What is a utopia? Why do we seek it?

The word's roots in Ancient Greek actually means 'no place' or 'a place that does not exist.' And yet, it is a timeless, relevent human desire to find such a place. Thomas Moore conceptualized "utopia" in his book about a fictional island with ideal political, social and legal systems. It is largely based on Plato's "Republic" and several communities throughout history have been established in the hope of creating a utopia. The idea of a distopia is closely related to that of utopia through the idea of structure. In a utopia, the structure is such that, presumably, the inhabitants are happy and fulfilled, there is no need, no want, but also no negative excess, greed, crime or the like. In a distopia, the structure is so rigid so that a sigular force or entity controls all aspects of society, and the inhabitants, although not necessarily conscious of any injustice, are controlled to a point of almost sub-human existence.

Euelpides and Pisthetairos are inicially in search of a utopian society, which they believe the birds will be able to help them find. They decide to strive for a such a society in the bird community, between Earth and the Heavens, where they think success and happiness will be most fruitfull. The city, Cloudcuckooland, soon becomes a structured, tyrannical society, not yet a distopia, but far from utopia.

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