We spoke about this in class a little bit, but I would like to dedicate a significant portion of this blog post about it. On page 75 of Book 2 Thomas More explains how many of the Utopians’ free and independent neighbors who were  “liberated by them from tyranny” admired Utopian virtues so much that they “requested” magistrates from Utopia to come to their lands and govern them.  This seems highly questionable. It does seem, however, like a great similarity of the Europeans justification for colonizing large parts of the world. These neighbors don’t seem to have been liberated but taken over by the Utopians under the guise of “liberation from tyranny”.  This begs the question though about what tyranny actually is? Because it seems that Thomas More uses strikingly in the same way that many politicians in America use it in today’s world. For instance, the invasion of Iraq was caused by Saddam Hussien’s tyranny and to promote democracy in the region, but later on many found out that was actually America’s fear of loosing control of oil in the Middle East. Thomas More, to me, seems like the first person to actually to justify the colonization and exploitation of other technological inferior nations by the pretext of forced liberation, even if there is no need for it.

The other important note I would like to bring up is how the section about Utopian relations seems a lot like an attack on King Henry the VIII. On 76, More says that treaties and alliances between kings are not generally observed with much good faith. I think this allusion to how Henry was supposed to Mary his dead brother’s wife but gets divorced and does not fulfill the treaty.