Utopia in History:
From the Revolutionary Age Through the Nineteenth Century

The revolutions of the late eighteenth century introduced the possibility that utopia could represent the ultimate goal of human progress. The American and French revolutionaries attempted to bring the abstract utopian principles of liberty, equality, and justice into the concrete reality of every citizen’s life. The French revolutionaries, wishing to make a complete break with the ancien régime,imposed a new calendar, a new system of measurements, and other reforms based on rational and scientific principles.

On a smaller scale, the nineteenth century saw the proliferation of communities, both religious and secular, offering various antidotes to perceived social ills. Some promoted labor reforms, others presented paths to perfecting the human soul, and still others believed that the ideal society could be created by allowing people to work at whatever occupation suited them best. Many of these communities believed they had found the answer to universal human improvement, and they presented themselves as exemplars to the rest of the world.

The publication by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels of the Communist Manifesto in 1848 offered an entirely new approach to a utopian future. Proclaiming that history was a series of bitter class struggles, they proposed that a better society would be possible only through a violent proletarian revolution. The bloody events in Paris of 1871, known as the Commune, were hailed by Marx as the first realization of his ideals; the full consequences of a large-scale experiment with communism would not be known until many years later.

In the ongoing search for the ideal society, the Internet has been proposed as a "place" in which an ideal society could exist. Take the poll to help you think about and give your opinion on the Internet as a utopia.
printing instructions