Introduction
The concept of utopia has drawn a lot of debates concerning what it entails and what it does not entail. The term utopia refers to the state of predicting a bright future and presenting issues ass best as they can be.
The state of utopia brings forth hope, and big expectations even where there are few expectations. However, there are many phases of utopia, social, political and theoretical. The presentation of utopia by Benedict Anderson has brought a lot of criticism.
This paper aims at bringing out the theoretical issues of utopia in relations to Anderson. The main discussion question is, “is utopia politics related to nationalism and community?”
Disproportional society
In a state of utopia, all the persons are made to believe that the future is promising. And as put out in the introduction, there are no benefits of doubt that are given to the systems in place or even to the visions that are there.
This puts the while community at disproportion should an unprecedented event or change to the laid down structures occur. The community believes in perfect religion, community, nation, and governance.
The ability to focus on the incurrence of events that may lead to negativity is alienated in utopia thus the community is not balanced in its gauging of the future (Chatterjee, 4).
The saving tradition
The argument in utopia discourages the saving tradition. The main purpose why the people save is to safeguard the future.
When there is no danger in the future the persons in a community are made to believe that the whole system is in operation and thus they do not save. This puts the coming generations at the risk of not benefiting fully form the structures as there is no good foundation is made for them.
The future generations in a utopia, as Anderson puts it, shall start from the scratches that their fore fathers started at. The ability of the community to transform the future generation is laid on the ability to save.
The ability to save is in most occasions motivated by the fact that there are probabilities that the future may not present all that is there to be presented. Thus the people are determined to have a portion that will cover them from the inaccuracies (Chatterjee, 3).
Security
Benedict Anderson shows the state of utopia as the leading stumbling block to the development of the people. The scenario has lead many communities in believing that there are no security issues in their lands.
The fact that the country is safe today is not an assurance that the country will be safe tomorrow. This then is the probability that the countries should look at. The isolation of the issue of security leads to the colonialism in most of the countries in the eightieth century. This case should not be repeated.
The issue of security has now intensified from those age a as the current generation experiences pirates hijacking ships in majors seas and also mega corruptions, human trafficking and even terrorism.
While Anderson does not advocate for dystopia, the opposite of utopia, he encourages the governments to be wary of any internal and even external dealing that may lead to the fall of the country.
The citizens of any country should be encouraged to address all the issues with a benefit of doubt yet not being pessimistic at the same time.
The fall of great cities has been blamed on dystopia. In fact most of the government overturning that have been in the Arab speaking countries in the twenty first century has been the dystopian results of the society.
The unity of many people has been on many angles one of them are the cases of racism, nepotism and tribalism. The above have for a long time been considered as vices and they still are.
However, many communities world wide have continued either directly or indirectly to be involve in them. According to Anderson, the communities should change their perception of others.
The thinking that the only probability of fortune can come form one community is opportunistic and thus anything that may happen against that thinking will be detrimental to the community that basis its theories on the utopia (Chatterjee, 6).
Criticism
The stand by Benedict Anderson has been criticized from many corners. To start with, Anderson has been criticized of using the platform of advocating for the future and taken that chance to advocate for the position of his political party in Costa Rica.
The critics argue that, Anderson is sly when he calls for the people to change their mentality as he uses that chance to drum up support for his party. The ability of any theorist to alienate his personal stand and political stand from philosophy is usually looked at as the strength of the theorist that he presents (Chatterjee, 7).
Conclusion
Though it has been criticized by many people, the Anderson’s theory of utopia is arguably one of the best works that tackle major issues that have lead to the down fall of many communities and the nations.
The theory should thus not be ignored but rather be implemented with exemptions of the parts that any community or institutions may feel are not at the benefit of the members thereof.
From the above discussion, it is evident that utopia politics are deeply rooted in nationalism and community as all the issues contained affect the nation and the community as a whole.
Works Cited
Chatterjee Partha. Anderson’s Utopia’, diacritics. New York: The Johns Hopkins University Press. (1999)