A_Perfect_Society

A Perfect Society Through his profound scrutiny about human nature, Machiavelli shows us some essential qualities that a prince or ruler must have in order to maintain his state. On the other hand, Thomas More’s Utopia clearly illustrate how to maintain a “perfect” society by abandoning private property and money. Although both Thomas More and Machiavelli write about the basic issues about how society work and what should be our position in the society, they have quite different view about power management, governmental system and overall human nature. Machiavelli represents power is one of the most important things that a prince should possess in order to run his kingdom. His success also hugely depends on how he can use his power properly. As he says, “ In addition, anyone in a country which differs from his own in the way I described should make himself the leader and protector of the small neighbouring powers, and he should endeavour to weaken those which are strong” (The Prince, 11). Therefore, Machiavelli reveals that, a prince can only become powerful by destroying stronger ones so that no one can easily revolt against him. Weaker power generally supports the strongest power as long as they cannot increase their power. Therefore, a ruler must possess the ultimate power in order to retain and maintain his kingdom well. On the other hand, in Thomas More’s Utopian society, power is something that individual should possess rather than the ruler. Thomas More does not say anything clearly about the power of the ruler and everything is revolved around people, not around ruler. Every individual have same power, same opportunities and same way of life. He strongly criticizes Machiavelli’s notion about power. As he says, “Certainly a man who enjoys a life of luxury while everyone else is moaning and groaning round him can hardly be called a king – he’s more like a gaoler” (Utopia, 40). Machiavelli would argue that this type of government will eventually be more vulnerable to foreign enemies. Because, distribution of power among common people would diminish ruler’s ultimate power and eventually make himself nothing but a common people. Therefore, these type of society would be more vulnerable to foreign enemies and eventually will collapse. Machiavelli represent human as evil and self-seeking creature. As he says “One can make this generalization about men: they are ungrateful, fickle, liars and deceivers, they shun danger and are greedy for profit” (The Prince, 54). Therefore, according to Machiavelli, deserving something good from human is not only realistic but also harmful as well. He would argue that, set up an idealistic human society with the basis of justice and truth is quite impossible. Because, for his inherent nature man will betray eventually and therefore, ruler has to use his cruelty in order maintain his state. On the other hand, Rafael would argue that in Utopian society, there is no way that human can be selfish, because, men will grow up in a society where everything is perfect. And a person will be good or evil completely depends on the society where he raises in. Therefore, in this perspective, Rafael would say that his Utopian would be better than Machiavellian society. According to Rafael, money is the root for all problems. As he says, “The rich will be greedy, unscrupulous, and totally useless characters, while the poor will be simple, unassuming people whose daily work is far more profitable to the community than it is to them” (Utopia, 45). Therefore, he strongly supports abolishing private property in order to create a balanced and just society. But Machiavelli would argue that taking private property from all the citizens regardless of their social or cultural status is not reasonable at all. Because when people will realize that he will get everything what he wants, he will become lazy and will not feel any initiative to think about his future at all. Eventually, the whole nation will be less intellectual. Therefore, a nation cannot be sustain very long with all sorts of dull and lazy people. Furthermore one cannot simply break a capitalist society by taking all the wealth from rich people in order to establish a Utopian society. According to Machiavelli, a prince cannot simply accept new principalities without destroying everything in that society. Therefore, abandoning capitalism for the sake of moneyless communism is not only logical but also harmful for hard working people who want to work hard in order to improve their condition. Therefore, according to Machiavelli, this type of Utopian society will collapse either from internal rebellion or external enemies. Social Habits or Customs Our way of life, our habits and overall our mentality to view the world around us are completely depend on the way we grow up. Our society, culture and economic condition manipulate every individual in a quite distinctive way. For example, Montaigne represents his Cannibal society, where people think nudity in a positive way. On the other hand, Utopians wear the same dress everyday in order to represent their unity and oneness. According to Utopians, pompousness and one’s lavish external appearance contradict with his internal nature and all sorts of external showiness is nothing but wasting one’s time. Therefore, different societies have different customs and sometimes these customs are contradictory from one society to another. According to Montaigne, every action has some reasons. As he says, “Thus we should beware of clinging to vulgar opinions, and judge things by reason’s way, not by popular way” (Of Cannibals, 207). He says that in that society, some of their actions or social habit apparently seems to be weird or unreasonable. But one cannot claim whether their customs are logical or not by not judging the underlying reason behind their actions. For example, he explains that Cannibals live according to nature. As he says, “It is not reasonable that art should win the place of honor over our great and powerful mother nature” (Of Cannibals, 210). According to him living close to nature is a positive thing. And he represents them as “wild” because they are the one who lives very close to nature. They do not have any government system but only common kinship. But in Utopia people lives in a “communist” society where people do work according to the rule of their government rather than nature. Therefore, Thomas More would call them “savage” and barbarous as well. In Cannibal society, there is no urge to work. They can do whatever they want. As Montaigne says, “The whole day is spent in dancing” (Of Cannibals, 212). But, in the Utopian society no one can spend a single day idly. More says, “There’s never any excuse for idleness. There are also no wine-taverns, no ale-houses, no brothels, no opportunities for seduction, no secret meeting- places. Everyone has his eye on you, so you’re practically forced to get on with your job, and make some proper use of your spare time.” (Utopia, 65). Therefore, people in the Utopian society always engage themselves either work or other intellectual pursuit. Montaigne would argue that Utopian society is illogical because this society forces every people to work rather than giving them free will. Therefore, Utopian society keeps people out of the normal course of nature and restricts the free will of the people. Cannibals show their barbarism not only by killing their prisoners but also by devouring them. As Montaigne says, “He ties the a rope to one of the prisoner’s arms, by the end of which he holds him, a few steps away, for fear of being hurt, and gives his dearest friend the other arm to hold in the same way; and these two, in the presence of the whole assembly, kill him with their swords. This done, they roast him and eat him in common and some pieces to their friends” (Of Cannibals, 214). Thomas More would say that, Cannibal society is the most barbarous society in the world. Utopians cannot even think about killing animals, let alone killing and devouring humans. As More says, “They don’t let ordinary people get used to cutting up animals, because they think it tends to destroy one’s natural feeling of humanity” (Utopia, 61). There is no doubt that, Utopian’s practice to disengage general people from killing animals because, it affects people’s humanly nature very badly. So, Thomas More would strongly protest against Cannibal’s killing and eating humans. But Montaigne would think that it is not bad idea to other useless people. He provides some historical evidences and shows that eating useless children and women save the people of Alesia during severe famine. Therefore, Montaigne and Thomas More have completely different notion about the meaning of “barbarism.” According to cannibals, wives are the measure of men’s valor. As Montaigne says, “The men there have several wives, and the higher their reputation for valor the more wives they have” (Of Cannibals, 218). Therefore, Cannibal society is hugely polygamous. But, in Utopian society marriage is a very important thing. Prospective bride and bridegroom see each other’s naked body before marriage. Their main purpose behind this type of rule is to provide mental perfection to both of them before their marriage. As More says, “Most married couples are parted only by death, except in the case of adultery or intolerable bad behaviour, when the innocent party may get permission from the Council to marry someone else – the guilty party is disgraced, and condemned to celibacy for life” (Utopia, 84). So, most of the time they marry once in their lives and generally do not think about divorce. Although it may not be reasonable to see each other’s body before marriage, but it is quite reasonable to marry ones in our lifetime and become loyal to our one wife. Montaigne would argue that, Utopian’s monogamy would hinder the benefits of the polygamous society. Therefore, Montaigne and Thomas More have quite different view about the social habits or custom. Both Utopian and Cannibal society have some unique social values and each of these two society challenges each other’s culture and habits. Therefore, every society’s customs or social habits can only be measured by judging the underlying reasons or living in that perspective society.