What is the ideal society?

 A common theme that runs though ancient and modern societies is the idea that, if isolated and handled properly, humankind can life in a more harmonious and fulfilling way than we typically do today.  History is filled with the stories of Utopian groups who have conceived of a way to live where all aspects of life may be different than world from which they have come, but the new "order" leads to better lives better lived.

I came across Thomas More's Utopia recently, which sparked my thinking.  If you Google it you will come across the Wiki summary, which is not bad.  I encourage you to find a copy of the English translation and read it.  I direct you to a chapter called, A Day In Utopia, in which More outlines the basic way of life for the people living there, and points out the advantages of the new way of living.  Along the way he points out that the basic problem with normal society is that it is based on the principle that The Rich Get Richer, and the Poor Get Poorer.  It was first published in 1516, in Latin, in Belgium.   He was hanged for heresy in 1535.

You remember Ralph Waldo Emerson, of course.  His Transcendentalists formed a utopian compound in the Concord, MA area in the 1820's.  It ran out of food in the first winter and didn't really succeed.  If you get a chance to read any of the accounts of the group and how they operated, it was a real collection of special people.  One guy would not wear clothes and would only eat crackers, for example.

The most successful group of that time was John Noyes' quasi-religious community in Oneida NY in the 1850's.  It persisted until a tornado almost wiped it out in 1878, but it exists today as the flatware company Oneida Ltd.  I don't think there remains the sort of living arrangement Noyes set out in his original vision (read about it and you will see just how different it was).  He had some strong feelings about sex, I can tell you.

Jim Jones and his band of religious zealots who "drank the Kool-Aid" in Guyana in the 1970's are another kind of societal group seeking to create a new way of living.  For many years we had the garlic-growing Love Isreal group in Arlington.  Remember them?

So, the question to be discussed is, What is the Ideal Society?  What sort of norms and values need to be shared in common to make one successful?