'', the left panel from
Hieronymus Bosch's
The Garden of Earthly Delights In many cultures, societies, and religions, there is some myth or memory of a distant past when humankind lived in a primitive and simple state but at the same time one of perfect happiness and fulfillment. In those days, the various
myths tell us, there was an instinctive harmony between humanity and nature. People's needs were few and their desires limited. Both were easily satisfied by the abundance provided by nature. Accordingly, there were no motives whatsoever for war or oppression. Nor was there any need for hard and painful work. Humans were simple and
pious and felt themselves close to their God or gods. According to one anthropological theory, hunter-gatherers were the
original affluent society. These mythical or religious archetypes are inscribed in many cultures and resurge with special vitality when people are in difficult and critical times. However, in utopias, the projection of the myth does not take place towards the remote past but either towards the future or towards distant and fictional places, imagining that at some time in the future, at some point in space, or beyond death, there must exist the possibility of living happily. In the United States and Europe, during the
Second Great Awakening (ca. 1790–1840) and thereafter, many radical religious groups formed utopian societies in which
faith could govern all aspects of members' lives. These utopian societies included the
Shakers, who originated in England in the 18th century and arrived in America in 1774. A number of religious utopian societies from Europe came to the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, including the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness (led by
Johannes Kelpius (1667–1708), the
Ephrata Cloister (established in 1732) and the
Harmony Society, among others. The Harmony Society was a
Christian theosophy and
pietist group founded in
Iptingen,
Germany, in 1785. Due to religious persecution by the
Lutheran Church and the government in
Württemberg, the society moved to the United States on October 7, 1803, settling in
Pennsylvania. On February 15, 1805, about 400 followers formally organized the Harmony Society, placing all their
goods in common. The group lasted until 1905, making it one of the longest-running financially successful communes in American history. The
Oneida Community, founded by
John Humphrey Noyes in
Oneida, New York, was a utopian religious
commune that lasted from 1848 to 1881. Although this utopian experiment has become better known today for its manufacture of Oneida silverware, it was one of the longest-running communes in American history. The
Amana Colonies were communal settlements in
Iowa, started by radical German
pietists, which lasted from 1855 to 1932. The
Amana Corporation, manufacturer of refrigerators and household appliances, was originally started by the group. Other examples are
Fountain Grove (founded in 1875), Riker's Holy City and other Californian utopian colonies between 1855 and 1955 (Hine), as well as
Sointula in
British Columbia, Canada. The
Amish and
Hutterites can also be considered an attempt towards religious utopia. A wide variety of
intentional communities with some type of faith-based ideas have also started across the world. Anthropologist Richard Sosis examined 200 communes in the 19th-century United States, both religious and secular (mostly
utopian socialist). 39 percent of the religious communes were still functioning 20 years after their founding while only 6 percent of the secular communes were. The number of costly sacrifices that a religious commune demanded from its members had a linear effect on its longevity, while in secular communes demands for costly sacrifices did not correlate with longevity and the majority of the secular communes failed within 8 years. Sosis cites anthropologist
Roy Rappaport in arguing that
rituals and laws are more effective when
sacralized. Social psychologist
Jonathan Haidt cites Sosis's research in his 2012 book
The Righteous Mind as the best evidence that
religion is an
adaptive solution to the
free-rider problem by enabling
cooperation without
kinship.
Evolutionary medicine researcher
Randolph M. Nesse and theoretical biologist
Mary Jane West-Eberhard have argued instead that because humans with
altruistic tendencies are preferred as social partners they receive
fitness advantages by
social selection, with Nesse arguing further that social selection enabled humans as a species to become extraordinarily
cooperative and capable of creating
culture. The
Book of Revelation in the Christian
Bible depicts an
eschatological time with the defeat of
Satan, of
Evil and of
Sin. The main difference compared to the
Old Testament promises is that such a defeat also has an
ontological value: "Then I saw 'a
new heaven and a new earth,' for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea...'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away" and no longer just
gnosiological (
Isaiah: "See, I will create/new heavens and a new earth./The former things will not be remembered,/nor will they come to mind". Narrow interpretation of the text depicts Heaven on Earth or a Heaven brought to Earth without
sin. Daily and mundane details of this new Earth, where God and
Jesus rule, remain unclear, although it is implied to be similar to the biblical Garden of Eden. Some theological philosophers believe that heaven will not be a physical realm but instead an
incorporeal place for
souls.
Golden Age The
Greek poet
Hesiod, around the 8th century BC, in his compilation of the mythological tradition (the poem
Works and Days), explained that, prior to
the present era, there were four other progressively less perfect ones, the oldest of which was the
Golden Age.
Scheria Perhaps the oldest Utopia of which we know, as pointed out many years ago by
Moses Finley, is
Homer's
Scheria, island of the
Phaeacians. A mythical place, often equated with classical
Corcyra, (modern
Corfu/
Kerkyra), where
Odysseus was washed ashore after 10 years of storm-tossed wandering and escorted to the King's palace by his daughter
Nausicaa. With stout walls, a stone temple and good harbours, it is perhaps the 'ideal'
Greek colony, a model for those founded from the middle of the 8th Century onward. A land of plenty, home to expert mariners (with the self-navigating ships), and skilled craftswomen who live in peace under their king's rule and fear no strangers.
Plutarch, the Greek historian and biographer of the 1st century, dealt with the blissful and mythic past of humanity.
Arcadia From
Sir Philip Sidney's prose romance
The Old Arcadia (1580), originally a region in the
Peloponnesus,
Arcadia became a
synonym for any rural area that serves as a
pastoral setting, a
locus amoenus ("delightful place").
The Biblical Garden of Eden CollectionThe
Biblical Garden of Eden as depicted in the
Old Testament Bible's
Book of Genesis 2 (
Authorized Version of 1611): According to the exegesis that the biblical theologian
Herbert Haag proposes in the book
Is original sin in Scripture?, published soon after the
Second Vatican Council, Genesis 2:25 would indicate that
Adam and Eve were created from the beginning naked of the
divine grace, an originary grace that, then, they would never have had and even less would have lost due to the subsequent events narrated. On the other hand, while supporting a continuity in the Bible about the absence of
preternatural gifts () with regard to the
ophitic event, Haag never makes any reference to the discontinuity of the loss of access to the tree of life.
The Land of Cockaigne The Land of
Cockaigne (also Cockaygne, Cokaygne), was an imaginary land of idleness and luxury, famous in medieval stories and the subject of several poems, one of which, an early translation of a 13th-century French work, is given in
George Ellis' Specimens of Early English Poets. In this, "the houses were made of barley sugar and cakes, the streets were paved with pastry and the shops supplied goods for nothing." London has been so called (see
Cockney) but Boileau applies the same to Paris.
Schlaraffenland is an analogous German tradition. All these myths also express some hope that the
idyllic state of affairs they describe is not irretrievably and irrevocably lost to mankind, that it can be regained in some way or other. One way might be a quest for an "earthly paradise" – a place like
Shangri-La, hidden in the
Tibetan mountains and described by
James Hilton in his utopian novel
Lost Horizon (1933).
Christopher Columbus followed directly in this tradition in his belief that he had found the Garden of Eden when, towards the end of the 15th century, he first encountered the
New World and its indigenous inhabitants.
The Peach Blossom Spring The
Peach Blossom Spring (), a prose piece written by the Chinese poet
Tao Yuanming in 421 CE, describes a utopian place. The narrative goes that a fisherman from Wuling sailed upstream a river and came across a beautiful blossoming peach grove and lush green fields covered with blossom petals. Entranced by the beauty, he continued upstream and stumbled onto a small grotto when he reached the end of the river.
Datong Datong() is a traditional Chinese Utopia. The main description of it is found in the Chinese
Classic of Rites, in the chapter called "Li Yun"(). Later, Datong and its ideal of 'The World Belongs to Everyone/The World is Held in Common' Tianxia weigong() influenced modern Chinese reformers and revolutionaries, such as
Kang Youwei.
Ketumati It is said, once
Maitreya is
reborn into the future kingdom of
Ketumati, a utopian age will commence. The city is described in
Buddhism as a domain filled with palaces made of gems and surrounded by
Kalpavriksha trees producing goods. During its years, none of the inhabitants of
Jambudvipa will need to take part in cultivation and hunger will no longer exist. ==Modern utopias==