Utopian Construction Research Articles

Narrow is the Gate to Utopia

This study examines the notions of pleasure, individual liberty and consensus in Thomas More’s Utopia. The paradox inherent in Utopia, written before the Reformation, is especially visible in the affirmation of religious toleration coexisting with the need for a strict supervision of the citizens. The dream of an ideal republic is based on a Pauline vision of man which defines the individual mainly as a sinner. Consequently, it is the duty of the republic’s rulers to guide the citizens and establish a consensus. This study tries to determine the part left to the individual’s free will and examines the nature and function of the structures that are supposed to ensure the happiness of each one and of the whole community. The notion of moral hierarchy is asserted as the linchpin of the Utopian social construction.

‘Cleaning the City’: Plato and Popper on Political Change

This paper examines an issue that seems particularly overlooked in the debate on Plato and Popper, namely that of political change. The aim of the paper is to challenge the largely unchallenged assumption that modern liberal democracy can play the role of the general standard, upon which basis we can judge the thinkers of the past. Indeed, in the Open Society liberal democracy sets the boundaries of what is considered as a ‘rational’ political change, thus revealing that Popper holds a form of teleological conception of historical development. The paper argues for a different interpretation of Plato’s approach to the question of political change, against Popper’s claim that the final aim of the utopian city of the Republic is the elimination of change. The conclusion is that Plato’s utopian construction provides us with better tools than Popper’s framework for thinking of change in politics.

Challenges Toward a Moral Market: Creative (e-)Partnership

The complexity of the governance, the complexity of representing and solving the local and global problems, regarding the education, participation and globalisation, seems to be dependent on the open/closed appearance of the alternatives background. It is not a crisp appearance; it is a fuzzy and subtle-adaptive one. Would a brilliant synthesis provide “inner solutions” toward the governance problems representing and solving? The Cold War was promoted into a bipolar world; but within a variety of degrees from 1945 till 1989. Were there “inner solutions” reflecting the hidden dynamics of that global conflict? Over propaganda, over its synthesis, are there mental constructs toward global conflicts diminish and solving? If yes, are those constructs inner or obtained by the humankind. Is there a synthetically historic trace?Regarding our contemporary dialoged world (albeit on a monopolar world background), would the Cold War synthetically historic trace improve the contemporary participation according to a globalised educational aim? Are all these questions dependent on the desire, acting and forecasting efforts toward a Moral Market?Is a quite utopian construct, as Creative (e-)Partnership, a step by step thinking pattern toward Moral Market efforts?

Second Thoughts on the End of Utopia? Zamiatin's Film Scenario, “D-503”

AbstractReadings of the denouement of We differ sharply, with important consequences regarding the fate of utopian social construction. Many readers claim that the Single State crushes the MEPHI revolt. Others come to precisely the opposite conclusion. A third group argues that the battle is undecided. The film scenario Zamiatin developed and translated subsequent to his 1931 exile indicates the author opted for the second verdict, one indicating the fall of the regime. Written at least a decade after the novel, the Russian language scenario and its two English translations – published here – may only reflect his later opinions on the heretofore ambiguous ending of his novel.

Utopia, Domestication and Special Status: Marriage and Family in the Stoic Tradition

The family was a prominent aspect of early imperial ideology and enjoyed an increased status in Roman society of the period. Since Panaetius, Stoic thought provided rational support for this status by means of its oikeiosis doctrine. Roman Stoics, far from ignoring the prominence of family in their society, imbued the space of marriage with fresh content but did not agree on the issue of whether the philosopher should be exempted from this responsibility. Ambiguity on whether the sage should marry can be traced back to the Stoic founder. The scantily transmitted material on Zeno suggests a double focus in early Stoic thought, on the one hand utopian constructions of the ideal sate and ideal sage (where marriage is abolished) and on the other, ordinary reality (where the Stoic sage should marry and procreate). The abolition of property and marriage (having women and children in common) occurs frequently in so-called high utopias of the classical era, but this aspect of Stoicism diminished since the middle Stoa, together with receding expectations regarding the Stoic wise man. The Roman Stoics Musonius and Epictetus relate differently to their own tradition. Musonius pays no attention to utopia or the ideal sage, but incorporates utopian vocabulary in his defence of marriage for the philosopher, thus 'domesticating' utopia. This results in an emphasis on the marriage partnership as small-scale communism based on friendship. Epictetus retains the distinction between the ideal community of the wise and reality as is. Marriage is an essential part of the latter, but the Cynic, to whom Epictetus assigns the special status of messenger and scout of Zeus, is exempted from the responsibilities accompanying family life.

<i>The possibility of an island</i>; or, The double bind of Houellebecq’s apocalypse: when the end is not the end

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that “The possibility of an island” (2005), the latest novel by the controversial French author Michel Houellebecq, utilises a variety of so-called marginal genres such as millennial, apocalyptic, Utopian writing and science fiction to question and to continue the millennial project he elaborated in “Atomised” (2001). The latter novel, first published in French in 1998, explores the idea of a new order that would gradually come into existence during the new millennium, namely that of a neo-humanity produced through cloning. In “The possibility of an island” this Utopian construction turns unequivocally into a dystopia. This novel thus adds a double bind to the Apocalypse foreseen in “Atomised”: the end was not the end, but just the beginning of an intermediary phase.This analysis of Houellebecq’s novelistic techniques is based on theoretical descriptions of the genres on which the two novels draw, as well as narratological concepts formulated by Roland Barthes and Gérard Genette. The conclusion of the article points out that Houellebecq’s utilisation of marginal genres enables him to question contemporary civilisation and to investigate the consequences of scientific research on future generations.

Cosmopolitanism and Weltliteratur

JOHN PIZER Cosmopolitanism and Weltliteratur With the demise of Soviet Communism and the concomitant intensification of cultural and economic globaUzation Ui the 1990s, the issue of cosmopoUtanism has become a central topic Ui rnteUectual debates. There are many definitions of this concept, but common to aU of them is a focus on the transcendence of national and regional perspectives. The cosmopoUtan views the entire globe as her homeland, attempts to gain a purchase on ethical , artistic, poUtical, and economic domains from an international rather than from a more locaUzed vantage point. The cosmopoUtan paradigm has existed at least since the advent of the Stoics, who viewed aU humanity as chUdren of Zeus and urged their foUowers to regard themselves as citizens of the world. While the Stoic ideal has found adherents throughout subsequent history, transnational forces have become so predominant that world citizenship has started to become a pervasive, often unwelcome feeling rather than a Utopian construct. The circumstance that globaUsm is perceived by many as a reality rather than as a dream (or threat) is thus responsible for the contemporary renewal and enhancement of debate on the venerable cosmopoUtan ideal. The vehemence of the discussions is evident Ui the attacks from both the right and the left poUtical spectrums provoked by Martha Nussbaum's now weU-known essay "Patriotism and CosmopoUtanism," which first appeared Ui the Boston Review Ui 1994. Drawing on the Stoics, Nussbaum argued that a truly cosmopoUtan education would lead not only to greater international cooperation, interest in and respect for the citizens of the world who reside outside America's borders, but to deeper Internal knowledge as Americans begin to see themselves through the perspective of foreign Others.1 From the right, Gertrude Himmetfarb responded that cosmopoUtanism was an "Ulusion" since much of the world ignores "Western" values such as civil rights for minorities and tolerance of divergent reUgious and political viewpoints. Cosmopolitanism, Ui .Himmetfarb's opinion, also negates feelings of famiUal, communal, and national cohesion.2 From the left, Immanuel WaUerstein argued that cosmopoUtanism as an ethical paradigm does nothing to obviate global inequalities or to strengthen democratic institutions, since proclamations of world citizenship simply tend to obscure the chaUenges facing the world's oppressed peoples and may actually nurture the socioeconomic status quo.3 The most compelling treatments of cosmopolitanism are more nuanced than those delineated above, tending neither toward Nussbaum's Goethe Yearbook XIII (2005) 166 John Pizer almost unqualified embrace nor its outright rejection from leftist and rightist political positions. Less polemic engagements attempt to sustain a cosmopolitanism that chaUenges and recognizes the viability of local and even national polities while arguing for the importance, indeed necessity, of international socioeconomic, cultural, and political frameworks.4 Ever since Goethe first enunciated the term Weltliteratur Ui 1827,5 but especiaUy after the publication of the Gespräche mit Goethe m 1836,6 this paradigm has been both attacked and defended for its cosmopolitan strains. The original 1827 pronouncement Ui Über Kunst und Altertum was ostensibly prompted by a positive review in the Paris Globe of a recently published French adaptation of Torquato Tasso. Having noted that his references to the French reports are not primarily motivated by personal considerations, Goethe goes on to announce the advent of a new world literary age: Überall hört und liest man von dem Vorschreiten des Menschengeschlechts, von den weiteren Aussichten der Welt- und Menschenverhältnisse. Wie es auch im ganzen hiemit beschaffen sein mag, welches zu untersuchen und näher zu bestimmen nicht meines Amtes ist, wUl ich doch von meiner Seite meine Freunde aufmerksam machen, daß ich überzeugt sei, es bUde sich eine allgemeine Weltliteratur, worin uns Deutschen eme ehrenvolle RoUe vorbehalten ist. He goes on to assert that Germany is drawing the attention, approbation and censure, the comprehension and miscomprehension of all nations (GA 14:908). Already evident Ui this first enunciation of Weltliteratur is a balance between a perception of universal trends and a focus on the central role Germany plays in them. Unlike the Stoics and most other early cosmopoUtans , Goethe does not abnegate the national domain as an element m cultural and civic discourse. Indeed, Ui his notes on Weltliteratur, Goethe...

Modernity, Postmodernity, and Transgression in Sábato's Esthetics: Poetic Dissemination, Defeat of Utopias, Returning Bodies

After defining the problematic term "Postmodernity" and its possible application to Latin America, the position of Ernesto Sábato as an essayist and narrator is discussed in light of Modernity (questioned by him as the rationalist and enlightened canon, but applauded as romantic and surrealistic rebellion), and Postmodernity with which it connects from diverse axis: the poetic of desire and that of transgression (vanguard movements related to Foucault, Bataille and Derrida), the theory of reality as "fragment" and "simulacrum" and the suppression of oppositions in the paroxysm of "symbolic exchange." Sábato would transcend from the central proposition of his writing, the vertigo of reproduction, the chain of copies, to plunge his hero in the sacrificial experience of the dissemination that reestablishes the broken ties between the realities of life and death. In his narrative the esthetic and metaphysical, avant-garde project triumphs in the "symbolic exchange" although a space remains for the Utopian construction of a new society. In his last novel the political project of other vanguard movements sink in an exacerbated violence that reproduces over the victims of torture (the "disappeared"), the planetary catastrophe of the Cloaca. In this novel the failure of Modernity is produced as a philosophical and political project, another "disappearance," that of the writer himself. He will be estranged, alienated from the shapeless, unclassifiable body of the novel next to the unburied body of the other disappeared who wait for their reintegration in the material and symbolic space of mother earth, and in the virtual space of common memory.

Ciudad de memoria: imaginario urbano una de clases en la obra de Bias de Otero

Using some of Blas de Otero's texts as a starting point, this article suggests interpreting urban space as the setting where the history of the conflict of social classes during its final stages takes place. Bilbao, as a model of Otero's urban imaginary, thus appears as a space that in its distribution evokes a sociological map of the modern city, in its inner conflict with late capitalist development, which Blas de Otero portrays to perfection. Through memory, the reconstruction of urban space evoked by the poetic subject serves to deconstruct the ideology of the financial bourgeoisie, holder of social power using pharisaic ethics founded on hypocrisy. The utopian construction of urban space transforms Bilbao into the emblem of a future city, a space of miscegenation that crosses class barriers, where the industrial proletariat has created a true democratic society that moves forward towards a liberating Utopia by means of community in work. At the same time, urban space becomes the space of heteroglossia, of which Blas de Otero's poetry gives evidence.Bilbao thus becomes a multifaceted symbol in Otero's poetry, the materialization of an ideological conception rooted in Marxism and willing to unveil itself. The urban geography of Bilbao, with its strict social distribution, offers the poet a perfect map where he can project the ideological conflict of the different social classes from the period between the wars until the last stages of the capitalist economic development promoted under Franco.

Ciudad de memoria: imaginario urbano una de clases en la obra de Bias de Otero

Using some of Blas de Otero's texts as a starting point, this article suggests interpreting urban space as the setting where the history of the conflict of social classes during its final stages takes place. Bilbao, as a model of Otero's urban imaginary, thus appears as a space that in its distribution evokes a sociological map of the modern city, in its inner conflict with late capitalist development, which Blas de Otero portrays to perfection. Through memory, the reconstruction of urban space evoked by the poetic subject serves to deconstruct the ideology of the financial bourgeoisie, holder of social power using pharisaic ethics founded on hypocrisy. The utopian construction of urban space transforms Bilbao into the emblem of a future city, a space of miscegenation that crosses class barriers, where the industrial proletariat has created a true democratic society that moves forward towards a liberating Utopia by means of community in work. At the same time, urban space becomes the space of heteroglossia, of which Blas de Otero's poetry gives evidence.Bilbao thus becomes a multifaceted symbol in Otero's poetry, the materialization of an ideological conception rooted in Marxism and willing to unveil itself. The urban geography of Bilbao, with its strict social distribution, offers the poet a perfect map where he can project the ideological conflict of the different social classes from the period between the wars until the last stages of the capitalist economic development promoted under Franco.

Jane Austen in the Ghetto

The feminist movement that produced an emphasis on 'women's writing' and feminist literary criticism has evolved alongside the current shift from Women's Studies to Gender Studies. Critical interventions such as queer theory and the historical advent of AIDS produced new alliances between Women's Studies and Gay Studies, while the globalization of both literature and feminism has emphasized new literary and political models. Considering what 'gender studies' has come to mean involves exploring its emphasis on the plurality of genders, cultures and literatures. Embodiment (rather than performance) places limits on utopian constructions while insisting on the material as well as discursive conditions in which genders are lived and produced. Literature's ways of knowing make possible the exploration of aspects of embodiment and its relation to writing. Focusing on ' the scene of undress'--scenes from the writings of Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft, Jamaica Kincaid, Charlotte Delbo and Helena Maria Viramontes--brings to light aspects of embodiment (including anxiety and shame, privation and repair) associated with the display of the gendered body. These scenes are intended to be not so much prescriptive as suggestive of the ways in which issues involving gender and writing are intimately entangled when it comes to representation. The meanings of the body--whether washed or unwashed, sick or dying--include cultural policing and cultural continuity, the affirmation of personhood and the language of mourning. Attending closely to such moments can illuminate the kinds of engagement made possible by Gender Studies in a literary frame.

Cicero's Focus

T HE QUESTION OF THE BEST POLITICAL ORDER is commonly and properly thought be at very center of inquiry known as political philosophy. Its presence is revealed both in efforts at utopian construction and in searches for incontrovertible, if a priori, principles of justice. That same of best regime can be found close surface and thus capable of arising in ordinary political disputes and discourse among thoughtful citizens. Leo Strauss, in his interpretative work on classical political philosophers, has emphasized citizen perspective as mark of their approach and initial horizon; he has closely connected that perspective of best regime, central or guiding question of classical political philosophy. Strauss wrote that was its direct relation political life which determined orientation and scope of classical political philosophy.' This meant that the primary questions of classical political philosophy and the terms in which it stated them were not specifically philosophic or scientific; rather, were questions that are raised in assemblies, councils, clubs and cabinets, and they were stated in terms intelligible and familiar at least all sane adults, from everyday experience and everyday usage.2 These questions and terms are entailed in actual political controversies; such questions are group should rule, or what compromise would be best solution -that is say, what political order would be best order. Strauss conceded that though concern of actual controversies is the best political order for given political community,... every answer that immediate implies an answer universal of best political order as such, and thus Strauss spoke of the natural tendency of political controversy to express itself in universal terms.3

Morelly pédagogue

Serge Baudiffier : Morelly's pedagogy. Morelly is known above all for his Utopian Code de la Nature ; however, his first two published works, the Essai sur l'esprit humain (1743) and the Essai sur le cœur humain (1745) are equally interesting, not only for the coherence of their pedagogical doctrine and the originality of the methods proposed, but also on account of their use of the new philosophy of sensualism. The development of Morelly's pedagogical ideas can be seen in the later works attributed to him, up to and including his Code , in which pedagogy is an important part of his Utopian construction.