The first part of the essay talks about his refusal to aide the prince or king with his infinite wisdom. To Raphael, it seemed as if he was not inclined to participate in direct government in that position. He explained that he had too much of a temper. He defended himself by saying that governing bodies are selfish and listen and do only what allows them personal gain. They only are interested in war and fighting for material wealth and land power. He states that they are more concerned with attaining more land than governing their own people. He mentions the bad qualitites of a standing army. Civilizations like Syria fell due to their standing army and went to war only to occupy the soldiers. Following his explanation of his uninvolvement, he begins to speak of the death penalty. In some societies who had executed thieves for the mere crime of stealing. Although Raphael agreed it was indeed a punishable crime, he did not however believe that the proper punishment was death. He wondered how a crime like murder could have the same punishment as thievery. He then defended the poor by bringing up the point that they have no choice and it is by little fault of their own that they steal from others. He said those who are rich take land and the way of life from the poor and force them to steal and beg to stay alive. He then provides solutions to this problem including restricted wool prices and farm land availability. He labels those as slaves who have been convicted of robbery and establishes rules to govern only those stricken with robbery charges. Throughout the first twenty pages he mentions money as the base of all purpose numerous times and begs the question of the value of wealth.
POVERTY=NOTHING TO LOSE=CRIME
GOVERNMENT=SELFISH=CORRUPTION=POVERTY
I'll start with a disclaimer, it was 12:00 at night when I read the last five pages so don't judge my analysis. But, most of the time during the reading I kept asking myself two questions: What is justice? and Is money everything, even in Utopia? Those questions connected to much of what I read as the death penalty and poverty were the main subjects. I agree with the fact that death needs to be reserved for only heinous or high crimes, and if this was not to happen the justice system would have no rehabilitation value. The purpose of justice I think is to punish those who have committed crimes but also to rehabilitate those who can be saved and learn to become a more productive citizen. For example, the thieves mentioned in the reading would have the possibility to rehabilitate, but a mass murderer would not. Nevertheless, it still poses the question, What is a high crime to you? This is a matter of opinion and therefore the decision to sentence the death penalty can never fully be defined. Which poses another question in my mind, Who has the right to decide who lives and dies? The judge? The jury? The murderer? Questions, questions, and limited answers. Another question, Is money everything? Based on the reading I drew that in Utopia material wealth is not the highest priority. Even though money can never be taken out of a society, I can see Utopia having less issues with fiscal hierarchy. Material wealth seems to be a surface quality in many humans that ends up only fulfilling surface needs, wants, purpose, and fantasy. If money isn't life, what is? What can you possibly judge success on? Happiness? Love? Honesty? Integrity? or Cars? Houses?Bank Account? Personally, I would like to base my life on something below the surface. What would you choose?
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2 comments:
I agree with you Megan on the death penalty. How do you decide who dies and who lives? I do not think you can, therefore you should leave sentences to life in prison. I consider high crimes murder and treason. haha. I would not kill someone for these though. You made a good point on rehabilitation. I never thought of that. If you kill all the thieves, then they will never have a second chance. After reading the second part of Utopia, I do not think anyone cares to judge success. It sounds like money is just there if they need to hire people to fight their fights. That would be a weird society if you could never have any way of judging your success, or would it?
Sorry Megan, I disagree with you about the death penalty. I think that even for the most heinous crimes, it would be unjust to use the death penalty. To take another person’s life is one of the most ultimate evils in the world (save for perhaps rape), and to be the one that commits the killing, even if it is in response to someone else murdering, would be too much for me. I also think death is too permanent to be considered as an option because of the possibility (like you said) of rehabbing a criminal, or perhaps the criminal is later found to be innocent.
I agree with Megan that money should not be what someone judges the success in their life off of. I am torn, though, on whether or not a society can function without money. If a socialist system were in place and working perfectly it would be possible for the government to distribute wealth evenly, but I do not know of a place where it has ever been proven to work that way. I also think that trading with other nations would be difficult if there was not a system of currency that you could offer them in exchange for their goods, which would be necessary if the other nation did believe staunchly in using money as a medium for exchange.
Hopefully the last question you asked was rhetorical, because I don’t know what I would judge the success of life on.
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