Utopia, Realism and the Search for Politics

Abstract

If politics is action oriented towards some supposedly desirable future state, how can it survive the apparently radical unpredictability of what is to come? The contemporary challenge is a severe one for all modes of political thinking with a utopian thrust, of which the various strands of the French Left are exemplary. Yet the most natural response-to relate utopia solely to dreams, sharply split from practical politics-is also a deeply problematic one. A comparison of contemporary French thinking with the theories of the 'Third Way' developed by, among others, Tony Blair and Anthony Giddens shows how the problem applies well beyond the traditional limits of the Left. No doubt globalization, technology, individualization, and other trends, are powerful policy challenges, but what is ultimately at stake is the very nature of politics. To build something new on the ruins of Max Weber's famous contrast between the ethics of conviction and of responsibility-such, perhaps, is the question for our times.