The New York Public Library

The Internet as Utopia: What Do You Think?

In the ongoing search for the ideal society, the Internet has been proposed as a "place" in which an ideal society could exist. This poll is for fun but is also designed to help you think about issues regarding the Internet as a utopia, with questions which draw on parallels to previous notions and issues in utopian thought and history. After you have voted on a question, you can see how your response compares to others who have already taken the poll.

Early ideal places such as the Garden of Eden, Heaven, the City of Ladies, and Prester John's kingdom were inhabited by a select population of the just, the blessed, or the exceptionally virtuous, and to arrive at any of them required a metaphysical transformation from one's flawed, human self into a being worthy of inclusion in these special places. For many reasons when entering cyberspace, Internet users may choose to transform themselves into alternate personalities by inventing new names and identities for themselves.

Read more about early ideal societies.
Read scholars and experts' comments on whether notions of identity are changing as a result of the Internet.

Utopias provide an escape from many of the hardships of daily human life, granting freedom from the discomfort, pain, and despair that comes with being human. Sometimes, as in the case of many early ideal societies, which were inhabited by blessed or virtuous people, life in these ideal societies was valued more highly than life on earth.

Read more about early ideal societies.

 

Part of the novelty of Thomas More's Utopia lay in his placing the ideal society here on earth, as a result of the work of human beings. The natural environment was not idealized as it had been in earlier legends. The inhabitants of the kingdom of Utopia were just like More's audience. They had not benefited from any particular divine grace; rather, they were able to exorcise evil and vice from their world by constructing an alternative social organization.

People have imagined ideal societies existing in the real world, the imaginary world, and most recently, cyberspace.

Read more about Thomas More's Utopia.
Read scholars and experts' comments on the utopias they find most appealing and dystopias they find most unpleasant.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson expressed the democratic principles upon which the United States were founded. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." At various points in history, people have questioned whether American governments and institutions have upheld these ideas. Today new technologies have been a focal point for some of these debates. The Internet has been called the great equalizer, and it has been seen as the source of a widening gap between technology "haves" and "have-nots."

Read more about the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution.
Read scholars and experts' comments on whether the Internet promotes stratification both within itself and among people in the real world.

Utopian communities are often faced with the conflicting desires to maintain a unified community and to protect the individuality of each member. This is particularly the case when considering levels of privacy in the community. The Oneida Community is one example of a community who created buildings that expressed an understanding both of the need for privacy and of the need for communal interaction. The Internet has also provoked a debate about this issue. Some people fear this relatively new technology invades their privacy as never before, and others find that they have an anonymity when online that is not possible offline.

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The twentieth century has witnessed periods of great faith in the ability of technology to improve society. Advances in technology promised a future in which the burdens of manual and household labor could be eased by electricity, more efficient machines for industry and travel, streamlined designs allowing for faster speeds, and robots. At the same time, the dangers of a mechanical utopia were ever-present. Two world wars revealed the horrifying power of industrial mobilization, and the increasing search for a mechanized alternative to human beings, in the form of robots or automatons, has been a great and long-lasting concern. These issues have been important themes in many twentieth century utopias and dystopias.

Read more about the utopias and dystopias of the twentieth century.

During the 1960s and 70s, the previous generation's blind faith in progress became subject to intense examination and reevaluation. People looked back at the promises of the revolutions of the eighteenth century and asked themselves whether the guarantees of equal rights for all had indeed been fulfilled. This upsurge of radical critique left few social and political institutions untouched as people reexamined authority, the State, the family, education, and personal relationships. This critique continues to this day. The Internet offers a forum for the expression of all types of belief, regardless of how distasteful they might appear to some groups.

Read more about utopian thinking of the 1960s and 1970s.

 

There has been a heated debate as to whether the Internet qualifies as a utopia.

Read more about the debate of the Internet as a utopia.
Read scholars and experts' comments on whether the Internet provides a "place" where a utopian community can be created.

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