Utopia: Unintended Consequences
SE
Hoaby
Unintended Consequences:
Flaws in Utopian Society
Scott E. Hoaby, April 2005
One of the most enigmatic questions about Utopia is what Thomas More may have been
doing by writing it. Skinner notes that “almost everything about More’s Utopia is debatable.”
(Skinner 1987, 123) Surtz cautions us that no one “is so foolish as to claim that the work is
wholly jesting or wholly serious.”(Surtz PW, 4)
These difficulties notwithstanding, an under-considered interpretation of Utopia is that it is a
seriocomic parody of political theories discussed or reformulated in Renaissance humanist
circles that were sedulously, though slowly, transforming both church and state in Europe. Most
interpreters of Utopia emphasize its serious messages and put relatively little attention on the
role that devices such as jest, parody, and irony may have in the text. By under considering the
interplay of these literary devices with the serious issues in Utopia, they potentially miss an
integral part of More’s ciphering and our subsequent potential for interpretive deciphering.
What I wish to put forward in this paper is a theory about what More was doing by writing
Utopia that fits roughly within the genre of seriocomic parody. More, it seems to me, is taking
issue with theories he believes are not workable or are impractical. He introduces them
attractively enough, and generally in a positive light, but the theories have unintended
consequences or side-effects that are deleterious to these theories’ feasibilities. His voice for
making light of these theories is Raphael Hythlodaeus. In making my argument, I will consider
the book Utopia in its totality, examining not only Books I and II, but also, when appropriate, the
1
I would like to thank Giulia Sissa for her encouragement and help in writing this paper, which at present is still a
work in progress. I should also thank my classmates who provided encouragement and useful comments on
initial drafts of some of the ideas presented in these pages.
2
Convention