While this ensures that there will be no plotting against the state, it also means that dissidents must fear for their lives if they disagree with the dictates of their rulers and desire to talk about it. This is essentially censorship and control of speech coded in the language of open deliberation, and it reveals another problem inherent in Utopian society.

Here, More is not attempting to present an ideal alternative to European society, but rather demonstrate how any society that sits at the extreme end of an ideological spectrum, as Utopia and Europe both did, will have problems which stem from the actions necessary to maintain that social order. In Europe, kings fought seemingly pointless wars in order to maintain their power and legitimacy, and in Utopia, the state executed anybody who talked about it outside the officially recognized channels. In both instances, human life becomes subordinate to the...
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