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  • The Space Between What Is and What Wants to BeThe Abandoned Practice of Utopian Thinking
  • Carol Becker (bio)

“The essential function of Utopia is a critique of what is present.”

— Ernst Bloch to Theodor Adorno1

I. ABANDONED PRACTICES

Why are practices abandoned? “Abandoned” connotes something that has been left behind and whose use is over. But “abandon” has another meaning, that of indulging in some uninhibited action, giving oneself over completely to something, perhaps only to find later that one has lost interest or that the practice is no longer respected or understood. However enamored we may be with an action, at some point, in response to fashion or utility, we move on. To what degree this shift occurs consciously or deliberately is a matter for discussion, one that concerns the dubious term “progress” and the extent to which we are in control of the evolution of our own species—or even want to be.

In the arena of science, often one “discovery” supersedes an earlier one, which causes a way of seeing or understanding to be abandoned. Hard science attempts to “prove” the correctness of one theorem over another. “Mistaken” ideas are replaced, and then everyone’s understanding should also be transformed. But even in science the acceptance of so-called objective proof can take a while to shift consciousness. Copernicus, as we know, advanced a heliocentric cosmology that the earth revolves around the sun, which transformed the entire understanding of the world and our position in it. But it took one hundred years for this thinking to take hold. The earth either revolves around the sun, or the sun revolves around the earth. Both concepts cannot coexist and be understood as “truth” for very long. Observation, aided by prosthetics, eventually proves one theorem over another, and the matter is settled, at least for rational thinkers. [End Page 6]

In the cultural arena, the evolution of ideas and practices is much less decisive. Hand-drawn animation continues even though computer-generated animation is now ubiquitous. There is even computer-generated animation that simulates hand-drawn animation—an electronic facsimile of the “real thing.” Sometimes, when new practices come into use, nostalgia for the past arises. Embroidery, needlepoint, and knitting, perceived as less-than-serious endeavors for some time, have returned as “extreme craft” and have gained a niche in the visual art world. Forms may be absent from us individually, but they may not be absent from the species altogether. For example, landscape painting, portraiture, and traditional theatre have not been replaced by computer-generated imagery and performance art. The more classical forms are now merely accompanied by the contemporary remixes and re-imaginings of the older practices.

II. UTOPIAN THINKING

When Barack Obama launched his presidential campaign with the concept of “Hope” some years ago, it seemed a strangely old-fashioned word and an even more outdated idea, yet it caught on. Hope, like faith and charity (words and even female names from another time), had been long lost to the coolness of contemporary angst and cynicism. The unexpected title of Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, recognized the attitude of thinking that such a revival implied. But the word did not seep into the collective consciousness until his national campaign began. Soon many people were wearing campaign buttons with an image of Obama and the word “Hope” printed large underneath.

Hope is both a positive expectation and a propelling anxiety that attempts to move people into the future. It is also an emotion that can cause ambivalence and is somewhat daring, because built into its aspiration is the very clear sense that the hoped-for something may or may not materialize. To not hope, however, is to close down possibility. For many, hope is a religious concept—hope that there is a God that will help you. The opposite of hope—despair, or the “complete absence of hope,” as defined by the Concise Oxford English Dictionary—is often called a sin because it implies that one does not believe in God or that one doubts God’s ability to save us from death or from ourselves.

Hope is...

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