A new study undertaken by Monash University has reported that, soon, kids will be unable to think. Their findings suggest that the next generation of teenagers will be unable to think, spell or concentrate because of the increase in the use of mobile phones and text messaging.
‘We are not just pulling these fi gures out of nowhere,’ a representative from the university said. ‘This has been brewing ever since text messaging became “cool” with teenagers. Over time, text messaging and the many forms of passive entertainment have decreased the ability of teenagers to form extensive or coherent sentences.’
The university has also been lobbying the federal government to implement a law to prevent anyone under the age of 18 having a mobile phone. This, researchers argue, will encourage a more focused learning environment.
This information has been met with mixed responses. Some parents and teachers support the call for a ban on mobile phones, while the majority of the teenage population has expressed that they are strongly against it.
Student representative from Burmont High School Kelly Brackenberry has replied to the call for a ban with a clear statement, ‘On behalf of the students of this school, I’d like to say that we are strongly opposed to the idea of such a law. Without further evidence this study can not be taken seriously.’
High school English teacher Janet Lazary has said that she also disagrees with the university’s certainty that cognitive and communication skills are decreasing and that text messaging is the cause. ‘I do not believe mobile phones are necessarily a problem;
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fi ghting off Lutheran ideals. It is sometimes described as a Catholic tract, and More was a devout and verbal Catholic. As such, he was greatly opposed to the ideas and teachings of Martin Luther. Why is it then that he proposes some of Luther’s ideas, such as clerical marriage and divorce by consent? Why is it that he describes a society of religious tolerance when he actively condemns ‘heretics’? Why is it that he proposes his enemy’s ideas in his ideal world? Perhaps neither these ideals nor the text were meant to be taken seriously, and More was criticising rather than proposing them.
Another contradiction revealed through the context of Utopia concerns human ability to create a perfect society. More was a part of the Humanist movement, which believed that humanity is good, therefore, that it is possible to create a perfect society on earth. However, the utopian society he describes is neither perfect nor achievable; it doesn’t allow for human difference, greed or, it could be argued, pure human nature. More shows that he understands the impossibility of creating a true ‘Eutopia’, meaning ‘good place’, by naming his book Utopia, meaning ‘no place’.
So, why would More propose an unachievable and, one could say, almost dystopian society as ideal? One answer is that he didn’t mean for his Utopia to be held as a standard for society. It is impossible, with all the contradictions between text and context, to defi ne what More actually believes. Therefore, Utopia cannot be a manifesto of More’s true beliefs.
So, if these utopian texts are not manifestos of their authors’ beliefs, why are they still so valued? It could be that they were written as satires. Voltaire wrote Candide around 1757 to 1758. It was a reaction to Leibnitzian optimism, the philosophy that ‘all is for the best in the best of worlds’, which was quite popular in the eighteenth century. People who believe in this philosophy, such as Candide and Pangloss, believe they are living in a utopia. So, when Voltaire satirises Leibnitzian optimists, he is also satirising those who believe that utopias can be created by humanity. Not only does Voltaire use his ridiculous plot and characters to achieve this, he also contrasts his own beliefs (Voltaire believed in Isaac Newton’s teachings) with Candide’s. This makes Candide seem foolish as he keeps babbling on about Pangloss, who by now has already lost all credibility in the reader’s eyes, while the Newtonians give reasoned examples. Voltaire is thus implying that Newtonianism is reasonable and Leibnitzianism, and therefore utopianism, is foolish.
More’s Utopia is not as obviously satirical as Candide. This is because it seems that More set out with the intention of describing an idealistic society based entirely on reason. However, it seems also that he found that reason left little margin for human error, and so Utopia gradually descended into satire as he wrote it. More doesn’t achieve satire in the same way as Voltaire, through exaggeration. Rather, he contrasts Utopia’s values to those of Europe, thus commenting on Europe’s faults instead of trying to fi nd an ideal way of solving them. For example, the fact that Utopians don’t value gold or silver is more a satirical comment about European greed and materialism than a proposition that society should start making chamber-pots and handcuffs of valuable metals.
Therefore, as the textual and contextual evidence shows, utopian texts should not be taken as serious manifestos of their authors’ beliefs but instead as a satirical comment on society. The two authors had different contexts, different audiences and used different literary techniques, but their intention was the same. Voltaire once said, ‘Perfection is the enemy of good.’ Pursuing an unattainable, perfect society distracts people from just creating a good society. Both his and More’s texts do not strive for this utopian dream. Rather, they use satire to comment on the issues of their contexts, trying to make their own, real societies good.
Many people would say that it is the people or the ideas that change the world but how can the world be changed if those people do not communicate those ideas? And isn’t that exactly what literature is? Going back to the Macquarie defi nition of literature, in particular the phrase ‘in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest’. In other words, the kind of ideas that change the world. So, yes, as history and the very defi nition of the word show us, one piece of literature can change the world because it communicates ideas and inspires people on a greater scale than anything else in our world.
Rosie, Year 11: ‘Utopias should be taken as serious
manifestos of their authors’ beliefs.’ Compare Voltaire’s
Candide and Thomas More’s Utopia
Utopias shouldn’t be taken as serious manifestos of their authors’ beliefs but rather as satires of their historical contexts. In this speech, I will examine the textual and contextual evidence in Voltaire’s Candide and Thomas More’s Utopia to show that these utopian texts are not actual proposals for ideal societies.
Voltaire’s Candide has no pretensions about being a serious text. He uses exaggeration as a technique of expressing this. His heroes are optimistic to the point that they believe ‘everything is for the best in the best of worlds’. This is the recurring attitude of both Candide and Pangloss, even as they are repeatedly tortured, abused, ‘executed’ or generally disappointed with life. Voltaire juxtaposes his overly optimistic characters with his overly pessimistic plot to create ridicule.
Voltaire also provides general, exaggerated descriptions of life in the utopian society El Dorado, where everyone is happy. Voltaire increases the ridicule by not explaining this happiness. We are told there is no crime in El Dorado and, again, Voltaire doesn’t explain why. This makes the country seem too incredible to be real.
Another technique Voltaire employs within the text is his use of irony. Certain phrases in particular, such as ‘they entered a very plain house, for the door was nothing but silver, and the ceiling was only of beaten gold’, show this irony clearly. However, the entire plot line could be seen as ironic. The exaggeration of the characters’ trials, together with its heroes’ incredibly naïve attitudes, creates both irony and ridicule. The text, taken on its own, could only pass as a very badly written novel and never as a serious manifesto of its author’s beliefs.
On the other hand, Thomas More’s Utopia is often misconceived as exactly that—a manifesto of More’s beliefs. This is partly due to the author’s use of verisimilitude. More prolongs the suspension of disbelief in Book One by its conversational structure, the inclusion of a persona of himself and the discussion of then current topics and issues. In Book Two, Utopia is described in detail with objective language and structured as a recount rather than narrative.
These elements encourage the reader to take it seriously. More does include some textual contradictions, which could raise questions in the reader’s mind. For example, his character Raphael speaks well of policies and ideals of socialist and communist movements, such as social equality and lack of private property. However, More also introduces underlying issues of these movements, such as lack of individual freedom of movement and thought.
However, even with textual clues such as these, the contextual evidence further proves that Utopia is not a manifesto. Utopia was written in 1516 in a Catholic England