In this semester the German Philosophy Seminar will be devoted to a single book that has played a central role in utopian philosophy: Ernst Bloch's Geist der Utopie. "As global culture is once again pregnant with the urge to formulate alternatives to the neoliberal politics and cultural politics of the last three decades, there is a need to return to the rich tradition of utopian thought in philosophy. The Romantic-Revolutionary Gnosis of Geist der Utopie Marxism, Romanticism and Utopia: Ernst Bloch and William Morris Not that he only effects a formal change in the real he also realizes his purpose in the natural world." Ruth Levitas: But what distinguishes the worst builder from the best bee from the outset is that he has built the cell in his head before he builds it in wax, at the end of the work process there is a result which already existed in the imagination of the worker at the beginning of that process, i.e. A spider carries out operations which resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts many builder to shame with the building of its wax cells. "Bloch also quotes the more well-known passage about purposive action as a distinguishing characteristic of the human species: We are assuming work in a form in which it belongs exclusively to man. It will become apparent that it is not a question of a great thought-dash between past and future, but of the carrying-through of the thoughts of the past." It will then become apparent that the world has long possessed the dream of a matter, of which it must only possess the consciousness to possess it in reality. Bloch claims Marxist credentials for this position by repeated reference to a letter from Marx to Ruge, dated 1843, in which Marx wrote: Our motto must therefore be: reform of consciousness not through dogmas, but through analysis of mystical consciousness which is still unclear to itself. "Bloch's central thesis is that human dreaming has always reached towards utopia, with varying mixes of the abstract and the concrete but only with Marxism has it become possible for utopia to be fully graspable in the imagination and hence in reality. And since 'the hinge on human history is its producer' the future is effected through our action the content and quality of utopian anticipation are therefore of fundamental importance. Where the utopian socialists -leaders and followers - chiefly erred was in thinking that the propagation of a plan for the good society would, through the operation of reason, result in its own realisation." Bloch's cosmology requires utopia in order that we may be able to imagine, will, and effect the future. Secondly, and this was the essence of their attacks on the utopian socialists, the construction of such blueprints carries with it the danger of idealism. The first is the argument that it is impossible to think oneself out of present circumstances and predict the needs and conditions for their satisfaction that will be created in the future in this sense, the imaginative construction of utopia as a political goal is strictly speaking impossible.Į. "There was a real reluctance to speculate about the future, for two quite explicit reasons. Heathwoodpress: SOMETHING’S MISSING: A STUDY OF THE DIALECTIC OF UTOPIA IN THE THEORIES OF THEODOR W. For the hunger of hope is “an irrepressible sense of the awakening of meaning,” and, as such, true hope is an expression of never-ending defiance against all odds for the Not-yet-being, whose ultimate realization will be the beginning of the true Utopia." Even in the midst of its decline and disappointment, hope still nails a flag on the sinking ship’s mast, for the decline is not accepted. "Hope can be thwarted, but for Bloch, that does not mean it is defeated. Without this eschatological dynamic, no notion of utopia or of thinking itself would be possible. The concept of God or utopia already contain the elements of the utopic reality that is missing, and it is from this knowledge and experience that utopia can be realized. Bloch imaged this as the more we travel toward the future isle of utopia, the more it will arise from the sea of the possible – out of the present chaos, which the sea represents." To say that something’s missing means that the seeds, the incipient foment of that something is already present, without which no one would know that it is missing. Utopia does not exist yet but depends on people living and working now to realize it in the future. Placing the utopian into the future did not empty it of its meaning and critical purpose as though it did not and could not exist. However, in placing utopia into time meant that not only were we not in utopia, but also that utopia wasn’t here yet. "For Bloch, Thomas More’s conception of Utopia in space meant that the utopia was here now, but that I/we are not there.
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