Brian Gieszler Lit 264 M. Mathesius Materialism in Utopia Sir Thomas More was one of the more brilliant and influential writers of his time. Communists recognize one of More's most controversial works, Utopia, as a great influence for their plan for a different society. He was seen as a visionary and the Catholic Church even made him a saint. More used satire in Utopia to mock the way we view goods and status, politics, and society. Utopia shows us a land free of greed and distinctly opposite of More's current society. More tackles religion, marriage, power, death, and several others to show the major problems in society. Greed is shown in Utopia with stark contradiction to the norm. In fact greed isn't shown in Utopia, but addressed as childish and petty to contrast our own materialism.
Utopian's valued and used material that was useful. Iron, water, and fire were great treasures, because man could not live without them.
Utopia
English: Woodcut by Ambrosius Holbein for the 1518...
UtopiaNature has placed these things out in the open for man to use, and has hidden what isn't useful. Gold and silver are rare and have no real function, so nature has hidden them in remote places because of that fact. Utopians have no use for them, yet because they are rare the rest of us believe they have great value. More used this example to show how materialistic we are. To contrast society further, Utopians had far different uses for gold and silver as well. Their chamber pots were made of gold and silver, showing what value they place on these treasures. Showing also how foolish we are to put such things on a pedestal. While we use them for money and jewelry, they use them to take care of business.
Another example of their lack of materialism is how the...