Backward -- a Positive Spin Term Paper

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There is freedom of choice, Bellamy insists, in career choices and how women choose men that are most fit to be their consorts, but how much of this choice is determined by state pressure, or would be if his vision became reality, seems debatable.

Admittedly, even according to the happy residents, certain required actions by law are imposed, such as "every man shall serve the nation [as a soldier] for a fixed period" (Chapter 11). But this is seen as a positive, as traditionally capitalist free societies left every man to "his choice....between working, stealing, or starving" (Chapter 11). Of course, men could still serve in the army, even in Bellamy's time, but this is ignored in the construct of the novel. All requirements that instruct citizens to serve the state are seen as benefits, unlike those in other lands, as these requirements are ostensibly taken on willingly, and called "merely a codification of the law of nature - the edict of Eden - by which it is made equal in its pressure on men, our system depends in no particular upon legislation, but is entirely voluntary, the logical outcome of the operation of human nature under rational conditions" (Chapter 11).

The belief in rationality, that every human being, under ideal circumstances, will be physically and mentally healthy, and choose the same existence does not only seem absurdly idealistic and a denial of what the reader knows of historical reality, but also a denial of individuality and creativity.

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While freedom from want and pain are noble goals for a society to have for its citizens, this society merely asserts that these goals can be easily achieved with the abolishment of private property, without really substantiating this with evidence. The novel allows this utopia to burst forth fully formed from the mind of a dreamer, without showing the reader the pain that might have occurred in refashioning society, and how some valuable aspects of human culture were eliminated in the process.

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