Ameritopia_ The Unmaking of America - Mark R. Levin [20]
As noted earlier, daily life in Utopia is strictly regimented. The chief duty of the Phylarchs is to ensure that the people follow the schedules established for them each day and that no one is idle (71). There is only a six-hour workday, three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon, after a mandatory two-hour rest following lunch. Bedtime for everyone is 8 P.M. All must sleep for eight hours (71). In their off hours, outside of work and sleep, Utopians are expected to pursue whatever hobbies or avocations interest them but which will also contribute to the greater good of the island nation. Meals are taken communally at appointed times in a great hall in each neighborhood. There are also strict requirements about where the men, women, and children sit. It is legal for an individual to eat the occasional fruit or vegetable from the gardens that are grown in the backyards of every home (80).
People all wear identical clothing and it is against the law to affect adornments of any kind. “For their garments, which throughout all the island be of one fashion … and this one continueth for evermore unchanged, seemly and comely to the eye, no let to the moving and wielding of the body, also fit both for winter and summer—as for these garments (I say) every family maketh their own” (70). The only exceptions are at festivals, where everyone but the priests wear white (139).
Every religion on the island must recognize a single, supreme, ubiquitous god. Priests within the leading religion on the island are among the most highly esteemed people in the utopian society (134). The churches, which are limited in number but very large and elegant, are open to all worshippers. “The common sacrifices be so ordered that they be in no derogation nor prejudice to any of the private sacrifices or religions. Therefore, no image of any god is seen in the church, to see to the intent it may be free for every man to conceive God by their religion after what likeness and similitude they will. They call upon no peculiar name of God, but only Mythra, in the which word they all agree together in one nature of the devine majesty whatsoever it be” (137, 138).
Since there is no private property on the island, and no currency for domestic use, every health-care service is free. Four hospitals are strategically located outside each city. They are great structures, lavishly appointed and extremely well equipped. “For in the circuit of the city … they have four hospitals, so big, so wide, so ample, and so large, that they may seem four little towns.… These hospitals be so well appointed, and with all things necessary to health so furnished … there is no sick person in all the city that had not rather lie there than at home in his own house” (79). However, death is not feared but celebrated among Utopians. People who die have an opportunity to meet their maker (131). Therefore, individuals who suffer from incurable diseases or fatal conditions, and who are no longer of use to the society in general, are encouraged to commit suicide to ease their pain and alleviate the burden they represent to island civilization. “They that be thus persuaded finish their lives willingly, either with hunger, or else die in their sleep without any feeling of death” (107).
Although private property, currency, and precious metals have no value in the utopian world, the country does maintain the monies that are paid by cities and nations with which Utopia trades. These funds are kept to pay for the use of mercenaries to fight the odd war with other cities and nations that may occasionally arise. Also, Utopia does not engage in the contemporaneous practices of appropriating the wealth or enslaving the civilian populations