Where it all began?

Thomas More - Utopia

The first book read for the Dean’s class is Thomas More’s Utopia, which could be seen as the start of the whole genre of Utopia’s. Written in the sixteenth century it clearly shows the clash between the ending feudal system and the starting modern age (with the building of the nation-state).
For me the most interesting part of Utopia was the way More tried to mix a strong normative view on religion with a humanist view on almost all other matters concerning society. As More himself was a devoted Catholic and eventually even died for his believe; in Utopia this is shown through his strong statements against; who he claims are not even human! So the person in question should be forbidden to speak in public and hold any public offices as well.

However on the other side we see More as a humanist and socialist, for he does not believe in social classes, which leads him to make all people shift jobs every 5 years or so with one another, thinks money irrelevant and believes that all people should be educated properly; from which also follows according to More that all people will be reasonable once they have received such an education.

In the end however, although More makes many reasonable points which are especially great when we realize the time in which he wrote them down (1516), I believe More was still too normative in his religious believes to come to a truly great society in his Utopia; for above all the humanistic and socialistic standpoints he put a religious domination (through morals that he believes all people should and would have in this society of Utopia, and the control over society and those morals he gives to the priests!) that limits basically all freedom and equality he gave to the people of Utopia in the other parts of his book.

Laura Pierik, 1st year student, LUC

The LUC Dean's Masterclass is run each semester for the students who made the honour roll in the previous semester.