Posted in: Other - Literature
Date: January 14, 2012
"Simple theft is not so great a crime that it ought to cost a man his head, yet no punishment however severe can restrain men from robbery when they have no other way to eat. In this matter not only you in England but a good part of the world seem to imitate bad school masters, who would rather whip their pupils than teach them. Severe and terrible punishments are enacted for theft, when it would be much better to enable every man to earn his own living, instead of being driven to the awful necessity of stealing and then dying for it."
"These are the reason why I think it wrong to put thieves to death. But everybody knows how absurd and even dangerous it is to punish theft and murder alike. If he sees that theft carries the same penalty as murder, the thief will be encouraged to kill the victim whom otherwise he would only have robbed. When the punishment is the same, murder is safer, since one conceals both crimes by killing the witness. Thus while we try to terrify thieves with extreme cruelty, we really urge them to kill the innocent."
"A king has no dignity when he exercises authority over beggars, only when he rules over prosperous and happy subjects. This was certainly what that noble and lofty spirit Fabricius meant, when he said he would rather be a ruler of rich men than be rich himself."
"Now note how the Utopians profited, through their diligence, from this one chance event. They learned every single useful art of the Roman civilization either directly from their guests or indirectly from hints and surmises on which they based their onw investigations. What benefits from the mere fact that on a single occasion some Europeans landed there! If in the past a similar accident has brought any men here from their land, the incident has been completely forgotten, as our future generations will perhaps forget that I was ever there. From one such accident they made themselves masters of all our useful inventions, but I suspect tit will be a long time before we adopt any institutions of theirs which are better than ours. This readiness to learn is, I think, the really important reason for their being better governed and living more happily than we do, thought we are not inferior to them in brains or resources."
The senate also has a standing rule never to debate a matter on the same day that is is first introduced; all new business is deferred to the next meeting. This they do so that a man will not blurt out the first thought that occurs to him, and then devote all his energies to defending his own prestige, instead of impartially considering the common interest. They know that some men have such a perverse and preposterous sense of shame that they would rather jeopardize the general welfare than admit to having been heedless and short sighted."
They know nothing about gambling with dice or other such foolish and ruinous games. They do play two games not unlike our own chess. One is a battle of numbers, in which one number captures another. The other is a game in which the vices fight a battle against the virtues. The game is ingeniously set up to show how the vices oppose one another, yet readily combine against the virtues; then, what vices oppose what virtues, how they try to assault them openly or undermine them indirectly; how the virtues can break the strength of the vices or elude their plots; and finally , by what means one side or the other gains the victory.
But among the Utopians, where everything has been well ordered and the commonwealth properly established, building a new home on a new site is a rare event. They are not only quick to repair deterioration, but foresighted tin preventing it. The result is that their buildings last for a very long time with minimum repairs; and the carpenters and masons sometimes have so little to do that they are set to squaring timber and cutting stone for prompt use in case of future need.
Fear of want, no doubt, makes every living creature greedy and avaricious, and man, besides, develops these qualities out of pride, which glories in putting down others by a superfluous display of possessions. But this sort of vice has no place whatever in the Utopian way of life.
While they eat from earthenware dishes and drink from glass cups, finely made but inexpensive, their chamber pots and all their humblest vessels, for use in common halls and even in private homes, are made of gold and silver. The chains and heavy fetters of slaves are also made of these metals, Finally, criminals who are to bear the mark of some disgraceful act are forced to wear golden rings in their ears and on their heads. Thus they hold up gold and silver to scorn in every conceivable way. As a result, if they had to part with their entire supply of these metals, which other people give up with as much agony as if they were being disemboweled, the Utopians would feel it no more than the loss of a penny.
Among the pursuers of this false pleasure, the Utopians include those whom I mentioned before, the people who think themselves finer folk because they wear finder clothes. These people are twice mistaken: first in supposing their clothes better than anyone else's, and then in thinking themselves better because of their clothes. As far as a coat's usefulness goes, why is fine woolen thread better than thick? yet they act as if they were set apart by nature herself, rather than their own fantasies; they strut about and put on airs. Because they have a fancy suit, they think themselves entitled to honors they would never have expected if they were plainly dressed, and grow indignant if someone passes them by without showing special respect.
They distinguish several classes of true pleasure, some being pleasures of the mind and others pleasures of the body. Those of the mind are knowledge and the delight that arises from contemplating the truth... Pleasures of the body they also divide into two classes. The first is that which fills the senses with immediate delight... The second kind of bodily pleasures they describe as nothing but the calm and harmonious state of the body, its state of health when undisturbed by any disorder.
If laws are not clear, they are useless; for simple-minded men (and most men are of this sort, and must be told where their duty lies) there might as well be no laws at all as laws which can be interpreted only by devious minds after endless disputes. The common man cannot understand this legal chicanery, and couldn't even if he devoted his whole life to studying it, since he has to earn a living in the meantime.