A utopia by definition, is an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. A utopia would be impossible to create because of a hand full of reasons: No single person is perfect, competitiveness and striving for things comes naturally, and biologically people develop emotionally. In order for perfect society to exist, perfect people must live inside the society and nobody is perfect; therefore, if are no perfect people, there cannot be a perfect society.
Competitiveness and facing challenges comes naturally to a human being; but if there is no problems in a utopia, we could not survive because there are no challenges and obstacles to face against one another. Biologically it is impossible to live in a perfect society. We grow and develop mentally and cannot allow a perfect state of mind to survive. Utopias contradict evolution because we struggle with developing our morals and emotions. Once a utopia is built, it is established for failure.
Utopia literally translates to “no place” in Greek, so by definition, a utopia is impossible. A utopia is a place of pure perfection, but how can a society be perfect if the people living in it are not perfect. Perfection is being free from all defects and flaws. Everyone is born with a defect of flaw that extract them from being perfect. Perfect is an abstract concept, and can only exist in someone’s mind; therefore everyone’s view of perfection is different.
Additionally, if everyone’s view of perfection is different, it would be impossible for everyone to agree on their view of a perfect society. Regularly, there will be something to disagree on, or argue about, making the society imperfect. Problems will not be solved because everyone wants the community to be perfect without fighting. The community will end up falling apart because all the fighting and arguing about their version of perfection. The human race was born a competitive species.
Everything we do involves a challenge, and we want to win those challenges. Everyone cannot win, winners and losers will repeatedly be present, and most losers do not enjoy losing. If a utopia is perfect where there is no sadness or sorrow, where would to loser fit into the utopian society. As humans, we strive to success, and set goal to meet; if there are no challenges to face we would just waste away. A utopian society would not pose challenges for one to face. Our instinctual behavior would cause a utopian society to fail.
Another instinctual behavior we have additional to wanting to face challenges, is to lead. Naturally most people want to become the leader, and want everyone to listen to them. Everyone has a superiority complex, even if we do not want to admit it. We do not feel equal to other people, and we feel the need that we are better than someone else. How . will perfect society work if multiple people are fighting for the power and equality of the community The community would not be able to survive very long. Biologically a utopian society would be hopeless.
A state of pure perfection does not exist according to Darwin, and even the Bible. It would only work if everyone was dead, but that would not be much of a society. Utopian societies counter the idea of evolution. The idea of the human’s morals and emotions evolving over time. Because a perfect society as no sadness or sorrow, a person cannot evolve their emotions and discover who they are without experiencing times of hardship. Thomas More’s Utopia says that happiness is “in their definition means following one’s natural impulses, as God meant us to do” (More 860).
Thomas More is saying that happiness comes from our natural impulses that God gave us, but a utopian society goes against your internal beliefs because everyone must think and be the same. Utopian societies must have “peace” and “happiness”, but how does someone know what peace of mind and happiness is if they never know what brings peace to their mind, or what makes them happy if they do not even know who they are. Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas says “Happiness is based on just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive”. Le Guin 897). Ursula is asking, what is happiness, does anyone know what it is. Theoretically there is plenty of ways why a utopian society would not work: biologically, perfection being impossible, and facing daily challenges. All these ways set up a utopian society to fail. The want to have more power and control everyone, evolution and mental development, and facing day-to-day challenges and obstacles make it impossible for a perfect society to exist in the world.
