Herland and the Utopian Perspective

            So, Herland was a pretty interesting read and got me thinking about a lot of stuff. I’m glad that this was also written in a story format like Bellamy and Morris’s writing because it made it more accessible to me.  I’m also glad that Gilman wrote this story short enough for us to read the whole thing because it gave me all of the context that I needed for such a story.  But did you know that this is actually the second book of a trilogy? That kind of blew my mind especially since I thought this text did well standing on its own.  If anything Gilman went a little too far in Herland because a lot of the stuff that I was on board with in the beginning of the text gets contradicted in the end.  I researched the book that comes after Herland and found out that Gilman gets even more contradictory! Ellador and Van eventually leave our world to go back to Herland where Ellador then gives birth to a son.  I thought Gilman was saying that society would be better if we were all independent and autonomous through her representation of women living alone and asexually reproducing.  But now Ellador and Van have organically brought the first male into Herland.  So I guess Gilman confused me.

            For the first part of Herland, she satirizes the society she lived in—when the three men arrive in Herland they try to lure out the women with fashionable accessories.  The women, living in a land where unnecessary luxuries don’t exist, are unfazed, showing two things: one, that women are not materialistic, unreasonable beings and, two, that society would be better off if we focused on the things we need.  Simplicity leads to happiness.  Gilman is writing a feminist treatise as well as proposing ideas for a better society.

            I think a lot of this text can be taken as “anti-men” because Terry is such a forceful, disgusting character, the women have been surviving without men, and that the three travelers are constantly outsmarted by the women. But I really don’t think that is Gilman’s point.  Utopias are impossible to achieve so instead Gilman is outlining the customs she wanted her society to adopt: reverence for motherhood, women having complete control over their own bodies, and autonomy for all.  When the three travelers learn about and adhere to Herland’s ways of life, they are allowed full autonomy as well.

            The contradiction comes up in the love story aspect of Herland.  While I don’t think that the relationship between the travelers and the women inherently means power is being taken away from the women, I do see it as Gilman retreating from her original insistence on autonomy.  Romantic and sexual relationships do not make sense to the women, but they still fall for the men now that they are present in their society.  Its like saying that because men are present, women must fall for them. Terry is so terrible and Alima fights with him constantly, but she still enters a romantic relationship with him.  The women don’t understand marriage, but are still coerced into it by the men.  I know Gilman’s feminist ideas are restricted by the society around her, but I thought she could perhaps have achieved more for autonomy like she did in “The Yellow Wallpaper” (which I highly recommend).  

More's Utopia

            This is my second time reading More’s Utopia and I am definitely appreciating more this time than I did the first time I read it.  I read it about three years ago for British Literature and found it rather dull.  It’s a work of fiction rather than a political document…but this work of fiction reads a lot like a political document.  However, this time I was better prepared for More’s pedantic style and I thanked him for writing this in subsections.  It helped organize Hythloday’s report of Utopia into more manageable sections of reading rather than one huge block of text.

            More’s narrative voice irritates me.  In the letter to Peter Giles, he is making excuses for not having written Hythloday’s account earlier and one of his reasons was that he had to talk to his wife and children though he “mustn’t spoil them with…familiarity” (6). And yet he has no problem sitting for hours, talking to Hythloday about a country that he feels is impossibly ideal.  However, More’s voice as the author is something completely different.  His character rejects many of the Utopian ideals and praises his king endlessly, but More as the author is addressing England’s problems through Hythloday.  This really shows More’s skill as a writer and a political activist. Though some ideas seem like excellent ones to utilize even today, I have to disagree with many of the Utopian policies.

            As we already talked about in class, a death sentence for stealing is way over the top. However, Hythloday suggests enslavement as an alternative.  While this may be better than death, lifelong subjugation still seems extreme especially when Hythloday asserts that most thievery is done out of necessity.  I think that a better solution would be to force the thief to work until he can pay off what he stole.  The Utopians in this book seem to want to rehabilitate their criminals and I think this would be a better way to give them a second chance.

            In Book II, Hythloday goes more in depth with the Utopian lifestyle.  I thought it was really cool how all of the Utopians have the opportunity to work on a farm in a two-year rotation.  I think this would prevent a lot of the negative classism that went on during More’s time as well as the classism that still plagues our society today.  On top of that, I think if everyone had experience in agriculture, we would have a better appreciation for our food, our health, and our environment.  If we are all invested in our own agricultural production, we would be motivated to protect the nature in which we cultivate our food.

            However, the Utopian’s knowledge of their country and world must be very limited.  They can’t travel without permission from their political superiors.  Supposedly, the Utopians “are at home everywhere” (53) on their island so it doesn’t make sense that they are not allowed to have free range of it. Traveling and exploring are great ways to make connections with people and understand our environment. I don’t think I could stand living in a country where I had to ask permission to visit the coast or another state.

            I don’t think More is hinting that England should adopt all of these policies.  Maybe he’s not even hoping that England will adopt any.  More continuously points out that people are reluctant to change even when the change appears to be in their best interest.  He is advocating for a societal adjustment in the hopes that England can maybe move toward a better way of life.  

Thoughts on St. Augustine

            While reading St. Augustine’s text, I had a hard time immediately connecting his ideas to the concept of Utopia.  In Plato’s writing, Socrates and his two companions were directly discussing how to create and ideal society. Though, “utopia” is never actually stated, the connections between Plato’s ideas and our explorations of utopia were very clear. I wonder if I was supposed to read St. Augustine’s views about Christianity and think of it as though he is presenting that a utopia is founded on well-followed Christian principles.  I know Augustine is not directly taking about “utopia,” but this is the connection that I made between the two subjects.

            I liked that the introduction provided a third person overview of Augustine’s writing.  It helped set up the rest of the reading and helped me think critically about Augustine’s argument and how he set it up.  John O’Meara’s introduction gives a little background on Augustine himself; people haven’t been able to determine whether he was a pessimist or an optimist, which would in turn shed an interesting light on Augustine’s overall theological and theoretical discussion. On page x of John O’Meara’s introduction, he mentions, “It is unfortunate that Augustine, in placing the positive part of his argument in the final twelve books and the negative in the first ten, gives the impression that he is opposed to Rome and Greek philosophy.  If he had stated the basis of his positive doctrine first, it would be seen that…his general outlook is positive.”  On the one hand, I admire Augustine for addressing the conflicts that would negate his beliefs directly in order to strengthen his own theory.  However, I think O’Meara is trying to say that if Augustine addressed the problems he had with the pagan religion later on in his text, his argument would have become more accessible.  There would be less disagreement at the beginning of his writing so his readers would have stayed engaged longer. But this is the way that Augustine chose to write it and its not like he can edit it now.

            There is a lot of negativity in this text, but right away in Book I’s preface, I thought the idea that “God is our helper” (6) is a nice one.  I have always thought that God was traditionally considered a ruler or a commander, but Augustine’s statement seems like a friendlier one. It seems to allow for free will and the view that God is there to give advice rather than commands.  He later talks about how his two proposed cities are both founded on love.  I thought statements like this one provided evidence of Augustine being a positive person.  This view really aids his argument because it gives the reader a reason to like and to trust him.  However, I felt that a lot of his arguments were sometimes just statements.  They seemed to lack a “why” or evidence to make them persuasive. I’m interested in knowing more about how other people perceived him and the strength of his argument: people during his time, people during our time, and your own thoughts.

Healthy Foods as a Natural Right

            Why is it that in order to eat healthfully, we have to have money?  That isn’t to say that every other kind of food is free, but often times fruits and vegetables are way more expensive than any other type of food.  The reason makes sense: farmers cultivate these foods from the time that they are seedlings, providing them with almost non-stop care. Processed foods are mass-produced in factories with synthetic ingredients by machines, making them much easier to come by, to sell, and to sell cheaply.  However, the root of so many health problems begins in our daily diet. Our inability to indulge on fruits and vegetables can lead to major vitamin and mineral deficiencies.  People who struggle to put food on their tables are going to find it even harder to incorporate healthy foods into their meals, leading to health issues that only cause more money hardships.  It should be our right as humans to have the ability and the opportunity to eat healthfully and have adequate access to fruits and vegetables so that we, no matter what our monetary status, can take control of our health, our weight, and our intake.

            The fear that accompanies this proposal is the complete disappearance of farmers and organic agriculture.  Prices are high because the labor is all encompassing and intense.  Farming is already a dying industry as factories churn out more and more cheaper and accessible food options and lowering prices on fruits and vegetables may threaten to completely extinguish organic agriculture.  However, our government is in charge of protecting our basic human rights, so if we incorporate healthful fruits and vegetables as one of these, the government should therefore take over the funding of these foods.  Initially this may seem irrational and unlikely.  However, governments fund things like public education, national parks, and city maintenance, paying the workers with a portion of our taxes.  If the government began ensuring that farmers are paid and receive the tools they needs to maintain their farms, the prices of fruits and vegetables could be significantly lowered in stores so that people of any monetary income can make these purchases.

            Adjusting where our tax dollars go is usually a stressful and a controversial conversation, but the incorporation of healthy foods into our lives is worth it.  There would be a significant decrease in health complications, which would end up saving the population more money.  Being easily able to access fruits and vegetables would improve our wellness, but also our moods and productivity levels. It may seem risky and initially expensive to add these foods to the list of where our tax dollars go, but in the end, we would have healthier, longer, and more productive lives.  In the end, this would drastically help the economy as well as our own personal earnings and life quality, which in turn would drive fruits and vegetable prices even lower.  We have to right to the pursuit happiness, but so many people forget that our happiness starts with our health, which starts with our diet.  Fruits and vegetables for all.