Utopianism in the Work of Zygmunt Bauman - Sociologi - Aalborg ...
Utopianism in the Work of Zygmunt Bauman - Sociologi - Aalborg ...
Utopianism in the Work of Zygmunt Bauman - Sociologi - Aalborg ...
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These pr<strong>in</strong>ciples stay with me all <strong>the</strong> time – if you call <strong>the</strong>m socialist, f<strong>in</strong>e; but I<br />
don’t th<strong>in</strong>k <strong>the</strong>y are particularly socialist, anyway. They are much wider than that.<br />
I really believe that communism was just <strong>the</strong> stupidly condensed and concen-<br />
trated, naive effort to push it through; but <strong>the</strong> values were never <strong>in</strong>vented by <strong>the</strong><br />
communists. The values were <strong>the</strong>re, much wider; <strong>the</strong>y were Western, Enlighten-<br />
ment values. I can’t imag<strong>in</strong>e a society which would dispose <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se two values,<br />
ever […] Once <strong>the</strong> ideas <strong>of</strong> justice and self-assertion were <strong>in</strong>vented, it is impossi-<br />
ble to forget <strong>the</strong>m. They will haunt and pester us to <strong>the</strong> end <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> world (<strong>Bauman</strong><br />
<strong>in</strong> Kilm<strong>in</strong>ster & Varcoe 1992:225).<br />
Therefore, his utopian vision despite his earlier expressed sympathies does not<br />
rest solely on socialist assumptions. 5 Especially <strong>the</strong> <strong>in</strong>spiration found <strong>in</strong> certa<strong>in</strong><br />
varieties <strong>of</strong> French literary and even postmodernist social thought whe<strong>the</strong>r aca-<br />
demic or artistic – Camus, Castoriadis and Lev<strong>in</strong>as – appears as mentioned to<br />
have <strong>in</strong>spired <strong>Bauman</strong> <strong>in</strong> a utopian direction (Jacobsen 2003c) as does some <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>the</strong> utopian ideas <strong>of</strong> Ernst Bloch (Jacobsen 2003b), although we must also not<br />
forget <strong>the</strong> <strong>in</strong>spiration critical <strong>the</strong>ory has provided for his project <strong>in</strong> this respect.<br />
<strong>Bauman</strong>’s variant <strong>of</strong> critical th<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g is explicated as a way <strong>of</strong> look<strong>in</strong>g at alter-<br />
natives, just as conventional critical th<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g has always attempted to transcend<br />
and look beyond <strong>the</strong> conf<strong>in</strong>es <strong>of</strong> capitalism. For example, he writes <strong>the</strong> follow-<br />
<strong>in</strong>g characteristic <strong>of</strong> his understand<strong>in</strong>g and utilisation <strong>of</strong> critical <strong>the</strong>ory which<br />
clearly conta<strong>in</strong>s utopian undercurrents if not overtones:<br />
Unlike o<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong>ories, critical <strong>the</strong>ory will not be […] satisfied with <strong>the</strong> optimally<br />
faithful reproduction <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> world ‘as it is’. It will <strong>in</strong>sist on ask<strong>in</strong>g, ‘how has this<br />
world come about?’. It will demand that its history be studied, and that <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
course <strong>of</strong> this historical study <strong>the</strong> forgotten hopes and lost chances <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> past be<br />
retrieved. It will wish to explore how come that <strong>the</strong> hopes have been forgotten<br />
and <strong>the</strong> chances lost. It will also refuse to accept that whatever is, is <strong>of</strong> necessity;<br />
it will suggest <strong>in</strong>stead that <strong>the</strong> structures be explored which perpetuate what is and<br />
by <strong>the</strong> same token render <strong>the</strong> alternatives unrealistic. It will assume, <strong>in</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r<br />
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