Dystopia,Utopia, Atopia

In the face of contemporary critiques of dystopia as engendering political hopelessness and apathy, this article explores the instability of the category of itself. Bringing together work by the German jurist and political philosopher, Carl Schmitt, and the American ex-patriot poet, H.D., I show that each engages in thought experiments that might be taken as dystopic, but just as easily as utopic – and hence, as refusing the sharp contrast on which these generic distinctions are made. Schmitt and H.D. also bring into play issues central to the work of the contemporary U.S. poet, Susan Howe, with which I close. Howe’s poetry and essays, particularly in The Nonconformist Memorial, lead me to posit the usefulness of the idea of atopia, a thinking of the past, present, and future in which the alpha privative points to a more radical kind of “no place” than that first posited by Thomas More’s utopia. At the center of my argument is the idea that literature – and other works of the imagination – may be the necessary non-place, or place without the limitations of place, for thinking pasts and futures that are literally uninhabitable (as much as I may try, I can’t actually live in a book) – and yet whose psychic, imaginative, intellectual, and affective existence is vital for human life.     

马克思,直路,具体的乌托邦

俄国没有参与资产阶级革命,革命后的俄国出现了绝对的沙皇主义、独裁、恐怖、个人迷信和警察国家.斯大林主义使马克思主义面目全非,损害了马克思本人的形象.马克思恩格斯的无产阶级贫困化理论、危机理论已宣告无效,马克思主义中依然有效的是辩证法,即矛盾学说.资本主义矛盾可精确地理解为总体异化、自我异化.继承天赋人权遗产将决定共产主义的自由面孔.直路的矫形外科是社会主义的最紧迫的任务,而人道的社会主义包含有作为最高人权的直路.马克思主义并非不是乌托邦,而是具体的乌托邦.     

Utopia and heightened consciousness

Utopia should not be seen as the end‐point of a continuum of material progress, but as a society whose members enjoy a consciousness raised to its highest attainable level of intensity and value. The urge towards heightened consciousness is seen as a primary, pleasure‐driven human impulse, comparable in scope and intensity to the sex drive and perhaps still more fundamental, in that it emanates from the primordial human organ, the brain. The article explores ways in which an ‘inhibition barrier’ at present limiting the intensity of individual and general consciousness and arising from survival‐orientated modes of perception and feeling, might be raised or removed by a specific modification both of basic mental structures governing perception and conceptualization, and of economic structures, enabling a more efficient but non‐competitive mode of generating and distributing wealth. Insights derived from the psychology of art are thus applied more widely to the process of social living, to generate a concept of an attainable Utopia which would redirect human motivation away from ecologically destructive preoccupations.     

A sorrowful farewell to a Utopia

Born 1931, professor of the history of philosophy at the University of ódz. Specialist in German philosophy, with numerous publications on Schelling, Hegel, and Marx and their influence on political and social theories.     

论詹姆逊乌托邦思想的政治维度

在现代西方哲学界,詹姆逊最为明确地高举起乌托邦旗帜。他继承了布洛赫的乌托邦思想,将总体性思想内嵌其中,并且始终把乌托邦作为一种政治策略来建构,因此他的乌托邦思想具有鲜明的政治维度。乌托邦的本质是政治无意识,借助总体性方法,乌托邦实现对社会历史总体性的揭示;而乌托邦的政治功能在意识形态与乌托邦的辩证法中得到充分凸显。     

The Main Contributors to a Future Utopia

Which people, events, movements, institutions, and documents in the history of humankind have contributed most to the possible realization of a future utopia (i.e., a time when the Golden Rule is universally lived by)? This study consisted of two phases. The first phase involved generating nominated lists from over 100 graduate students and professionals in a variety of fields. In the second phase, the two resultant lists of 155 people and 122 events, movements, institutions, and documents were sent to a randomly-selected list of 400 tenured and tenure-track history and philosophy professors at 40 randomly-selected public Research 1 universities. These professors were asked to select who and what would be on their ‘A’ lists. The most frequently-selected people included Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Buddha. The most-frequently selected events, movements, institutions, and documents included: the Abolitionist movement, the American Bill of Rights, and the Abolishment of Apartheid in South Africa. The lists are presented and discussed.     

Utopia and its Enemies by George Kateb

Continued population growth and its effect on rural and urban areas in less developed countries is explored by explaining various causes of migration patterns. Presented are some possible solutions to the problems encountered in the current rural‐to‐urban migration pattern.     

乌托邦是我们时代的哲学范畴

布洛赫被誉为20世纪“乌托邦哲学家”。在他看来,乌托邦是20世纪一个重要的哲学一马克思主义范畴,乌托邦远没有限定在社会领域里,它也存在于艺术中,特别是存在于受表现主义影响的诗人和画家中。具体的乌托邦是一种斗争原理、一支社会力量,它预示政治上的未来远见、新事物的未发现状态。更美好生活的乌托邦不仅照亮未来,也照亮当下。一个马克思主义者不应传播悲观主义。