Utopias for Boomers: religion, psychology, and sovereignty in the long sixties

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article discusses the intertwining of religion and politics in utopian imaginaries against the backdrop of Robert Yelle’s recent theoretical reflections on the relationship between the ‘sacred’ and Carl Schmitt’s idea of a ‘state of exception.’ It argues that in utopian imaginaries, the convergence of the religious and political domains becomes apparent in the postulation of an antinomian ‘Archimedean point of view’ that provides a foundation from which the new social reality can be represented and legitimized. To illustrate this thesis, the article compares the utopian imaginaries put forward in the Long Sixties by three academic psychologists – B.F. Skinner, Timothy Leary, and Abraham Maslow – who provided visions of the ideal future to the Baby Boomer generation. The article shows that despite their different understandings of both the nature of the human psyche and the ideal social order, all three authors base their projects on a form of antinomian sovereignty.