Paul, J. Utopia Today. (Reading)

Question 1

More, the author of Utopia, was not a satirist. True or false?

Answer 1

False. More was a satirist, moreover, he would probably have loved to poke fun at our wealth gap, financial crises, and climate crisis.

Question 2

History as a subject and the book Utopia, are similar in that they are both alternative visions of society. True or false?

Answer 2

True.

Question 3

For the purpose of this discussion, the terms pride and self-interest are interchangeable. True or false?

Answer 3

True.

Question 4

Thomas More believed pride was the root of all plagues, including modern ones like the wealth gap, financial crises, and the climate crisis.

Answer 4

True.

Question 5

Define bifurcation in this sentence: “These have resulted in increasing political bifurcation between those who
maintain that unbridled self-interest will restore the stability of the system, on the one hand, and those who advocate policies which limit self-interest in prioritising the needs of the community, on the other.”

Answer 5

Bifurcation: the division of something into two branches or parts.

Question 6

The terms self-interest and communal interest are congruent, according to More. True or false?

Answer 6

False. More states they are inherently opposed.

Question 7

Our political, social, and economic system is born from the Enlightenment philosophy that self-interest of the individual becomes consistent with social progress. In other words, taking pride in oneself as individuals should make society as a whole, better. True or false?

Answer 7

True.

Question 8

The view of self-interest as inadvertently producing harmony, growth, and wealth in society is associated today with modern libertarians and liberal ideologies. True or false?

Answer 8

True.

Question 9

Socialist and communist views of the 19th century promoted self-interest. True or false?

Answer 9

False. In the 19th century, socialist and communist accounts maintained the need to limit or eschew private interest for the sake of the common good, although they maintained the utopian progressive impulse.

Question 10

Reevaluating Enlightenment views has never been more urgent, in light of social, economic, and _____ crises.

Answer 10

environmental

Question 11

Define polity in this sentence: “Does the (unencumbered) accumulation of private property benefit
or damage the polity?”

Answer 11

an organized society; a state as a political entity

Question 12

At the center of the argument for whether individual interest and societal interest could be reconciled is the issue of _____ _____.

Answer 12

private property

Question 13

Roman republican Cicero and the philosopher _____ agreed that private property were all good for progress, morality, and governance.

Answer 13

Aristotle

Question 14

The term ‘interest’ would shift from a financial to a personal/social usage in the _____ century.

Answer 14

17th

Question 15

Pythagoras, Plato, and Jesus Christ were on the opposing side of the argument, standing for communal property ownership. True or false?

Answer 15

True.

Question 16

In Utopia, More participates directly and consciously in this debate, by imagining a society in which property is held in common and ‘nothing is private _____’.

Answer 16

anywhere

Question 17

More believed that we are all equal because of our mortality. True or false?

Answer 17

True.

Question 18

More likens our mortality through the metaphor of the _____ _____.

Answer 18

stage play. We all don costumes and play parts and they are all taken away at the end when curtains close. Title and property are taken away.

Question 19

More believed our mortality should forge our bonds and strengthen them in community. True or false?

Answer 19

True. This is why he believed private property was a fantasy.

Question 20

More believed that to take pride from physical objects in life was _____.

Answer 20

dangerous

Question 21

“_____ is a political plague because it causes us to differentiate ourselves from our fellows; it cuts across the bonds formed through recognition of our commonality. It inspires competitive and zero-sum perspectives on the world.”

Answer 21

pride

Question 22

More considers self-interest – especially desire for property – to necessarily take away from the _____ _____ .

Answer 22

common good

Question 23

Utopia is described as the best possible commonwealth because without _____ _____, people can focus on public affairs.

Answer 23

private property

Question 24

Utopia is More’s corrective to what he sees as the _____ between the true nature of the world and the ‘fantasy’ of social convention. He maintains that we take the stage play of social convention for reality and the ‘very nature’ of the world, our fundamental equality, for ‘fantasy’, leading to our pride and discord in the commonwealth.

Answer 24

confusion

Question 25

More maintains that the fantastical Utopia is more real than our world because we can never really own property. True or false?

Answer 25

True.

Question 26

In More’s Utopia, no one person can claim their right to happiness is greater than another’s, and their pursuit of happiness cannot interfere with another’s pursuit. This restriction makes the happiness tenet very _____.

Answer 26

individualistic

Question 27

Utopians are able to correct the misguided valuations of European society. The greatest and most lasting example of this in is in the Utopians’ treatment of precious metals and gems. Give an example from the article.

Answer 27

Gold and silver they use for chamber pots and slaves’ chains in order to make them a mark of ‘ill fame’. Gems are given to children to play with, so that when they grow older they lay them aside for shame. Self interest is thus pruned back and communal interest cultivated in its place.

Question 28

More makes it clear that the extension of the stage

play metaphor means that, although we recognise its artificiality, we ought not to disrupt it _____.

Answer 28

entirely. A good citizen works within the system, even as they acknowledge it as immoral.

Question 29

Private property, for instance, is a part of the system, and one that can even have beneficial effects, so long as it is not taken to be any part of one’s self or used to inspire a sense of _____.

Answer 29

superiority

Question 30

More repeatedly presents his arguments about the need for decorous active citizenship alongside that of the essential artificiality of private property. For him, they are two sides of the same coin…why?

Answer 30

Both represent a willingness to look to yourself before others.

Question 31

The reason the author states that there is now good reason to redefine the concept of a good citizen from the days of the Enlightenment is because history and Utopia tell us that the foundations of our society and politics are misaligned. True or false?

Answer 31

True, because the Enlightenment philosophy asserts that self-interest leads to the good of all when modern crises tell us it does not.

Question 32

Why did More write the seemingly different Books I and II of Utopia?

Answer 32

“More’s argument is that both the withdrawn contemplative life and an investment in private property reflect the same dangerous tendency: willingness to look to yourself before others.”