What's the difference between millenarian and utopian?

Millenarian


Definition:

  • (a.) Consisting of a thousand years; of or pertaining to the millennium, or to the Millenarians.
  • (n.) One who believes that Christ will personally reign on earth a thousand years; a Chiliast.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) His many books, which included a biography of Oliver Cromwell and a celebration of the radical millenarian groups of the period called The World Turned Upside Down, were widely read.
  • (2) He said the group was the "clearest case of far-left millenarianism which I have encountered".
  • (3) Rayner's report made it clear the group had elements of a cult, calling it the "clearest case of far-left millenarianism which I have encountered".
  • (4) In 1959 he published his first major work, Primitive Rebels, a strikingly original account, particularly for those times, of southern European rural secret societies and millenarian cultures (he was still writing about the subject as recently as 2011).
  • (5) In his analysis of Breivik's document, Doug Sanders points to the influence of "Eurabian" writers such as Bawer, Mark Steyn, Melanie Phillips and Robert Spencer in agitating for a millenarian vision of a civilisation under attack.
  • (6) His best known study, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (1957), demonstrated convincingly that the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century, chiefly Marxism and nazism, shared a "common stock of European social mythology" with apocalyptic medieval movements such as the Flagellants and the Anabaptists.
  • (7) Primitive Rebels by Eric Hobsbawm (1959) Packed with bandits, mobs, anarchic millenarians and wandering journeymen, this delighted me as a student.
  • (8) Those who heard Hill deliver the lectures on which it is based - lectures delivered in a nervous, slightly stuttering voice - will always reserve a special place for his 1972 study of radical and millenarian ideas, The World Turned Upside Down.

Utopian


Definition:

  • (a.) Of or pertaining to Utopia; resembling Utopia; hence, ideal; chimerical; fanciful; founded upon, or involving, imaginary perfections; as, Utopian projects; Utopian happiness.
  • (n.) An inhabitant of Utopia; hence, one who believes in the perfectibility of human society; a visionary; an idealist; an optimist.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Even if you're being generous, Wood's vision of an alternative can feel like a utopian work in progress.
  • (2) My father, Peter Self, who was, oxymoronically, a “political scientist”, wrote numerous books, which, while often technical in character, were nonetheless informed by his own rather gentle and utopian socialism.
  • (3) In the utopian version of this storyline, by collapsing governments' abilities to promote freedom in some countries but not others, or in the political realm but not the commercial one, openness may force governments to pursue a more principled kind of politics.
  • (4) At the moment, this utopian scenario seems unlikely.
  • (5) Going with what seems a reasonable assumption – that Scotland can be successful either independent or in a federal Britain – we are left with a leap of faith in one direction or the other, based on whose utopian vision of our future is most likely to be untrue.
  • (6) Recently, the Swedish duo Tomorrow Machine showcased a series of utopian packaging that included a container that dissolves with its contents.
  • (7) Hobsbawm, being a sage member of the Communist Party, warned against their utopianism, but I took to them like a fish to water.
  • (8) Even then, analysts who should investigate the link between the business and its persona seem swept away by utopian dreams and look where the company suggests they should be looking (mainly the future.)
  • (9) Such utopian, urban visions help drive the “smart city” rhetoric that has, for the past decade or so, been promulgated most energetically by big technology, engineering and consulting companies.
  • (10) "No, I mean it quite seriously – it's utopian, of course, it will never happen."
  • (11) Ruth Dear Ruth… Will Hutton Photograph: Guardian There is a danger of utopian myth in this, rather like the Labour left and shop steward movement in the 1960s.
  • (12) Just a few months ago the European Parliament and the council were so far apart that it was almost utopian to believe in an agreement.
  • (13) But we're growing out of the initial goggle-eyed utopian phase that new technological leaps tend to induce, and settling down into the reality of the power of the crowd.
  • (14) Though it was a set-up picture, it didn't replicate an "everyday moment"; it created one that was both utopian and unlikely.
  • (15) Utopian maybe, but less ludicrous than suggesting that "hard-working families" can overcome the inequality perpetrated by a powerful elite determined to hang on to their privilege.
  • (16) He admits that the second alternative seems utopian.
  • (17) For mid-century Americans, these gleaming marketplaces provided an almost utopian alternative to the urban commercial district, an artificial downtown with less crime and fewer vermin.
  • (18) With its heady media mix of graphic violence and utopian idylls, Isis has sought recruits and supporters who are further down the path toward ideological radicalisation or more inclined by personal disposition toward violence.
  • (19) An eradication campaign against A. variegatum in Guadeloupe, to avoid the spread of the associated diseases, appears technically difficult but possible, economically profitable, but socially completely utopian.
  • (20) Once again the professionals are nervously circling the utopian future of integrated health and social care But that is never the same as doing it.