run society in the future, launching experimental projects and attitudes." (Ira Shor).Basically, eccentric wealthy individuals make their dreams into reality with hopes that other individuals will support their creation. Although humans have tried to create utopian societies, are they truly "utopian"? Do these utopian societies allow us to fully escape the horrors of reality?Do these heavenly societies allow us to look in the mirror every morning and truly forget about the cruelty that we face each day? No, they do not. They do not take away our problems. Instead, they allow us to be ignorant towards our problems for a short period of time. Like precious moments, utopian societies are also fleeting. It is truly impossible to create a society where everyone's needs and wants are forever satisfied, therefore guaranteeing these utopian societies that we create can never infinitely blossom.They will constantly be created and end up failing.

Throughout history, there has been many has been "utopian" societies.Octagon City is an example of a utopian society which was created and destroyed because the people were not satisfied. This society was located in Humboldt, Kansas. It was founded in 1856 by the Vegetarian Kansas Emigration Company. This society was supposed to be the ideal habitat for every grass eating lover  (vegetarian) in the world, but I guess it wasn't. Turns out the inhabitants were not satisfied with their octagon shaped houses and abandoned them. The only trace that this society ever existed is the octagon shaped homes that still remain today.

Utopian societies are completely forgotten once they failed. Like who actually remembers Fordlandia in Brazil where they tried to copy American society? It was a pretty horrible idea to begin with. Eating hamburgers and waiting until marriage to have sex isn't exactly what I would call appealing. However, the society from Cloudy with a chance of meatballs is very appealing. It would be like heaven for every junk food lover on this planet. It may not last forever, but I am pretty sure it would last longer than a vegetarian society.






Bhagwandin A (387).

Utopia...Nothing But a Dream

What's the point of envisioning a utopia when we know it can never come to be? Thoughts of an imaginary place where everyone is equal, where there's peace and the likes is just depressing, because I know that you know that a "Utopia" can never truly exist. But just because it doesn't exist doesn't mean we, humans, haven't tried to create it;

Brook Farm of 1841

It's a farm located in West Roxbury Massachusetts built on radical ideas, social reform and self reliance by George and Sophia Ripley. It was honestly a good "utopia" because the residents just had to do about 10 months of labor and was offered was free schooling. Brook Farm was a success for 6 years before it fell apart in 1871 because the younger residents were tired of doing all the dirty work and because it was plagued with smallpox and fires. 

Fruitlands Commune of 1843

It was founded by Bronson Alcott and Charles Lane in June 1843, Its located in Harvard Massachusetts. In this "utopia" it was forbidden to eat or use any animal products, which I personally found ridiculous, not the vegetarians thing, but the no animal products because it extended to not even using them for farming. Like how do you expect to grow decent vegetables without cow poop! Anyway Fruitlands Community believed in free love and were against ownership of property. It eventually collapsed in January 1844 because the community was very malnourished and members eventually left. 

Songdo, South Korea

Songdo, South Korea is a "smart city" that is designed where every area of life; climate control and communication is controlled by computers and networks. It is also designed to have a small carbon footprint. The Songdo Master Plan covers everything such as schools, stores, offices and the likes. However even the amazing plans and developments Songdo is making to become a successful utopia, the biggest problem they face is attracting business and may end up failing in becoming a utopia.

Do you see the similarities between these Utopian communities?  That's right FAILURE! Brook Farm tired and failed, Fruitlands Community tired and failed and soon Songdo, South Korea will join the ranks of failed Utopian communities. You know the saying third time the charm, well in this case its not because there has been numerous attempts in creating Utopian communities and they all lead to failure. Honestly a Utopia is nothing but a an abstract thought, an imaginary land, a dream. However there has been one place that has been successful in creating a Utopia and that would be Twin Oaks. 

Twin Oaks

It is located in Louisa, Virginia. The community is very diverse and open in religion and sexuality, has good schools and is well formed democracy. It is a community that shares all of the responsibility; gardening, taking care of the farm animals, childcare, etc. They are also very self-supporting, their income coming from hammock and tofu sales, indexing books and seed growing. They even work 42 hours a week and share their income with one another! It unbelievable but also amazing

There is nothing bad that I can truly say about this place, all I can do is be amazed at how successful the community continues to be. But like all good things, it must come to an end. Yes Twin Oaks was able to survive for 49 years but how long will it be before history repeats itself and they meet their demise. Will they still be able to stand for another 10 years, maybe 5? Who knows only time will tell.

Alabi O.

Word Count- 595

Utopia or Hell

What do you think of when you hear the word "UTOPIA" do you think of the SpongeBob episode when they go to the lost city of Atlantis that everything you could ever dream of is there? Are you a Mr. Crabs? all you want is money to be happy and in your Utopia you have endless amount of money or perhaps you are a Sandy and love science and you have top of the line science equipment. or you could be like Plankton and want a world class army to protect you from all the horror in this world. You could also not be like anyone of them maybe your like SpongeBob and Patrick were all you want is to see the worlds oldest bubble to be happy. But Maybe the utopia that the writers of SpongeBob creates in this episode is not your cup of tea.

Maybe you are more  like a Twin Oaks kind of person where you want to live like a upgraded Amish person. In case you never heard of Twin Oaks let me blow your mind real quick. Twin Oaks is a small commune of about 100 residents in the backwoods of Louisa County USA. where they have arches of land just for farming. They make tofu and hammocks everyone in Twin Oaks is required to work for a total of 42 hours a week unless your 50 and older where they deduced a hour for every year you are over 50. Everyone that lives their, lives off $80 mouthy allowance. get this if you have money in the bank because your living that high life they tell you to leave it in a different bank account and you can't touch it. You have no access to live TV your only allowed to Netflix and chill. But probably the craziest thing about this place there's people on a wait list to become a resident. Why I can't even get people to go to Chick fil A with me #sick.

Anther so called utopia is the capitol In the book "The Hunger Game". The residents In the capital are snobs and weirdos but they live in great luxury. They have top of the line everything from houses, transportation, doctors and so on. Why the capital lives in great luxury or so called Utopia, The 12 districts live like rats have nothing but faith and family to fall back on. I believe When Susan Collins wrote this amazing book she thought of her idea utopia which help her created the capital. But that wasn't the only thing going through her creative mind. I believe she also thought what it would be like to live in hell when she created the 12 districts. she also probably was just sitting on her couch having a movie night and watched Gladiator, Romeo and Juliet, Slumdog Millionaire, and Hamlet. When she had a light bulb go off and screamed "OMG! I know what I'm writing about now". But with all this talk about utopia I have yet to tell you what I think of when I think utopia.

To me utopia is not like SpongeBob and its defiantly not like Twin oaks, That would be like living in hell. It's kind of like the capitol but without the weird people and all the luxury. I would say being able to live comfy with enough money were I'm not dumb rich but I can go out a buy a nice house and nice car. With enough money left over to live a life where I don't have to worry about bills every mouth. Also in my Utopia I have a hot wife and two or three beautiful children with a black lab or German shepherd. That's what I see in my head when I think about utopia. But Perhaps after listing to me list these few examples of utopia you're thinking to yourself. Maybe utopia isn't as great as everyone says it is it's kind of a nightmare. I mean can't you make the argument that if you had all this "luxury" in your life that it could be hell for you. I know what you are saying how could all that nice stuff be hell Joe your crazy, But am I. What is life really without a struggle to succeed at something. Like the old saying goes "You give a man a fish he eats for a day, but if you teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime."

Work site: "A Cultivated Community" by: Gary Robertson June 18, 2013

Shaw J, word count 650