Essay on Utopia - Constitution of the United States as a Utopian Proposal

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The Constitution of the United States as a Utopian Proposal

Few people would take issue with the statement that America faces monumental challenges both to its own well-being as well as to its self-imposed duty to become "a more perfect union". Over the years, many speakers, authors, and dreamers have used the dirty facts of this nation's (and its predecessors') seemingly unrepentant capitalism, paternalism, belligerence, and tendency toward cultural assimilation to declare the entire enterprise bankrupt and to focus, not on where, exactly, the USA went wrong, but instead on what the truly ideal civilization would look like. They have created, in speech or on paper, entire realms of happiness and harmony, free of injustice, crime, and any other negative social vice. They have failed, however, in most cases, to free themselves from the trap of the nature of the human animal and his uncanny ability to absolutely avoid accurate prediction or even adequate description. It is my suggestion that, out of the bulk of utopian proposals the world has seen, the Constitution of the United States does, in fact, come the closest to creating "no place" for the greatest number of people through its pragmatism, its admission to not knowing the nature of every man, and, most importantly, its allowal of alternate visions of Utopia.

Of course, all one needs to do to get a glimpse of the monumental challenges the USA faces is open the closest almanac. Nearly half (49%) of all American marriages end in divorce. Some 700,000 high school students end up dropping out of school each year. There are nearly one million cases of child neglect and/or abuse per year and 2,700,000 cases of violent crime. Around 8.5 million individuals...

... middle of paper ...

...ough a total change in the accepted social order. The framers of the Constitution were looking in the right direction; it is our legacy and responsibility to see that the essence of their vision is amended to accommodate the changes this nation has experienced since its founding and to provide the opportunity for every citizen to express, and possibly achieve, his or her own utopia.

Works Cited

Bellamy, Edward. Looking Backward: 2000 to 1887. Internet text version copyright 1996 by Geoffrey

Sauer. http://english-server.hss.cmu.edu/fiction/bellamy/contents.html

Brunner, Borgna, ed. 1997 Information Please Almanac. Boston: Information Please, LLC.

Constitution of the United States of America.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html.

Democratic Socialists of America. (1998). http://www.dsausa.org/dsa.html

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