Must Love Butterscotch.

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.