topias

In 1516 Sir Thomas More published a book in which he created a new word, "Utopia," from Ancient Greek οὐ (ou, “not”) + τόπος (tópos, “place, region”). The book described a fictional island and people whose society, legal system, and politics were perfect, defined as benefitting everyone. This pairing of the name "No Place" with that ideal of perfection made it clear that that ideal is a work of the imagination to be reached for but not to be found in reality. In practice, many have misunderstood, creatively reinterpreted, or simply twisted that idea into "Eutopia," a literal place of universal, ideal well-being into which it is possible to move in fact, given the correct circumstances. The word "dystopia" using δυσ- (dus-, “bad”) + τόπος (tópos, “place, region”) was then required to balance the equation. "Dystopia" makes clear what happens when humans take a metaphor, an idea meant to deepen understanding by operate archetypally in the imagination rather than a literal thing, and try to force it on fellow creatures as a program using which one may Progress. Wiktionary says it well: "A miserable, dysfunctional state or society that has a very poor standard of living or severe censorship, oppression, etc"