TITLE:
Utopianism and the New World Order: A Critical Consideration
AUTHORS:
Okoro Kingsley
KEYWORDS:
Utopia (Nism), New World Order, Critical, Consideration
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Philosophy,
Vol.4 No.3,
August
11,
2014
ABSTRACT: Utopianism, which has been inveigled in various circles into epistemological
obscurity, has been the force behind several socio-political and economic
reforms of many generations. Scholars accredit religious thoughts as the
purveyor of the messianic utopianism, while classical utopianism is accredited
to Plato and Aristotle.
However,Thomas Moore coined the word utopia and
furthered the concept in the modern times. Overly, the power of utopian
thinking lies in the strength of imaginative thought. Thus utopianism is
christened idealism and dismissed as irrelevant to real life experiences of the
modern man. However, the works of Thomas Moore, on the contrary, have thrown
hindsight to the fact that utopian thoughts are relevant both for the spiritual
and material worlds. Here, utopian thinking serves as a critique to the
ineptitude of the utopianist’s society. Utopia becomes a means of addressing
the evils of the society in which the utopian lives(d). In the works of Thomas Moore,
the imaginary city of utopia becomes an ideal state, where all the citizens
live in peace and harmony, contrary to the European society of Moore’s
time, where oppression, war and social disorder were the dicta. Against this
backdrop, this paper found epistemological connection between Moore’s
period and the contemporary period and decided to apply Moore’s
utopian thoughts to the modern times. It concludes that if Moore’s
utopianism is applied with modification, the present world will attain its
dream of becoming a common community, which extols friendship and brotherhood.