Hythloday seems like a
pretty smart, well-traveled guy. Specifically, his thoughts on the advisors of
kings are well thought out, though they don’t give any credit to anyone.
Throughout his entire explanation he’s basically just saying that every noble person
is too greedy to make any kind of good system work, and I would say he’s right.
For example, when Hythloday discusses the scenario in which he notes the
Macarians and their limited treasury, More accepts that the other advisors
wouldn’t agree with Hythloday at all completely out of greed. A system like
that is entirely unrealistic simply because of the greed that is inherent in
people. That’s not to say that every person is filled with greed, but there is
a natural desire to have more, and especially for someone in a position of
power, it’s easy for that desire to run wild. Because we don’t get a whole lot
more context on the Macarians, it’s difficult to see how their system really
functions, but I bet there are a lot of checks and balances that make it work.
In reality, however, I just can’t see that working. Much like the politicians
in our country (not trying to get political, but this is a fact), there are
some that can be susceptible to bribe, which makes the entire system null. If
you can buy someone’s vote, you can get whatever you want, then checks and
balances don’t work particularly well. That is a massive oversimplification,
but the point remains the same.
Anyway, back to More and
Hythloday. One of my problems with Utopia is that I can’t argue too much
of what Hythloday is trying to say. In the context of the story, Utopia is an
actual place that Hythloday has seen and is successful. Because of that, it’s
difficult for me to say, “no, that’s entirely unrealistic and impossible,”
because he does have an example to lean on. Hythloday is correct that so many
political leaders are too wrapped up in the idea of private property versus
actually sharing things, and does make some good points about it.
I think my main point
against Hythloday (because I really do just feel like I need to argue with him
and I’m not sure why) is that in order to create a place that is
self-sustaining with no wars and no desire for luxuries, you would need to
start from scratch with people who were completely committed to it and a
population who never knew anything else. It’s impossible to take an established
power like England and suddenly change everything. No one would accept it and
it would very quickly become chaos. Hythloday really seems to want the rest of
the world follow the ways of life of these different places he’s traveled, but
it just couldn’t work out. Really though, I think Hythloday already knows that.
