Utopian Society Essay, Research Paper

According to the curriculum of our Athens to New York course, we are supposed to

study certain themes that are carried through history and literary works of

various eras. In addition, there are some recurring themes that also become

evident, especially in some of the more recent works that we have studied. Works

like Cornel West’s Race Matters, Elie Wiesel’s Night, and Franz Kafka’s The

Trial, carry many similar themes, and teach us readers some important lessons

about ourselves as the human race. Through each work’s message, we can study

"what it means to be: human, a member of a community, and moral, ethical,

or just, as well as how individuals respond to differences in race, class,

gender, and ethnicity in relation to action" (this quote taken from one Bob

Anderson). While I dare not attempt to categorize each of the meanings that the

authors gave to their books, I can find one major similarity. In each of the

books, the author is in search of a Utopian society that does not contain all of

the faults of our modern day society. Charles Darwin heavily believed in

"survival of the fittest" in his work with evolution. In the society

that we have created in our world today, one can see this belief holding true.

Survival and all around relations between different groups in general has become

dependent on five little letters. These letters spell out "power." One

who holds the "power," seems to try and lord over those who do not.

This struggle over power has become one of, if not the, reason for the major

differences between groups. While the battle over power rages on, a Utopian

society will continue to be an impossible goal. Allow me to explain by use of

the books I have earlier highlighted. Franz Kafka’s Night tells the story Joseph

K., a man who must defend himself against the courts of the day, while lacking

any and all information about his case. The man finds himself suddenly arrested

one day and placed on trial for a crime he does not know he committed. The man

becomes increasingly frustrated as he finds no one capable of helping him

develop a case to defend himself with. No one can even provide him with any

information about why he is on trial. With no where to go, and no one turn to,

Joseph discovers that the justice system that was designed to help the people

has worked against him, and his situation is utterly hopeless. Kafka makes a

strong about how modern bureaucracy and totalitarianism has become so extreme

that it harms the people that it is designed to protect. Justice has become

jaded by its own self and its own methods. A government is created by the

people, for the people, but has instead gained the power to lord over the

people. Here we see the power switch from man to the system. Joseph has become

alienated from normal society because of crimes that he does not know he

committed, displaying the corruption of the justice system. This nightmare is

not entirely too far from our modern day reality. According to a well-known book

that discusses this topic, Urban Administration-Management Politics and Change,

"Contemporary technological society places a heavy burden upon the

individual to adapt to a large-scale, highly complex, and often times impersonal

bureaucratic environment. For a substantial number of the members of the modern

mass societies this burden has become the source of pervasive feelings of

anxiety and estrangement now fashionably termed ‘alienation.’" (Bent &

Rossum, p. 201) Man now has the choice of falling into line and being another

"cog in the wheel," or finding himself alienated from the rest of

society who presumably does. In this dark and dreary portrait that Kafka paints

of our modern world, a community is formed when everyone agrees to accept his

role, be equal with everyone else. It seems that being human is more of being

part of a system and being like everyone else, than being an individual. In

order to be morally just, one must follow the laws and the system, even if they

work against you, rather than for you. Men’s minds have been warped to believe

that justice is merely a state of mind. Elie Wiesel searches for his Utopian

society amid the horrors of the Holocaust. His book Night, gives an

autobiographical account of his real-life nightmares during World War II. He had

seen things that no one should be forced to see; things that may have swayed his

once immovable faith in God. In a world of despair, where the Nazis had

unlimited power over the Jews, a Utopian society where are all equal seemed

unattainable. It was sadly simple, one group (the Germans) had the power and

ability to eliminate another group that they deemed subordinate, so they tried

to erase them. Elie had high religious morals. He strongly believed that the

power of prayer could overcome all, although this belief became questionable as

his horrors continued. He loved his family very much, and wanted to stick by his

father through thick and thin from the beginning. Even in the end, his only

concern was that his father survived. Survival was of dire importance, and in

order to survive one needed to keep his faith in God and his love for his

family. The light in someone’s eyes showed if he was alive or dead, once that

light was lost, the body followed. I wanted to use some quotes from The Diary of

Anne Frank in order to complimented Wiesel’s accounts, but I found I learned

much more from observing the ongoing, daily tribulations than finding one exact

quote. The holocaust consisted of so much gradual torture and the best quotation

that can be used is an entire book as opposed to one small insignificant

sentence. Cornel West brings the issu e of Utopian society to our modern-day

lives. Regarded as one of the greatest thinkers and racial leaders in the world

today, his book Race Matters not only expresses his feelings about the situation

of the human race today, but it also provides some suggestions and optimism for

the future. He states that although Whites have much of the political and social

power in today’s world, Blacks do not due entirely too much to help their

situation. He confronts prejudice but expresses his belief that all races share

the same destiny. According to Newsday, "West’s thinking consistently

challenges the conventional wisdom [and] confronts the reader with profound and

unsettling insights." (West, back cover) West calls for some positive

action to be taken in order to make all races truly equal. He sees many

differences among all races, but he feels that this is natural, and each must be

understanding of the next. In the book Jews and Blacks, West was asked to

comment on how to confront the problem of anti-Semitism by inner-city Blacks.

"You have to convince people that it is a problem." He states.

"Black people are facing so many difficult issues today-Blacks don’t have

enough resources, and food and housing and health care and so forth-that it’s

not always obvious to African-Americans that alongside of these there’s also the

problem of anti-Semitism." (Lerner and West, p.249) West’s Race Matters

explains his ideas and beliefs in full detail. He pushes for a Utopian society,

in which all races get along and treat each other as equals. He says that we as

a human race need to see things from "all angles." One must step back

and look at the entire picture before making a judgement. Perhaps the most

meaningful point that Mr. West tries to express is that our society as a whole

needs strong leaders. Today we lack strong racial leaders like Dr. Martin Luther

King Jr. and Malcolm X. Very much like Martin Luther King, West dreams of a day

when one group does not have any social advantages over another. He dreams of a

day when there is no power struggle between races. Through each of these

monumental works, we learn some important lessons about the human race. West,

Wiesel, and Kafka preach against the alienation and segregation that we create

in our society. We design our governments and create our political systems in

order to aid us in dealing with each other, however, they have been obscured

through time. Now they have begun to work against us, alienating us from each

other. Justice has truly become in the eye of the beholder, as its rules and

regulations have become as cold as stone. I see the main theme in Night, Race

Matters, and The Trial as being "the impossible quest for a Utopian

society." The struggle over power has created a wall between different

groups. Whether this be the power of the government, or of one group over

another, the human race cannot peacefully coincide unless each individual sees

"the big picture" instead of being limited to his own point of view.

Everyone needs to take a step back at look what is wrong within himself and the

world that he surrounds himself with, if any positive movement is to be made in

order to unite everyone. If a Utopian society is ever to be reached, a common

ground must be reached on "what it means to be human, what it means to be a

member of a community, what it means to be moral, ethical, or just, and the

manner in which individuals and communities respond to differences in race,

class gender, and ethnicity are related to action." (again quoted from one

Bob Anderson) In order to do so, we must place this struggle for power on the

back burner for the greater good of all humanity.

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