I never took much interest in politics until the last few
years. The mysteries of the world didn’t appeal to me as I was enthralled with
the worlds I could create in my head. You could seethe about the ignorance of
this, the fact I was a writer and yet had no real knowledge of what happened
beyond the four walls of my bedroom. That changed though. It had to eventually.
The phrase “ignorance is bliss” had never made more sense to me than in the
last few years and particularly in the current state of our political world. I
didn’t suddenly decide to engage in the affairs of our world (past and present)
on a whim, of course it takes far more than a whim to kick a teenager up the
arse and motivate them.
Studying Shakespeare’s ‘Measure for Measure’ at A level was
what kicked me up the arse. It is, succinctly, a play criticising King James
1sts ruling, the puritan beliefs that dominated at the time it was written
(1603-04), the way the lower classes were controlled, the presentation of
marriage and lots more but the way the society in the play was presented as
being engineered by a corrupt ruler and a set of beliefs swaying how we live
and stringently behave actually frightened and disturbed me. I had always loved
literature, but that play started my passionate exploration into texts old and
modern, which then started my interests in philosophy, history, religion,
politics and psychology. It was then that I realised, to be quite frank, how
fucked our modern world is everywhere and not just in this country.
Recently I’ve been reading Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’ which
nicely coincides for this blog. A lot of the ways in which this fictional island
work I agree with. For example, and this
will come as no surprise to those who know me, their treatment of the natural
land is with preference to cultivate instead of exploit. They reap the full
potential of what the earth provides without destroying it. Their society works
with no particular hierarchy; all Utopians work and wear simple clothing of
undyed wool or linen over practical working clothes. There is no need for
individual display. Nothing is private; the Utopians have evaded private
interest and civil law. Money does not exist. The Utopians have an intense but
healthy appetite for knowledge with lectures lasting throughout the day with a
heavy focus on Greek studies. There are slaves in Utopia, but their slavery is
imposed as a crime not inherited. Foreigners, or prisoners of war, also become
slaves often willingly as it is better than to be subject to poverty which
would be the alternative. This is a penal system that rehabilitates prisoners
rather than merely provides a labour force. When Utopians population rises,
they establish colonies on the mainland wherever there is unused or neglected
land.
These are all wonderful ideas, and portray my own ideas of a
perfect society but what it doesn’t do is consider the raw ugliness of human
nature. Ownership and greed has always streaked through human nature like the
skid marks on a toilet. Property and cash has nearly always been a problem. So
has the fact that those two aspects are only consistent for a select group of
people in society. The penal system, religion, clothing, education have always
been at the mercy of that select group in society.
Perhaps, instead of taking the political ideas of “Utopia”
and questioning its ability to function in our real society and likewise with
other political ideas such as communism, we should instead ask what the hell is
wrong with ours and why (maybe not for us all) Utopia seems so glories, and so
out of reach. Dreams tie hand in hand with politics. The changes, good or bad,
within society start with a dream. My dream is to live in a world where you don’t
have to pay disgusting amounts to be educated (and I want to me a teacher) or
to be fed or to have shelter or to receive healthcare, where the forests and
oceans still flourish and stand in all their glory, where a hierarchy doesn’t
set a cruel status quo, clothes don’t determine who we are, the media doesn’t
manipulate how we receive the news of the world, music and art and literature
are as necessary as breathing, people
don’t kill each other over theory and fancy…. And ice-cream should be 100%
completely free.