Democracy and Utopias

Designed for College Honors students. Political culture of modern democracy fosters idea of progress and constant reform and is also wary of radical upheavals. Political culture of ancient Greek democracy made possible two things: awareness of having achieved unmatched superiority over any other society and birth of utopia. Democracy praised itself as perfect form of government, but it let flourish counterfactual objections to quest for absolute, just, and blissful political order. Examination of this paradoxical link between democracy and utopia by tracing its history in works of Aristophanes, Plato, Thomas More, Tommaso Campanella, Francis Bacon, and Charles Fourier to show relevance to contemporary politics.

P/NP or letter grading.