Designating something ‘utopian’ is often meant as an insult to denounce political irresponsibility and hopeless idealism. Indeed, it is a common attack from the Right to suggest that left-wing governments are ‘utopian’ to allege fiscal imprudence, immature diplomatic relations, and more broadly a sense of naivety. Still, utopia is critiqued not only from the Right, but also from the Left: leftist pragmatists suggest that, in diverting attention away from the lived reality of oppressed people’s day-to-day lives, utopians make simplifying presumptions which reproduce the dominant biases of society and fail to strategize the political problems faced in the current moment.
However, whilst such leftist critiques of utopian thought are important, giving up on the concept of utopia opens the door to nihilism and/or conservative entrenchment. Without a positive vision of utopia, capitalism seems insurmountable, and the Left will remain unable to present a coherent counterpoint to the current market system. In fact, it might be said that the lived reality of oppression is what necessitates utopian theory: to offer respite from the otherwise seemingly inescapable present. In a recent book, Martin Hägglund presents a potential strategy worthy of consideration. While he criticises some forms of utopia as alienating and incoherent, he also draws upon Hegelian-Marxist ideas to present utopian normative aspirations. His work aims to combine ‘secular faith’ with democratic socialism to create a world of common goals and communal meaning, offering a counterweight to the apathy and resigned acceptance found in much of society.
Finite Utopias
In his discussion of the utopic vision presented in Brecht’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, where work has been abolished and there is sufficient money to buy everything, Ernst Bloch observed that ‘etwas fehlt’ (something is missing). While Bloch’s observation points to the difficulty of imagining what a utopian world beyond capitalism should look like, he nonetheless presented utopia as something temporally distinct for which we should always have hope. Drawing from Hegel, who suggested that history was a process of the gradual but inevitable realisation of the Idea of freedom, Bloch conceived of utopia as something that is ‘not yet’, and he used Christian eschatological ideas of the Second Coming to articulate his utopian vision.
One of the most famous and influential utopias, at least in Western society, is the Christian Heaven. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes heaven as ‘the ultimate end and fulfilment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness’. The key is the notion of eternity, where one is liberated from a finite lifespan to live an infinite life. It is not just Christianity which utilises the images of the eternal or transcendent; all major religions have some notion of ‘oneness’ or eternity, seen in Nirvana as much as Jannah. Whilst there are major differences which should not be overlooked, the shared idea is that this life—the earthly realm—is a precursor to true happiness or satiety.
In This Life: Why Mortality Makes Us Free, Martin Hägglund exposes the contradictions contained within notions of eternity: if time in Heaven is infinite, then there would be no reason to ever do anything. Given endless time, one would not start anything at any given moment and, lacking the possibility of failure and death, there would be no point in sustaining anything; it is only from finitude that there is a sense that time is precious, and one should commit to things. Indeed, Hägglund argues that it is only with the cognisance of the constant possibility of death that anything is meaningful. He writes: ‘to be invulnerable to grief is not to be consummated; it is to be deprived of the capacity to care.’ Thus, the potentially tragic sadness at loss and death is in fact required for genuine feeling altogether. It is the very fragility of life and relationships—the possibility that they will irrevocably end—which lends them their vitality: death becomes the horizon that structures life and provides the reason to act. Accordingly, Hägglund challenges visions of utopia that are both endless and freed from all suffering. In conceiving of utopia, one should embrace finality and the inherent fragility of relationships, rather than imagining a world without temporal limits and the possibility of pain.
Democratic Socialism
In the second half of This Life, Hägglund offers an alternative to capitalism. Hägglund’s proposal is democratic socialism combined with secular faith: he argues that we should find meaning through the acceptance of finitude and collective human endeavours and that this idea should guide the state. Economically, his suggestions align with standard Marxian principles of collective ownership of the means of production; he contends that this approach prevents the exploitation of workers and provides them with increased free time for self-development and understanding. But in contrast to most atheistic approaches, Hägglund goes beyond simply focusing on the reduction of suffering in the present, arguing that this kind of collective activity does not merely improve people’s lives, but is also necessary for creating meaning in life.
Thus, if Hägglund’s argument is to be viewed as utopian, it is not utopian in Bloch’s sense. It is also something more than negation; instead, it sets out necessary conditions—such as collective ownership, embraced awareness of death, and valuing of community—for an ideal society. In emphasising the importance of establishing democratic institutions, Hägglund does not suggest that utopia is something temporally or spatially distinct from the present. Rather, it is something that is achieved in the process of becoming. While aiming to maximise freedom and self-understanding, Hägglund’s utopia is also concerned with developing purpose in people’s lives. Ultimately, it is through committing to things which are finite, being susceptible to failure, and thus encouraging citizens to forge meaningful relationships, that we can begin to realise some form of an ideal society. This is not a positive view of utopia in the sense of prescribing particular policies and laws or demarcating what role one must play in society. Instead, Hägglund uses a Hegelian understanding of community and self-realisation to present the necessary conditions of freedom, from which society could develop in various ways.
Hägglund’s vision is both challenging—he suggests that capitalism is a contradictory and inadequate system of valuation—and firmly grounded in the world as it currently exists. For Hägglund, democracy plays a key role in serving as the means for citizens to deliberate and forge collective purpose. Even without a full-scale socialist revolution, his ideas about secular faith—which embraces finitude and death—combined with a Hegelian understanding of the importance of self-discovery within a community, could serve as an inspiration to combat the unease, even malaise, often encountered in much post-1989 left-wing thought. Whilst there is a clear tension between abstract theorising and engaging with existing realities, it is possible to outline some necessary conditions for how to change the status quo without suggesting a single, prescriptive view of the ideal society. Merely offering criticism fails to deal with the lack of a broader vision required to present a meaningful alternative. Through efforts to realise freedom and self-understanding, a better society can be made in the process.
This article was originally published in OPR’s Issue 12: Utopia.
Morien Robertson is a first-year Philosophy, Politics, and Economics student at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. As well as political and German philosophy, he is interested in 20th century art, film, and literature.