{"id":223,"date":"2012-09-18T14:04:14","date_gmt":"2012-09-18T18:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/?p=223"},"modified":"2012-09-18T14:04:14","modified_gmt":"2012-09-18T18:04:14","slug":"location-and-utopias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/2012\/09\/18\/location-and-utopias\/","title":{"rendered":"Location and Utopias"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For More and Plato, location of a utopia affects its development and success. While More believes that a utopia must be physically separated from other societies, Plato suggests that any society can become a utopia wherever it is located if certain conditions are developed and met over time. More\u2019s utopia is located on a remote island. His placement suggests the utopia cannot be corrupted because its inhabitants are physically separated from others. Essentially, More thought that outside contact corrupts the mind and society. In Book II of <em>Utopia,<\/em> More describes Utopia as not an \u201cisland at first, but part of a continent (More 28).\u201d Utopus, the ruler of Utopia, believes that the continent they conquered was full of \u201cuncivilized inhabitants (More 28).\u201d\u00a0 For this reason he orders all individuals of Utopia to dig a channel fifteen miles long to separate Utopia from the other continent. This channel serves not only as a physical separation, but also as a metaphorical one in which the ideas of Utopia become disconnected from the uncivilized culture surrounding their society. In addition, each town is located almost equidistant from the other. This placement is deliberate and creates an overall equality among the people because no individual has to go further for something than another individual demonstrating the true essence of a utopia.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, in Plato\u2019s <em>Republic,<\/em> location is not as essential to the creation of a utopia.\u00a0 However, location plays a small role in how Plato constructs his utopia. Plato believes that his \u201cphilosopher kings\u201d must be separated from society at a young age so that their minds are not corrupt. Plato believes the separation from society allows the philosopher kings to rely not on sensorial observation, but rather on their training and understanding the Form of the Good. The utopian society that Plato creates is different than More\u2019s because he does not believe his utopia needs to be isolated. Plato suggests that if certain conditions are met, any society can become a utopia.\u00a0 For instance, if the philosopher kings are well trained in arithmetic, geometry, physical training, astronomy, and ultimately dialectics they will be able to create a utopian society no matter where they are.\u00a0 More and Plato both use location in many different ways while describing their utopias. More uses location as a complete separation from the world. Plato uses location as a way to separate a few individuals and train them to then return to society and then rule society in a utopian fashion. Thus location is essential to the development of a utopia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; For More and Plato, location of a utopia affects its development and success. While More believes that a utopia must be physically separated from other societies, Plato suggests that any society can become a utopia wherever it is located &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/2012\/09\/18\/location-and-utopias\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1357,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37387],"tags":[15012,67920,67921,67925,1476,51883],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fys","tag-location","tag-more","tag-plato","tag-republic","tag-society","tag-utopia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1357"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}