The End of Utopia at the Present Time

Abstract

Drawing upon Herbert Marcuse’s consideration of the “end of utopia,” this chapter examines the paradoxical timeliness of utopian theory at the moment when any utopian alternatives to the current political and economic systems seem utterly impossible. Recent protests, including the Occupy Wall Street movement, represent examples of the renewed utopian impulse, as various groups struggle to imagine and create new spaces of liberty. Although the present world system does not allow for the older sort of “blueprint” utopias, the critical project of utopia as a form of opposition is all the more vital.KeywordsPresent MomentCritical TheoryWorld SystemLate CapitalismReality PrincipleThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.