How many times have I come into contact with something wonderful
and thought, “If I ruled a nation, this would be in it”? The answer is more
than I can count. To be honest, I’ve forgotten a lot of the elements to my
perfect world and now I feel like I should have written them down for such an
opportune time like this. I suppose in my utopia there would be no memory loss,
for starters.
Though
I cannot figure out why, whenever I think of my utopia the Hidden Valley Ranch commercial
pops into my head. For one, I do enjoy my vegetables, but I think the
overriding reason that it comes to mind is simply in the title. Instead of a
lost island as Thomas More suggested, my utopia is in a hidden valley
somewhere, where trees and shrubberies can line the rim to keep others out. The
population would be considerably smaller than his 54 cities, so probably just
one town would occupy the valley.
In
terms of supplies, my utopia would be relatively self-sustaining. There would
be farmers, hunters, and gatherers for food and fuel. They would utilize all of
these aspects in similar fashion to the Native Americans did, like using all of
the bones of the buffalo for different things. For the things that could not be
grown or harvested within the valley, there would be a trading system with
nearby towns. In order to trade with other areas, the town would need a
collective wealth supply, but no individual would possess money. Instead, all
necessities would be collective and available to the population as they needed it.
It’s rather communist-oriented actually.
I would
support the Amish approach as well, but I find electricity to be quite
beneficial, so my utopia would have electricity. There would be limits though,
so screen time would be limited and computer usage somewhat restricted. For
example, if one of the utopian citizens spends two hours on the computer solely
browsing social networks, their computer would automatically shut off. On the
other hand, if that time was used researching or learning astrophysics, then
the system would allow that usage.
Finally, an important piece of the
society is the government. It would essentially be the true democracy that the
Greeks implemented. Ideally, every adult from every household would attend
monthly forums and meetings as needed to input their opinions or vote on
decisions. There would be a couple of popularly elected spokespeople to rule
final decisions as voted on by the people, to keep things under control and to
oversee the general wellbeing of the town. As for religion, there will either
be one or none so as to avoid conflict, but if the people choose one, they must
vote on it unanimously.
Overall, my utopia meshes pieces of
several different ways of life and governments to create one ideal society. Of
course there are plenty of other elements I would love to include, but I have
gotten carried away already in constructing my perfect world. My utopia is, in simple words, a place where people don't necessarily have to be happy all the time, but live in harmony all the time. I must mention one final rule, which is: All citizens of my utopia must enjoy butterscotch.
It just seems like common sense to me.
