Utopianism

Abstract

The intellectual trajectory common to Nazism and Stalinism involves the interaction of three significant currents of thought. In Part I of the book, a conception of totalitarianism was proposed that focused on the shared ideological space between these two political regimes, summarised in the form of a distinct set of elements. This shared ideological space is the combined product of three currents of thought. In the book’s second part, the emphasis shifts to the internal complexion of each current of thought. We begin with utopianism. In the early phase of the debate about totalitarianism, Cold War liberals were tireless in showing again and again just how it was that utopianism came to be the driving force behind the political catastrophes associated with Hitler and Stalin. But Cold War liberalism’s animus towards utopianism was self-serving. Detaching liberalism from utopian conceptions of politics left uncontested the minimal or negative liberalism it desired. Its animus was also misdirected. Cold War liberals often said that the source was really the Enlightenment, with its dangerous overestimation of Reason.KeywordsTruth TellerNegative LibertyPositive LibertyCommunist ManifestoUtopian SocialistThese 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.