Notable Aspects
A few notable aspects of this utopia are:
Modern Utopian People: Chapter 1 (Section 6) The main character meets the first Utopian man and describes what he would look like: not Swiss- but might be on planet Earth. He has maybe just a few differences from a human on Earth: same face but different expressions, and same physique but better developed. He has different habits, knowledge, traditions, clothing, ideas, and different appliances. Besides all that, he would be the same man (Wells, Ch.1).
Economy: Chapter 3 (Section 1): This utopia needs money to function. The money in this society is gold, a fair-round size. On one side of the coin there is an inscription that declares it one Lion (American influence-one declares). On the other side of the coin there is "a universal goddess of the Utopian coinage -- Peace, as a beautiful woman, reading with a child out of a great book, and behind them are stars, and an hour-glass, halfway run (Wells- ch. 3)." This economy also needs a duodecimal system of counting.
Gender Roles: Chapter 6 (Section 3): This chapter is titled, "Women in a Modern Utopia." Section 3 makes it clear that women are to be as free as men in this utopia. "It is a fact that almost every point in which a woman differs from a man is an economic disadvantage to her, her incapacity for great stresses of exertion, her frequent liability to slight illnesses, her weaker initiative, her inferior invention and resourcefulness, her relative incapacity for organization and combination, and the possibilities of emotional complications whenever she is in economic dependence on men (Wells, Ch. 6)." A woman who is already a mother or pregnant, is as much entitled to wages above the minimum wage, to support, to respect and to freedom. Also, in this utopia, a career of wholesome motherhood would be the normal calling for a woman.
Animal Rights: Chapter 9 (Section 5):"In all the round world of Utopia there is no meat. There used to be. But now we cannot stand the thought of slaughterhouses. And, in a population that is all educated, and at about the same level of physical refinement, it is practically impossible to find anyone who will hew a dead ox or pig ... I can still remember as a boy the rejoicings over the closing of the last slaughterhouse."
Read more about this topic: A Modern Utopia
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