Utopia is an idealized world that everyone dreams of, but it doesn’t exist in the real world. There have been many attempts throughout history, all of which have failed, and utopia can be defined differently for different people. “Utopia” may look different for each of us, depending on our individual circumstances.
For Utopia
“The lamb shall dwell with the calf, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat; the calf and the young lion and the fatted beast shall be together, drawn to the kid; the cow and the bear shall eat together, and their young shall lie down together; the lion shall eat grass like an ox; the suckling child shall play in the viper’s hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand into the viper’s den. There shall be no harm, no hurt, in all the places of my holy mountain.”
This is one of the most famous passages in the world’s most famous book, the Bible, and it describes the prophet Isaiah’s vision of the “kingdom of God,” or utopia. Humans have been envisioning a perfect world since the beginning of time. Long ago, hunter-gatherers may have dreamed of a land rich with animals to hunt and fruit to pick, and farmers may have dreamed of a land where there was always plenty of food and plenty of harvest. In some periods, people have tried to fit their envisioned world into a religious one, and in other periods, they have struggled to make the real world into an idealized one. To this day, everyone dreams of a perfect world, and the word “utopia” is used to represent its universal existence.
The birth of utopias and the struggle for them
Unsurprisingly, the word utopia didn’t exist from scratch: it was Thomas More who first coined the concept, combining the Greek words “Ou” and “topos.” Originally meaning “no-where,” or “not of this world,” it is also homophonous with “eu-topos,” which means “good-place. Taken together, utopia is “a country that is nowhere, but everyone dreams of it.” In Thomas More’s “A golden book, as instructive as it is delightful, concerning the best political system of society, and about Utopia, a new island,” he describes the ideal in the form of a fictionalized account of Utopia, a small island near the Americas, by the fictional character Raphael.
More’s utopia is a society in which many people work together happily, the results are distributed equitably, and there is no competition due to differences in distribution. However, despite being a brilliant thinker who envisioned such a society in the strictly capitalist class society of England, More was not deeply involved in politics. In Utopia, he states that this was because he believed that his political advice would be disempowered by those in power due to the structure of British society at the time.
The first attempt to bring utopia to life was the Proletarian Revolution, which was the realization of Karl Marx’s socialist theories under the leadership of Lenin. Marx argued that the military, religion, police, and state, which were created by the bourgeoisie, should be abolished in favor of a society where each individual owns the means of production and produces according to their needs. Lenin reinforced Marxism by arguing that a socialist system should have a transitional period in which the military, police, and state were temporarily maintained in order to overcome the threat of imperialism and achieve a perfect society. However, the revolution became nationalistic and dictatorial under Stalin.
While the Soviet Union ostensibly supported a proletarian revolution, it overdeveloped heavy industry, reduced food production, and created a gap between the rich and poor due to the nomenklatura (a privileged class within the communist system). Eventually, undemocratic rule turned communist ideology into a more state-controlled form of politics. After 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev implemented social reform policies to eliminate this contradiction, but they failed, and the realization of their ideal society ended in failure. This “struggle for utopia,” which affected the world and still has a strong impact on South Korea, failed to fundamentally change the world, and utopia remains “out of this world.
Hippocrates and the doctor
If you’re a doctor, or anyone for that matter, your dream utopia would include something like this. “A world where all people can live in good health,” or ‘a land of eternal happiness, free of aches and pains.’ Considering the livelihood of doctors, perhaps we should change it to ”a world where all people can be healthy.” But one thing is for sure, it’s a doctor’s dream and purpose to help the greatest number of people live the healthiest lives possible.
The ancient Greek scholar Hippocrates is known as the father of medicine for establishing medicine as an independent discipline. In honor of his work, physicians take the Hippocratic Oath when they become doctors.
“Now that I have been admitted to the practice of medicine, I solemnly pledge to devote my life to the service of mankind.
I will honor and give thanks for my gifts.
I will practice medicine with conscience and dignity.
I will put the health and life of my patients first.
I will keep all intimate secrets revealed to me by my patients.
I will uphold the noble traditions and honor of my profession.
I will consider my colleagues as brothers.
I will uphold my duty to my patients, regardless of race, religion, nationality, political affiliation, or social status.
I will honor human life as sacred from conception.
I will not use my knowledge against guidance, even if threatened.”
This oath lays out the principles that physicians should uphold in order to create a “utopia of health. As every doctor dreams of a “utopia of health,” doctors take this oath when they graduate from school. But can we be “Hippocrates” in this day and age?
An acquaintance of mine went to the emergency room because his mother was sick. His mother had been to the emergency room before with similar symptoms, so he knew it was a virus. Upon arrival at the ER, the doctor ordered a chest X-ray. The acquaintance argued that it was viral and only needed a shot, but the doctor could only say, “It’s ER policy.”
Leaving aside the discussion of whether to trust the patient’s or caregiver’s self-diagnosis to speed up treatment time when the patient arrives at the ER, or whether the doctor should run the test again to ensure accuracy, the word “policy” implies a rule that may not be necessary but must be followed. In the end, my acquaintance was treated without an x-ray and sent home. Later, while chatting with my acquaintance, I could see that he was concerned about the doctor who “did a good job, but didn’t follow the hospital’s policy”.
Hospitals are indispensable for the utopia of “maximum health for the greatest number”. Hospitals that are organized to collaborate across disciplines can be far more powerful than the sum of their parts. Given the growing breadth and depth of medical science, doctors will have more to learn and more to collaborate on in the future. Inevitably, the way we treat patients will become more precise, and the “health utopia” will get closer and closer.
But it’s important to remember that hospitals are a means to a health utopia, not a utopia itself. If we forget about the definition of “utopia” for a moment, it’s inevitable that patients and doctors alike will have different ways of accessing this utopia for sick people. For some, early diagnosis, for others aggressive treatment, and for others simply the comfort of words will go a long way toward creating their own “utopia.” In other words, utopia may not be a destination for everyone, but rather a state of being for each person.
