Concrete utopia
Concrete utopia is a term developed by the philosopher Ernst Bloch , which means the situation after a real possible change in society.
Further development of the Marxist critique of utopia
Ernst Bloch has defined the term Concrete utopia in response to the criticism of utopia by the Marxism developed. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had criticized early socialism to the effect that it could only turn the world upside down, only design abstract utopias. But this world must be put on its feet: According to Engels, social progress cannot be made through the insight gained that the existence of classes contradicts justice, equality, etc., not through the mere will to abolish these classes, but through certain new ones economic conditions.
Bloch wants to counter the generalization of such a criticism of all utopias, to show the diversity of the utopian and, in particular, to assert the indispensability of socially utopian anticipations in the context of Marxist practice. The concrete utopia presupposes the Marxian criticism of the economy and, especially since the beginning of the 1930s, has made positive reference to the labor movement and the communist party as subjects of a concrete utopian practice.
Utopia as a real possibility
The meaning of the unrealizable, which is attached to the term utopia in derogatory everyday speech, is turned into its opposite by the adjective “concrete”. According to Bloch, this opposite is not called a utopia, because that would result in economism , but a utopia that is becoming more concrete . Concrete utopia is the process of realization in which the more precise determinations of the future are brought about by feeling and experimenting. The concrete utopia of Ernst Bloch corresponds to an attitude of militant optimism . The pessimism on the one hand and the nefarious , unchecked optimism should be countered by an attitude of hope , which, however, is a tested one. Here Bloch also speaks of optimism with a black ribbon . Ernst Bloch gives a slogan from the peasant wars as an example of the concrete utopia :
- Beaten we move home -
- our grandchildren better fight it out!
For Bloch, real possibility is a synonym for process matter that evolves dialectically . Concrete utopia would arise in the mediation of theory and practice, which would have to be mutually checked . Furthermore, utopian hope has an eschatological core. With Karl Marx , Bloch argues that the history of mankind has so far only been prehistory and has not even begun. The world as an experiment , explained in Bloch's late work Experimentum Mundi , written between 1972 and 1974, has a direction. Bloch examined the religions, especially Christianity, according to their hopes. In religion, but also in art and music, there is a glimpse of a better world, which Bloch also calls home .
"It's about rebuilding the world into a home, a place that seems to everyone in childhood and where no one has ever been."
"I am. We are. That's enough. Well we have to start. Life is given in our hands. It has long since become empty for itself. It stumbles back and forth senselessly, but we stand firm, and so we want to be his fist and his goals. "
See also
literature
- Ernst Bloch: Spirit of Utopia , Munich 1918
- Ernst Bloch: Work edition: Volume 5: The principle of hope . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-518-28154-2
- Friedrich Engels: The development of socialism from utopia to science , in: Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels - works. (Karl) Dietz Verlag, Berlin. Volume 19, 4th edition 1973, unchanged reprint of the 1st edition 1962, Berlin / GDR. Pp. 210-228
Literature related to the vocabulary Concrete Utopia
- Alexander Neupert-Doppler (ed.): Concrete Utopias - Our Alternatives to Nationalism, Stuttgart 2018
- Michael R. Krätke , Joachim Beerhorst , Kerstin Jürgens : Courage for a concrete utopia
- Richard Buckminster Fuller : Concrete Utopia , Econ Verlag 1974, ISBN 3-430-12994-X
- Anton Pelinka : Dynamic Democracy. On the concrete utopia of social equality , Stuttgart 1974
- International Summer School / Clarita Müller-Plantenberg (Ed.): Solidarity Economy in Brazil and Germany: Paths to a Concrete Utopia Kassel: University of Kassel, 2005. ISBN 3-89958-537-2
- Horst Müller : Bloch, Kofler and the project of a utopian-critical science of social practice , in: Christoph Jünke (ed.). Using the example of Leo Kofler. Marxism in the 20th Century. Münster 2001. pp. 212-235. ISBN 3-89691-427-8
Web links
- Friday debate: concrete utopia - introductory texts on various concrete utopias
- Ernst Bloch Association - Dictionary with, among other things, an entry on Concrete Utopia
swell
- ↑ Friedrich Engels: The development of socialism from utopia to science . In: MEW , Vol. 19, p. 224.
- ↑ Ernst Bloch: On the ontology of not-yet-being, in: Hans Heinz Holz (ed.), Ernst Bloch - selection from his writings . Frankfurt a. M./Hamburg: Fischer, 1967, p. 63.
- ↑ http://nhz.twoday.net/stories/4640827/
- ↑ Ernst Bloch: Geist der Utopie , Munich, 1918