Robust Utopias and Civil Repairs

Abstract

In the wake of Marxism, the decline of socialism and the debacle of state Communism, critical social theory must be saved from the narrow letter of the Frankfurt School, though not from its utopian spirit. Criticizing the totalizing packages of modernist utopias, this article tries to sustain the idea of utopia and its connection to critical social thought. It suggests that self-limiting, partial and plural utopias inform the social and cultural struggles of contemporary life. There has not been an end to utopian thought and action, but a movement away from socialism to movements of difference, movements against arms, movements for sexual citizenship, movements to create an ecologically harmonious society. In conclusion, the suggestion is made that what unites and underlies these movements is not a totalizing project, but the shared aim of producing a more civil society.