Zeitgeist and Utopia

Zeitgeist and Utopia

Zeitgeist, in my opinion sounded like a Hitler related event. when in actual fact it turned out to be a spirit of time.

Noun
The defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time.
The Zeitgeist which is spirit of the age or spirit of the time is the intellectual fashion or dominant school of thought that typifies and influences the culture of a particular period in time. For example, the Zeitgeist of modernism typified and influenced architecture, art, and fashion during much of the 20th century.

Definition of ZEITGEIST
: the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era
Zeit·geist (tstgst, zt-)
n.
The spirit of the time; the taste and outlook characteristic of a period or generation: “It’s easy to see how a student . . . in the 1940′s could imbibe such notions. The Zeitgeist encouraged Philosopher-Kings” (James Atlas).

The noun ZEITGEIST has 1 sense:
1. the spirit of the time; the spirit characteristic of an age or generation
Familiarity information: ZEITGEIST used as a noun is very rare.

Meaning:
The spirit of the time; the spirit characteristic of an age or generation
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms (“Zeitgeist” is a kind of…):
feel; feeling; flavor; flavour; look; smell; spirit; tone (the general atmosphere of a place or situation and the effect that it has on people)


UTOPIA on the other hand, i thought was an island in South America. In a sense my notion was close, because a Utopia turns out to be a perfect place to live.

1

: an imaginary and indefinitely remote place

2

often capitalized : a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions

3

: an impractical scheme for social improvement

n
	( sometimes not capital ) any real or imaginary society, place, state, etc, considered to be perfect or idea

A utopia is a community or society possessing highly desirable or perfect qualities. The word was coined in Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island society in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt to create an ideal society, and fictional societies portrayed in literature. It has spawned other concepts, most prominently dystopia.

utopia

1) a theoretical “perfect” realm, in which everyone is content, where things get done well by people who are happy to do them, and where all the problems which have plagued our world for millenia no longer apply. whoever came up with the idea was drunk, stoned, tripping or insane. maybe all four. 2) a popular maths-and-text based online game which can be quite complicated. people who play tend to lose all social skills, and spend hours chatting to friends and allies online, saying things like “goddam, just got grabbed by a pumped orc. he’s bottom-feeding, so my kd suicided in retal, razed him and he’s near peasant-death” do not worry if you do not understand the game. half the people who play don’t either. be warned, the game seems to exert a strange and powerful force on those with geekish tendencies.

1 often capitalized : a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions

2 : an impractical scheme for social improvement
- uto·pi·an /-p-n/ adjective or noun

Word History In 1516 the English statesman Sir Thomas More published a book that compared the condition of his England to that of a perfect and imaginary country, Utopia. Everything that was wrong in England was perfect in Utopia. More was trying to show how people could live together in peace and happiness if they only did what he thought was right. But the name he gave his imaginary country showed that he did not really believe perfection could ever be reached. Utopia means, literally, “no place,” since it was formed from the Greek ou, meaning “no, not,” and topos, “place.” Since More’s time, utopia has come to mean “a place of ideal perfection.” Over the years many books similar to Utopia have been written, and many plans for perfect societies proposed, most of them impractical. Utopiahas also come to mean any such scheme or plan.