Ideal Society in the Eyes of Locke and Swift - Essay Example

The Second Treatise reveals itself as a work that later grew into ideas of democracy and capitalism. First it addresses the of nature, wherein the individuals are in no compulsion to obey one another but are their own judge. It is they who decide what the law of nature requires. The treatise discuss basis for political doctrines, like, conquest and slavery, property, representative government, and the right of revolution, which is set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. The Second Treatise of Government, subtitled An Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government, declares that there is no divine monarch over the world. It also states that, essentially, the natural state of mankind is anarchic. Anarchy exists anywhere and everywhere, whereever no legitimate government is found. In Chapter 4 ("Of Slavery") Locke justifies slavery, very much like More's Utopia, where slaves are allowed upto a maximum of two per household and they are allowed freedom based on their good behaviour. Thus the concept of an ideal society is comparatively varied in all the works analysed and ironically contain shortcomings that challenge the inherent ideological bias of their authors and the ages to which they belong. Locke's Second Treatise gives the vision of a free community, where all individuals are equal, and most importantly, possessed of natural rights. The notion of property is linked to this concept too. He maintains that men will inevitably want to acquire goods and will come into inevitable conflict. Locke's etymological explanation of "property," lies in his dervation of its meaning that is life, liberty and estate, including one's self. Thus he proposes that a natural law of morality should come to govern them before they enter into a social arena. Here the irony is underlined since Locke realizes that the natural rights must be compromised so as to enter into a social structure. But this shall be in the best interest of the people and thus achieved without any bad feeling. Thus in exchange of protection of property and of safety, the people must unite under a so-called body politic. In this civil society, the people must submit to natural freedom and get protection in return. Thus, by coming together, people unite and make a body of laws by which they enforce and punish the offenders of this law. But the tricky business is with abiding by these very standards of behavior. The civil society is formed for the rights of the property, and Locke asserts that there is a non-political interest within its members for the state's function is protection and keeping intact the property that belongs to one. If the purpose of government is the protection of property, the latter must exist independently of the former. Thus society must allow this property to become a private property. The people entrust this body of standards or laws with the members of the protectors or the State. But if there is an abuse of power and this body of government ceases to act in the way the people expect, or do not represent the people's ideals, and instead just represent either their selfish needs or some other ideal, there is the possibility of a revolt or rebel. Locke suggests that not only should they rebel but overthrow that government and thereby replace it with people who will represent them better. Taken into fact that Locke was justifying his opposition to Charles II, all these concern seem fitting to his cause of an iconoclasm that he expected out of the people when the government ceases to be the mouthpiece of the people it seeks to protect. Locke's Second Treatise justifies the revolution of King William so as to explain the circumstances, under which the people of the state have ultimate right to raise concern and seek rebellion and replace one government with a better one. The idea of an unlimited property and that of a corrupt government are addressed in terms of Governmental intervention; since if the government comes to possess people's property then it shall possess their liberty too. In fact, Locke proves that property is more valuable than life because one might even loose life in a war, but one's ownership rights protect property and this right is not that easy to loose. This idea of a social government with limited powers and who preserves unlimited personal property, and natural human rights, gives an idea of a society that is fair and just and which is a source of a modern idea of a state that is free from any kind of tyranny and despotism. Locke thus portrays the abstract state of nature and human judgements are based upon the necessities of this law of nature. Gulliver's Travels takes one to the land of the Lilliputs, the Brobdingnag, Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, and Luggnagg and lastly to the Country of the Houyhnhnms. Swift relies on satire to reveal his reservations about what must constitute an ideal society and thereby exposes the reader to the limitations and the extremeties of each of them. Thus Swift's satire scoffs at the excesses of communal life, as much as he mocks the excesses of individualism in its portrayal of an alienated Gulliver chatting with his horses at in his homeland England. Later from the novels theme of the lofty excellence of mankind, begun in Chapter six, it ends with a depiction of the opposite, like Gulliver's offer of the secret of gunpowder. Thus by upholding the shortcomings of the 18th century English society, and by lampooning court intrigues, Swift depicts a society fraught with rank and favor of the Lilliputian ministers (Gulliver falls out of favor for not abeting the King in his enterprise to usurp greater power), and thus shows how little substantive difference there was between the Whig and Tory (depicted by differences in the height of their heels and how high one can jump and also the petty quarrel between the Big-Endians and the Small-Endians on whether the Host was flesh or symbol) in real. Swift reveals the pretensions of politics of his age by informing the reader of the ideals and practices of the Lilliputian society, which are not very far off from the practices or the malpractices of the English society. He points out laughable practices in the land of the Liliputs such as rewarding those who obey the law, making the breach of trust as the highest offense, and by punishing false accusers and ingratitude. But even the Lilliputians, like the human do not abide by such laws, whatever their nature. Chapter seven of the first Voyage, where the Lilliputian Court indicts Gulliver for high treason, gives a bitter portrayal of the political intrigue and hypocrisy that is rampant even in a society that apparently seems ideal. The second voyage, attacks human pride through Gulliver's sudden perspective of the Brobdingnagians, and his minuscule appearance in front of them as opposed to his position in front of the Liliputan. The voyage to Laputa indicts intellectuals, who reveal excess fanaticism and zeal with theoretical abstractions than the simpler and often the more pragmatic side of life. They are in direct contrast to the practical Brobdingnagians. Here Swift may have been addressing the strange experiments of the scientists of the Royal Society, or exemplifying the vast difference that lay between the perfections of the ideal world of theoretical notions and its practical and everyday use. Thus ideal society is always a concept that when realized in reality, it becomes another approximation of an unrealized Utopia-a society with its shortcomings and unfulfilled dreams. This is a hard contrast to Plato's idea of the Ideal. The extent of ridicule help the readers understand the very illusions that sustain such fallacious governments and cower their citizens into submission. The Laputians (the name suggests a coarse pun in itself) may excel as theoretical mathematicians, but their houses are defectively built. Instead, they are more interested in the astronomical aspects of the cosmic nature, like, the time when the sun shall burn out and how and when should a comet collide. This misuse of intellectualism is hilariously elaborated in Chapters five and six, where the various experiments occuring at the Grand Academy of Lagado addresses not immediate issues of value, but is far removed from the basic necessities of life. Unlike Locke's ideal government, the people's interest is compromised for an ideal that is removed from reality and of any practical use. This is a government that is based on its own selfish ideals that serves no welfare advantage. Gulliver's sincere admiration for such projects like extracting sunbeams from cucumbers and building houses from the roof down, only show the extent to which people are misguided by the ideals of a false society and their apparent pursuit of something that is utterly useless. The Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms is a picture of an anarchistic Society, dictated by Reason, which is voluntarily and involuntarily accepted by everyone. The reason provided against a friendly relationship developing between a Houyhnhnm and a Yahoo is basically none. It is said to be unacceptable to Reason or to Nature, without any further explanation, which illustrates the totalitarian tendency which is implicit within the dictates of all kinds of fallacious ideals that a state imposes upon its citizens. Ironically this absolutist tendency is not imposed out of force, but out of common sanction. In a Society in which there is no law, compulsion, and that which rests on public opinion, is an ideal state in terms of Locke's theory, and yet in its practice becomes a nightmare because of the tremendous urge to conformity. What Swift points out here is the ideology of the government that implicitly governs its subjects with the word of love and reason, and thus takes him/her under constant pressure to behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else. This is true ofmany societies now that profess liberty and individuality and yet dictate its people in the terms of thought manipulation.The Houyhnhnms, thus remain unanimous on almost all subjects except for their views on how to deal with the Yahoos. Thus their language has no equivalent word for 'opinion' and is also devoid of adjectives for sentiments that addressed in difference of an opinion. Thus they are beyond any controlling or crushing police force. Rather they are beyond it. The ideal totalitarian Society of the Houyhnhnms, follows naturally from this very notion of nothing existing beyond the vast and the all-encompassing (ironically confines) standards of Reason (A satire on the Enlightenment theorists). Thus for Swift, the pictures of a just and a well-ordered Society is seldom very attractive or convincing. Swift therefore shows the limitations and the dangers of "Reason" that ultimately thwart instincts. The Houyhnhnms, thus become ideal citizens without the any eventful history, but who continue under the same conditions and actions for generations, thus maintaining exact population, exact history, exact consequences, giving into no passion, suffering no diseases, and thus meeting death at a reasonable age and remaining indifferent to it. Gulliver's Travels explores the idea of utopia as an imaginary model of the ideal community, the idea going back as far as Plato's Republic of a city-state governed by the wise and also expressed by Thomas More's Utopia. Swift's attitude towards this non-existent utopia is much more skeptical. One of the main point that he ridicules in all of the famous ideas of utopia, is this tendency to privilege the conformity of the collective group over the individual. The communal strain in Plato's Republic is found when he talks of schooling children with a certain agenda in mind and also raising them for a particular cause. This will help them to contribute in a collective way towards the Republic. Plato discouraged poets and poetry within theRepublic because he predicted that it will harm their power to reason and it will loosen the citizens' virtue, making them unruly. Thus with no knowledge of their biological parents and beyond the scopr of poetry to foster self-thinking and analysis, the children will remain committed to the state, and remain not only emotionally dwarfed, but intellectaully thwarted to perform a certain kind of work, that is required of them. Swift also shows how the Lilliputians similarly raise their offsprings collectively, and how its results are not ideal. The Houyhnhnms also practice strict family planning, even at the extent of exchanging their children, so as to maintain the male-to-female ratio in all household. Though they reveal greater utopian ideal than the Liliputans, in their wisdom and rational simplicity, they are devoid of emotional extremes and end up becoming indistinct personalities without any proper names, and share minor orminimum physical differences, and ideas. Thus all are interchangeable without any unique traits. They are the exact opposite of the socially alienated Gulliver, longing for union with a community in which he can lose his human identity. Thus as per Swift, the reason that is not founded in love or humanity and compassion, is also an inadequate method to deal within the polis. In contrast to the above utopia's explained, More's Utopia was a book influenced by Lucian's thoughts and Plato's Republic reflecting the perfect ground which will give the author necessary reason to discuss political turmoil that swept Europe then. The first book tells of the traveller Raphael Hythlodaeus, in Antwerp, who explores the idea of how best to counsel a prince. In book two, Raphael then travels further and finds the island of Utopia. Here he spends five years, observing the customs of the natives. One of the best ideas that More explores here is the complete lack of private ownership in Utopia (as contrasted to Locke), and where women perform the same work as men and have equal if not greater status than in Raphael's homeland. More shows that Utopia is an agrarian society and thus agriculture is the only souce of income. The land is thus free of any modern complications of technological advancement and therefore without the notion of any useless luxury that create social differences within people and thus they remain ideologically divided into various thoughts and aspirations. Here one may argue within the context of the Marxixts division between the bourgeoisie ideology and the proletarian ideology that serve the basis for major differences between the two classes. In Utopia, gold is part of the community's wealth and yet the people are encouraged to harbour a strong dislike for it, since they are used for fettering criminals who are kept chained in these golds for doing shameful things. Thus it makes them associate gold with shameful deeds and the fate of the prisoners, chained in them. The Utopian citizens maintain a welfare state. They encourage building free hospitals, the practice of euthanasia, marriage of priests, divorces, and punishment for pre-marital sex by a lifetime of enforced celibacy. Enslavement is also enforced on a person who commits adultery. The law is made deliberately simple to its citizens, so that the citizens do not suffer any kind of alienation from the judgement and decisions taken by the court or of the state. Thus no one must be in doubt of what is right and wrong in the eyes of the people and of the state. More's Utopia is an ideal island, but it also represent contradictory values (to English State policy) that explore the notion of the natives and their relationship to their society. Thus Utopia is a vision of an alternate society that though is pre-modern in its ideals, is also perfect and completely successful. Here all of the notions of the ideal states explore the amount of state intervention that should be ideal for the peace and grrowth of its community and thereby preserving their inherent natural rights. Plato's paradigm of a just state resides within the the paradigm of the just person. In the first book, there are three versions of justice that are weighed and then their limitations are exposed and ultimately, are shown to be inadequate. Thrasymachus defines justice as the power of the stronger person or the body and thereby he thinks that the law of a republic becomes the will of its ruler or the government. Thus for him justice becomes another word for absolute advantage (for the ruler) who can guide and influence power and dictate his will upon others. Socrates defines justice as working at something to which one is naturally best suited to and which sustains and perfects the other three cardinal virtues of Temperance, Wisdom, and Courage. Under this idea justice separates people into that of the soldier, a producer, and that of a ruler. If they all naturally follow each others order arising out of their kind, then ideally the society will be just. But then Socrates points out the tendency of corruption by power, which situates itself into a form of tyranny ultimately. He thus advocates that a good city should be governed by philosopher-kings. Ruling should be left to philosophers, who are naturally the most just and who rule not for their personal enjoyment but for the good of the city-state, and are least prone to any sort ofcorruption since thay have the power to judge and to reason. Socrates tells a tale that serve as an allegory of an ideal government, that considers no kind of favour to kins and encourages no private goods. This ideal society should also achieve a stable population through selective breeding and eugenism. Social conformity therefore becomes high because familial links are extended towards everyone in the City. Education of the youth are there to make them productive for the state's good. Books VII-X give account of Plato's criticism and the dismissal of timocracy, a sort of authoritarian regime, oligarchy, the rule of a small band of rich people, millionaires that only respect money, then the democracy which may fall prey to to being ruled by partisan demagogues. Finally the worst regime is deemed as tyranny, where the ruler is arbitrary and beyond any correction. Here Plato uses the allegory of the cave to place the philosopher-king in a just society. Thus if for More, an ideal society is devoid of material craving, then for Plato, it is a group of people who must be lead by a philosopher, who is a former prisoner but is freed from the cave and who comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not constituitive of reality. This philosopher sees that the shadows that are caused by the moving objects are subordinate in value to the actual objects. And the philosopher thus dwells beyond the lowest form of understanding reality, which for Plato is imagination and conjecture. And thus he shuns poets from his republic, because their ideas are spurious and thrice removed from reality and they are not deemed suitable to teach truth to the citizens. They can only foster licenticiousness and passion in them, which isharmful for the republic in general. The philosophers who identify the ideal nature of the source of truth is taken outside of the cave and into the real world. Though initially blinded by the light, he adjusts to the brightness, and eventually understands that all of the real objects around him are illuminated by the sun, which is the Form of the good. Thus for Plato an ideal society is a work of a philosopher king who must guide the people in good action and take responsibility for making them good agents of the state. Thus Republic may seem to be a state that must exists at the expense if its citizens' tractability. It may sound ideal in its function- but is it good for one's own individual growth-this is the question the Locke and Swift ask in contrast to Plato and More. Works Cited All primary Text books used. *Please give the MLA citations of yourowntext books, since I have not included any direct quotes fromany. Read More