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Utopia and Contemporary Human Society: a Model for Sustainable Continuance David Blake Corman University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

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Utopia and Contemporary Human Society: a Model for Sustainable Continuance David Blake Corman University of Tennessee at Chattanooga University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate National Collegiate Honors Council Research & Creative Activity 2018 Utopia and Contemporary Human Society: A Model for Sustainable Continuance David Blake Corman University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/ureca Part of the Educational Methods Commons, Gifted Education Commons, and the Higher Education Commons Corman, David Blake, "Utopia and Contemporary Human Society: A Model for Sustainable Continuance" (2018). UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research & Creative Activity. 6. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/ureca/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the National Collegiate Honors Council at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research & Creative Activity by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. 1 UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity 2018 Edition Utopia and Contemporary Human Society: A Model for Sustainable Continuance David Blake Corman University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Sir Thomas More’s Utopia outlines a bustling, blissful society in which all individuals live equitably, happily, and comfortably. Utopia, which literally means “no-place,” simply does not exist. However, More provides Utopia as a progressive template through which analogous contemporary social and economic structure may be assessed. Juxtaposing contemporary society with Utopia, a relatively superior or perfect state, illuminates some factors inhibiting modern society from otherwise ascending to the state and functionality of a Utopia. I will introduce and discuss suggestive empirical evidence and central ideas pertaining to the precarious contemporary state of human civilization with respect to factors such as ecological economics, environmental issues and human-nature interactions, and legislation and education. Each of these factors is holistically separated into four categories in an order such that specific issues are expounded upon and compared to the Utopian counterpart. These categories are, objectively, a part of the greater issues facing modern human society. The first category is The Population Problem, in which Paul Ehrlich and Thomas Malthus’ essays on the principles of population, demography, and population dynamics—the effects of a rising population—are discussed. Next follows The Environmental Problem, which can be summarized as issues with overconsumption, global climate change and the degradation of the environment. Thirdly, The Economic Problem will be discussed. This analysis includes topics such as ecological economics, contemporary capitalism and its pervasiveness, the allocation and distribution of resources, and the nature and philosophy of scarcity within human existence. These three problems are the central factors, in their current state, that inhibit the ascension to a more utopian civilization. However, The Social Problem, one that includes factors such as family planning, awareness, education and adaptive capacity, influences the degree of the central problems. In order to grasp and comprehend the interrelated nature of these problems, one needs to be acquainted with The Population Problem. Both the growth and magnitude of the human population places much stress on human, social, and environmental health. In Thomas Malthus’s “An Essay on the Principle of Population”, he writes: “Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio” (Malthus 20). Organisms, when in ideal conditions, reproduce exponentially. This is represented with a J-curve, conveying that with every unit of time, the growth rate increases. However, the production of food is a linear, arithmetic relationship. Over time, the population is supplied with less and less food until there is a crisis or development in technology. Malthus described this relationship between populations and subsistence as natural law. Assuming that the first “human” appeared around 1.6 to 1 million years ago, and considering that the population is now well into seven billion—after reaching one billion around 1850—it is not 2 difficult to evaluate the future growth of the population (Ehrlich 6). When the carrying capacity, which is the environment’s limit to sustaining a population, is reached, the population curve takes on an S-shape. Carrying capacity typically denotes that a further increase in population would not be supported by the environment and may result in a population crash, culminating in resource depletion and death. The human population will invariably reach this state, whether voluntary or involuntary. With a large and growing population, there must be increasingly diligent and modern developments in farming practices, transportation, medicine and health technologies. When population increases, food demand, consumption, pollution, crime, and technological advancement soon follow. As people consume more, industrial and commercial output increases. While this benefits some sectors of the economy, it also increases runoff, greenhouse gas emissions, and the exploitation of people, plants, animals, and resources. Goods, services and resources are distributed much more equitably in Utopia than in contemporary society. This equity allows for Utopians to operate under a system of population control. This system involves the smallest social unit being the household. In the household, there are no less than ten and no more than sixteen adults. Each town has a fixed number of households. Since the quantities of households and adults in households are static, the only natural variable is birth rate. Supernumerary adults are “simply moved to smaller households” (More 60). If the established towns become overpopulated, the society instructs a group of Utopians to start a colony elsewhere on the island. Once the island is full, they settle on the nearest uninhabited mainland. This would not be ideal for contemporary society due to the fact that larger population centers are dispersed across global land, leaving no habitable areas for settlement. This would cause conflict and destabilization in the region and is likely in violation of international law. Geographical development and the family social structure has long been established, inhibiting any sort of transition to this system. Another potential system calls for limiting the number of children those on government funding, such as welfare, may have. However, while these family cap systems have been discussed in developed countries such as the United States, which delegated this discretion to the States in 1996, the implementation of such an idea would obstruct liberty and freedom by fracturing the family unit. It can be argued that contemporary immigration policies and minimum sentencing laws propagate the same effect, however that argument is left to the academic to discuss. Malthus recognized the difficulty of these types of regulatory systems and strongly encouraged the deliberate, personal decisions of individuals, such as celibacy and birth control. In order to alleviate the detrimental stresses generated by The Population Problem, society must fully recognize the power of population and reconcile in the imperative duty of lowering the birth rate. Having discussed population, how it grows exponentially, some implications of its growth, and applications to alleviate its effects—Utopian to Malthusian—it is important to be astute of the environment and how it is currently being affected by human civilization. As previously mentioned, as population rises, societal systems are further strained. Food, medicine, transportation, education, finance, housing and many other core facets of society have to be tailored to the new and larger population. The Environmental Problem can be viewed through a 3 lens of environmental unity, the concept that every system is connected and altering one variable might not simply result in a summed effect of the individual changes, but rather that of a synergistic function, such that 1+1 =/= 1, but a value much greater than 1. For example, releasing nitric oxides and sulfur oxides into the atmosphere may individually not seem threatening since they are not primary greenhouse gases. However, when these substances interact with the weather and composition of the atmosphere, destructive acid rain precipitates. When society consumes unsustainably, resources are depleted at a greater rate than they are replenished. As discussed in Environment, petroleum-based fuel falls under the non- renewable resource category, for it cannot be replenished on a time scale relative to human beings. Robert Nadeau, a retired english professor, writes in The Environmental Endgame that “the growth of the human population is largely due to the consumption of matter-energy” (Nadeau 73). Society has refined oil and developed technologies to increase its efficiency, however the combustion of these oils releases unhealthy heavy metal oxides, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and water vapor into the atmosphere. These primary pollutants interact with other species in the atmosphere to form secondary pollutants such as acid rain, which destroys artificial structures and plant tissues (Raven 396). The CO2, a primary greenhouse gas which inhibits infrared radiation
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