Robert Owen was one of the founders of utopian socialism and received much attention for the works and activities based on his concepts. His ideas continue to attract the attention of social reformers though being considered utopian. A New View of Society (1813) sheds light on Owen’s ideology and essential concepts he relied on while formulating his main social ideas.
The analysis of A New View of Society helps to understand that though the author’s socialist ideas were aimed at benefiting the society, their controversial and contestable nature makes them irrelevant and unreliable.
Several main ideas can be identified while reading the text. The first one is related to the author’s belief in the central role of circumstances in the process of the formation of the person’s character. Owen’s assumptions rely on the idea that people do not have the power to form their personality based on their natural dispositions and traits.
The author claims that human personality largely depends on the external circumstances provided by the society. According to such a view, people are considered passive subjects severely influenced by society and have little power to resist the pressure of conditions they face while growing up.
Such an idea appears to be rather contestable, as the role of a person’s unique traits in the formation of the worldview leading to subsequent actions should not be underestimated. Owen’s ideas about the significant influence of the circumstances on the person’s character and decisions have a rational side but cannot be regarded as the true ones due to the lack of objectivity.
Another central idea of the text is related to the author’s statements about the unfairness of justifying people’s actions according to society’s standards. Owen claims that society has no right to punish people for committing crimes as it trains them to do so.
The author believes that the society can be considered “a scene of insincerity” as it judges people according to “grossly false” laws that do not take into account the fact that only the community can be blamed for the unrighteous actions of the individual. The author emphasizes that any person can become “enlightened” if put under the right circumstances created by the society.
The author believes that people cannot be accountable for their habits, as only society has the power to change them. Such ideas seem to be not well-grounded as they do not take into consideration the power of human personality to develop various traits under the same circumstances. Different people attain the opposite habits and form various views though put in the same situation. Therefore, relying on such ideas is quite dangerous, as they appear to be irrelevant.
Though Owen had pure and noble goals related to making the society fairer and eliminating the uneducated and ignorant classes, the ideas proposed in A New View of Society reflect the author’s views that were too idealistic and utopian to be considered reliable.
Bibliography
Leopold, David. “Education and Utopia: Robert Owen and Charles Fourier.” Oxford Review of Education 37, no. 5 (2011): 619-635.
Owen, Robert. “A New View of Society.” In Sources for Western Society, Volume 2: From the Age of Exploration to the Present, 3rd ed., edited by John McKay, Clare Haru Crowston, Merry Wiesner-Hanks, and Joe Perry, 326-330. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013.