The Crooked Chandelier

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Stijn van Kervel

2014

The Crook-ed Chan-delier

Stijn

van

Kervel

Lecturer

Xandra de Jongh

designLAB

The

Crooked

Chandlier

The Validity of

the Rational Ego

Gerrit Rietveld Academie

Stijn

van

Kervel

Lecturer

Xandra de Jongh

designLAB

The

Crooked

Chandlier

The Validity of

the Rational Ego

Gerrit Rietveld Academie

The

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Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Utopia

Against Utopia

For Utopia

The implications

of Reason

Utopia, “Utopia”

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Utopia and Ideology

The New

General Ethics

Moral Fact

Moral Crisis

Conclusion

Concept Utopia

Bibliography

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word

Foreword

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Foreword

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ForewordTh

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The main subject I will be looking at is Utopias, or to be more spe-

cific, Utopia and Modernism. I will discuss these main subjects

and alongside these, other subjects will need to be addressed

as well. I will also look at the relationships between Utopia and

Ideology, and the question of Ethics in regard to the main sub-

jects. I will try to do this by taking a small peek at the development

of our philosophical understanding of the world and how these

new understandings seeped through to society. By looking at cer-

tain aspects regarding the role of philosophy, literature and art in

relation to politics and society, hopefully we will get a bit of an un-

derstanding of their relationship within the context of the subjects.

It is a good time to introduce the definition of utopia here, although

it will become apparent that the definition does not cover the sub-

ject too well although it is generally understood this way:

The point of this thesis is to develop a relatively neutral landscape

based on the subjects I mentioned before. In large lines I’ll try to

develop an idea of what brought us to where we are and from what

kind of perspective I think we should be asking ourselves ques-

tions in relationship to our current predicament.

Definition of utopia:

An ideally perfect place,

especially in its

social, political,

and moral aspects.

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Introduction

Introduction

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Introduction

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Introduction

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Prosecutor states question to jury:

“The crucial issue of our age: Has man any right to exist,

if he refuses to serve society? Let your verdict give us the

answer”.

Protagonist speech excerpt:

“No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers,

for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift de-

stroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his

only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve

it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a phi-

losophy, an airplane or a building—that was his goal and

his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew

or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its

users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it.

The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth

above all things and against all men. The creators were not

selfless. It is the whole secret of their power—that it was

self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause,

a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator

served nothing and no one. He lived for himself”.1

The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand, 1943

The protagonist goes on to establish how men must use his selfish

reasoning mind to survive, that this is what led us to where we are.

The mind as an attribute of the individual, the only thing men can

rely on. The idea of a collective brain or collective thought is argued

to be the cause of all compromise. Compromise is seen here as a

secondary act, an average drawn upon many individual thoughts.

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The primary act comes from the process of reason and this can

only be performed by each man alone. The work that comes out of

this process is what the creator lives for. The primary goal is within

the creator himself and he needs no other men. To a creator, all

relations with men are secondary.

In the context of the history of modern thought, the Enlighten-

ment, it is interesting to see how western thought transformed.

Still, this revolution of thought leaves space for questioning. How

did the new perspective lead to important changes in society?

How did Modernism emerge from this change in the philosophi-

cal view of the world and, furthermore, how did this change lead

to the industrial revolution and its technological breakthroughs.

Breakthroughs, which brought opportunities for artists to envi-

sion grand future schemes in which utopian ideas should form the

basis of a new society and the relationship between Modernism

and utopian ideas?

What exactly are utopias, or utopian ideas? Are they the work of a

single person or the work of a group of thinkers, politicians, phi-

losophers, economists or artists? Are these ideas things that are

floating in the air, or the result of a universal change and tendency?

The idea that a utopian vision is created for society as a whole is one

that makes us think of authoritarian regimes. These regimes limit

people in being themselves for the sake of this idea. In this case,

we may be talking about a form of something opposing freedom,

being freedom of speech, thought and so on and so forth.

History has shown situations in which utopian minds created ideal

structures that failed when put into practice. The factors leading

to these failures are complex, but they are all based on different

forms of corruption. So what more is there to say for and against

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Utopianism?

These are some of the questions I ask myself whilst going through

history. Even though I will be generalising, these questions set the

ground for creating an interesting landscape to reflect upon.

Thomas More came up with the word ‘utopia’. The word is based

on the Greek word topos meaning place or where, and ‘u’ from the

prefix ‘ou,’ meaning no or not. But in ‘Six Lines on the Island Uto-

pia’, More gives the reader a poem that calls Utopia ‘Eutopia’. As a

result, the word ‘utopia’, which simply means no place or nowhere,

has come to refer to a non-existent place.

To put the opening quote into perspective, we take a quick look at

Ayn Rand and her novel “The Fountainhead”. The Fountainhead’s

protagonist, Howard Roark, is a young visionary architect who

chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his ar-

tistic and personal vision.

Ayn Rand’s vision is explained briefly in her first televised inter-

view in 1959 where she describes her general philosophy:

“My philosophy is based on the concept that reality exists

as an objective absolute. That men’s mind, reason, is his

means of perceiving it and that men need a rational mo-

rality. I am primarily a creator of a new kind of morality

which has so far been believed impossible. Namely a mo-

rality not based on faith, not on arbitrary whim, not on

emotion, but on reason and morality which can be proved

by means of logic. May I define what my morality is? My

morality is based on men’s life as a standard of value and

since men’s mind is his basic means of survival I hold that

if men want to live on earth and to live as a human being

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he has to hold reason as an absolute. By which I mean

that he has to hold reason as his only guide to action and

that he must be led by the independent judgement of his

own mind. That his highest moral purpose is the achieve-

ment of his own happiness and that he must not force other

people, nor accept their right to force him; that each man

must live as an end in himself and follow his own rational

self-interest”.2

Here a question arises if you look at it from the standpoint of the

creator. It outlines one of the possible dangers of creating a uto-

pia. At some moments, it comes very close to what the protagonist

claims in his speech. On the other hand, it is also an enticing idea

for a creator to only be concerned with his own truth and reason-

ing, for nothing to hold him back in making it his sole purpose to

bring his creation into life according to his own convictions, not

fixated on the user of it but solely on the grounds of creation itself.

In my opinion, utopianism is essential for the improvement of

our condition, and if you look at it in that way, the opponents of

utopianism are wrong and potentially dangerous. It is also true

that, if used wrongly, utopianism itself is dangerous, and because

of this, supporters of utopianism are also wrong and potentially

dangerous.

What is the place for utopias today? Can there be a utopia? Can a

vision of a good place be put into practice by someone that is not

concerned with serving the world or any other than himself? It is

an ambiguous position due to its progressive and objective aspect

opposed to the difficulty of society to comprehend the new. Society

tends to be reserved or even rigid in regard to alternative or renew-

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ing ideas that change the course of traditional thought.

The person in the role of a creator has a great responsibility by giv-

ing form to society. One can expect the old to oppose the new since

the new is all that the old is no longer, but is based upon. This di-

chotomy is the nature of the world. This reaction leads to situations

that will inevitably be reacted upon again. In that sense, society

did not distance itself so much from nature. It still contains these

characteristics; it tends to renew, against the instated elements.

This is the sense of evolution and Utopias contain the essence of

this matter. A contradiction occurs and might interfere when one

thinks of outcomes opposing the initial ideals.

Footnotes1 The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand 1943, Chapter 18,

Harpercollins Publishers, 1961.2 Ayn Rand, Mike Wallace, CBS, 1959,

youtube 02:17 min

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ukJiBZ8_4k

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Utopia

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Utopia

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Utopia

The Republic of Plato is seen in the western world as the founding

of utopian thinking. What The Republic is mainly focused on is the

development and understanding of justice. It is a Platonic dialogue

where a question is posed by Socrates and a process of question

and answer takes place until a number of positions have been pre-

sented, all of which are rejected by Socrates. He then provides his

own answer, gradually dominating the discussion, turning it into

a monologue.

The society Plato describes in this dialogue is the closest possible

outcome to an ideal society. It has three classes, corresponding

to the three fundamental elements of the soul or psyche. These

classes are the philosopher kings (or reason), the auxiliaries (or

the spirited element), and the artisans (representing moderation).

Most of The Republic is concerned with the first two classes,

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known in combination as the guardians. Plato does not discuss the

vast majority of the population though; he mentions that in this

well-regulated city, or polis, each individual will be placed into the

kind of position that best suits him or her. As a result, everyone will

be content. But any society created by humans can only be a bad

reflection of the ideal, and it must fail. Plato explores the process

of failure in detail; by doing that, he develops a theory of corrup-

tion and applies it to both - individuals in society and societies.

The important thing is not the theory but the underlying point that

there cannot be a perfect society or human being. The best we can

achieve is something that comes close and will inevitably collapse.

So even the first and maybe the most important description of a

utopia contains its own demise. This may make Plato a very wise

and visionary man, it does not make utopias less enticing.

Footnotes3 Plato, The Republic,Aris & Phillips Ltd, 2007.

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AgainstUtopia

Against Utopia

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AgainstUtopia

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Against Utopia

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Utopianism indeed is very attractive, though it must be empha-

sised that, all throughout history, there has been a lot of violence

generated by ideologies, and that most of the political choices of

men have led to violence. I do not find anything particularly dan-

gerous with some ideas, but with the minds that have negative op-

portunistic goals regarding these ideas, with powerful individuals

transforming these ideas into tools and systems that are exposed

to corrosion, become corrupt, far removed from the initial point of

reference. The origins of utopian ideas are quite far in the ancient

past, thus over time these ideas brought on a great amount of con-

troversy and counter arguments. Making an acrobatic thinking

exercise I return to the present looking into Karl Popper’s consid-

erations regarding utopian politics. He finds Utopias all too allur-

ing and thinks that they are pernicious for their potentially dan-

gerous essence.

“I consider what I call Utopianism an attractive and, in-

deed, an all too attractive theory; for I also consider it dan-

gerous and pernicious. It is, I believe, self-defeating, and it

leads to violence”.4

He comes up with a practical solution to a utopian approach, pro-

posing a reasonable way of determining and describing a single

certain ideal (in this case making a reference to Plato’s descrip-

tion of an ideal society) and the methods and resources to make

it happen. He argues:

“(…) the Utopian approach can be saved only by the pla-

tonic belief in one absolute and unchanging ideal, together

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Against Utopia

with two further assumptions, namely (a) that there are

rational methods to determine once and for all what this

ideal is, and (b) what the best means of its realization are”.5

So there is a very thin line; the only way that a utopia could be put

into practice is to change its own nature, by basically cancelling

itself out. As Plato implies, all ideals put in practice by men get

corrupted and must end up in failure.

Men are proud of their reason and their reasoning mind, but this

brings in “the unreason”. As ironic as it seems, a certain reason

does not leave space for another and, does not allow compromise;

it is sufficient in itself. When compromises are dismissed, reasons

start to impose themselves onto one another. Experience and his-

tory shows that men are not entirely rational beings. So, does the

request for reason from the new creators of ideas sustain itself?

Jacob Talmon, professor of Modern History, says that utopianism

is based on the belief that reason alone must be the main consid-

eration of human affairs. But this is only an assumption as he then

adds that human beings are not fully rational and able to stand

for their ideas in a consistent and moderate way. He argues that:

“Utopianism is based upon the assumption that reason

alone – not habit, or tradition, or prejudice – can be the sole

criterion in human affairs. But the end of this assumption

is that reason, like mathematics, must command universal

consent, since it has sole and exclusive truth. In fact, reason

turns out to be the most fallible and precarious of guides;

because there is nothing to prevent a variety of ‘reason’

from cropping up, each claiming sole and exclusive valid-

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ity, and between which there can be no compromise, no

arbiter except force”.6

In the same line of thought, the Scottish philosopher, Adam Smith,

wrote:

“The man of system… is apt to be very wise in his own con-

ceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty

of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer

the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to es-

tablish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard

either to great interests, or to the strong prejudice which

may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the

different pieces upon the chess-board. He does not consider

that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other prin-

ciple of motion besides that which the hand presses upon

them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society,

every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, alto-

gether different from that which the legislature might chose

to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act

in the same direction, the game of human society will go

easily and harmoniously, and it is very likely to be happy

and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game

will go miserably, and the society must be at all times in

the highest degree of disorder”.7

What often happens is that opponents of utopianism compare it

with something that is perfect. Perfect meaning finished, complete

or unchangeable. However nothing human has these characteris-

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tics, which makes utopias look a bit foolish and untruthful to be-

gin with. On the other hand, very few utopias claim to be perfect.

Plato spends much of The Republic saying that his ideal state, in

the end, must collapse.

The possible danger of a utopia seems to lay in its unpredictability.

Future stability cannot be predicted as if it were scientific fact; it

only pictures it, it only asks for it, it only projects it. These projec-

tions might very well be a grand illusion. The future is deceptive

and gives birth to early anxiety. Marx himself expressed second

thoughts about it. He explicitly says that he does not and cannot

know what the future will bring and what kind of society unalien-

ated might create.

The paradox in this case, is that all creators compromise, in a way,

their own ideal and create an unstable ground for it, by doubting

the chances for success of their own philosophies in their infancy.

Thus they offer quite a comfortable seat for the adversary to culti-

vate their counter arguments.

The thinkers that came up with ideas of renewing society were

right in being slightly sceptical about the outcome of applied uto-

pian ideas; the same counts for the ones opposing utopianism. The

opponents were right in their arguments, describing what could

happen if a utopia is seen as the only solution to humanity’s prob-

lems by a person who has the power to impose his will on others.

So, as innocent and full of impetuous enthusiasm an ideal solution

might seem, as malignant might be its weak point. The most pre-

dominant weak point is human intervention. As soon as a utopia

transforms into an ideology and is applied, it is distorted, as with a

circus mirror. Once the ones equipped with this ideology acquire

real power, they remove themselves by their actions from the core

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of the utopian idea. The infected ideal now only seems to provide

a pretext. This is what happened, for instance, with Communism

in Russia and National Socialism in Germany, but is also present

in contemporary Western societies.

Footnotes4 Karl Raimund Popper, Utopia and Violence,

London Routledge Classics, 2002, page 46.5 Karl Raimund Popper, The Open Society and Its

Enemies, Princeton University Press,

2013, page 151.6 Jacob Talmon, Utopianism and Politics, London,

Conservative Political Centre, 1991.7 Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments,

Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, 1982.

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For Utopia

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When a utopia is designed as a realistic alternative, it is not in-

tended to be a society that has to be achieved in all its details, but

as a vehicle for presenting an alternative to the present; it is a mir-

ror to the present, designed to bring out flaws, to illustrate ways in

which life could be better. It does not necessarily have to show the

specific ways in which life should be made better. However, com-

ing up with solutions to problems starts by imagining alternatives.

The philosopher Ernst Bloch focuses on the idea that in a human-

istic world where oppression and exploitation have been elimi-

nated, there will always be a truly revolutionary force. In ‘The

principle of Hope,’ he says that a utopia begins with daydreaming.

People dream about something that they do not have; they desire,

or something they lack. Bloch says that a utopia is ‘the forward

dream’ and what is ‘not-yet’ is at the core of his idea about utopia,

with ‘yet’ being especially important, because it implies that uto-

pia shows promise. He believes that ‘we never tire of wanting things

to improve’ and that ‘the pull towards what is lacking never end’.

Though that kind of wanting does not have any direction, it must

become a wish, or a need. It must move away from what he calls

‘abstract utopia’ to ‘concrete utopia’, between utopias disconnect-

ed and connected with reality. He does not say that the impulse

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that comes out of the ‘abstract utopia’ is bad as he believes that

optimism is better than pessimism and that the ‘abstract utopia’

expresses hope. What is important is that hope is part of our un-

derstanding of the current reality and connected to the possibility

of actual future improvement.

Because we are embedded in a specific society and because we

accept its views, it is likely that we are incapable of a critical aware-

ness of our situation. As a result, it is possible to define unfreedom

as freedom, inequality as equality and injustice as justice. Domi-

nant belief systems are capable of blinding people to the reality

of their situation. A utopia tries to break through the perspectives

that we accept about the current situation. This can be an incred-

ible experience since it suggests that our current reality is simply

wrong.

Footnotes8 Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope,

Oxford Blackwell, 1986.

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The implications

of reason

The impli

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reason

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The impli

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reason

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The implications

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During the Enlightenment, Western Europe was undergoing a rev-

olutionary change. It was about to transform itself intellectually

and, as a result it would, change itself culturally, institutionally,

politically, economically, etc. On the background though, Idealism

is still the dominant belief system in the pre-modern world. Ac-

cording to the general idealistic philosophy, people get an account

of how the world works through mysticism and the supernatural.

During the Enlightenment, a number of different ideas began to

develop and thinkers, such as Francis Bacon and Voltaire were

concerned with removing appeal to supernatural forces from in-

vestigation of the natural world. Science would offer ways of ex-

plaining, in contrast to idealism, that nature is the one true source

from which you can create an account of reality. Based on reason,

other philosophical concepts developed including Naturalism,

Materialism, Positivism, Empiricism, Utilitarianism, Pragmatism,

Realism and so forth.

What all of these pragmatic concepts have in common is the idea

that we are creatures of reason. Reason would be at the centre of

thought in the modern age, together with Realism as the dominant

philosophy, stressing that we have a rational capacity and that we

should try to develop this capacity. When one looks at the under-

standing that reason is the way men come to know and compre-

hend the natural world, then it is almost inevitable that science

develops out of that and becomes an institution. Furthermore, out

of modern science, we get technology. People learned, by under-

standing cause and effect relationships in the world, how to de-

velop technologies in order to do all sorts of things. Technology

sparked the industrial revolution and that dramatically changed

the view on what would be possible in the future.

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This change to Realism influenced the position of people. One of

the functions of art within the modern world, starting during the

industrial revolution, has been the transformation of living condi-

tions. This function was first noticeable within Russian Construc-

tivism. The Constructivists looked for ways to directly influence

people’s consciousness and living conditions, using agitation and

activism. At the same time, the Bauhaus movement was involved

in reshaping people’s perspectives by coming up with new tech-

nological developments. Science, architecture, and art were work-

ing together to shape as many aspects of life as possible. Books,

posters, vehicles, landscapes and buildings took new forms corre-

sponding to the function and ideology to establish the new philos-

ophy of life. However, the Constructivists had different reasons for

introducing design and technology into the arts than the Bauhaus.

The industrial revolution involved many complex aspects in its

development. Economically, the rise of capitalism and free mar-

kets marked the turning point in human civilization and became a

defining institution in the West. Socially, culturally and politically,

Liberalism was the dominant doctrine, the direction for thinking

and acting upon.

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Utopia, “Utopia”

Utopia,“Utopia”

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Utopia,“Utopia”

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Utopia, “Utopia”

In the East, at the moment World War I was fully underway, there

was a so-called “wind from the East”. The Russian revolution would

make it possible for civilization to start anew. The Bolsheviks did

what other Marxists only talked about.

Lenin took a radical stand. From the start he was very much against

World War I, insisting that it should be transformed into an inter-

national class war, and called for peace at any price. In 1917, the

young revolutionary had enough justification to put his ideals into

practice with the vision of “a state that is no longer a state in the

proper sense of the word” .9 Lenin and the Bolsheviks inspired their

war torn nation. The fight for utopia was underway.

Marx had predicted that a revolution would take place in an ad-

vanced capitalist society but that was not the case; it happened in

a severely underdeveloped country. Therefore, the Russian Revo-

lution was not a product of ‘iron necessity’, but more out of an act

of will.

To the Russian Modernists, Bolshevism stood for the utopian pro-

ject they had been involved in from the start. During the beginning

of the revolution, it seemed that the restless search for new solu-

tions in the arts was not inspired by the new political system, but,

at the same time, it was not marginalized by the ones in power ei-

ther. It burst out as a result of the clash of rapid and overwhelming

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social change upon the creative artistic consciousness, which was

characterised in that time by a sort of enthusiastic temperament

and speculative daring. Many Russian Modernists saw the Revo-

lution as the chance to realize the new world that their work was

already describing before the Revolution. Many of them joined the

Communist Party. However in their artistic work, the great ones,

such as Vladimir Tatlin, Kazimir Malevich, Vasilly Kandinsky, El

Lissitzky, and Naum Gabo, to name a few, seemed more loyal to

the idea of Revolution than to the Party being a personification of

that idea. Their work showed the ambition they had, strongly con-

nected to the original revolutionary promise. Against this, it would

be possible to judge the consequences of their reality more criti-

cally. Russian Futurism, Constructivism, Suprematism, and other

artistic tendencies were against art being used as a propaganda

tool. The artists following these currents were looking to create a

new public knowledge and intellectual culture. This is shown very

well in Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International.

The Russian Modernists were inspired by numerous European

styles. They followed mostly Cézanne’s geometric cubism, the

“lines in motion” and “dynamics of speed” of the Italian Futurists

Boccioni and Marinetti. Due to the fact that Russia was so under-

developed, Russian Modernists naturally tended towards the ideas

of futurism. They also eagerly embraced technology.

The Russian Modernists were mainly concerned with engag-

ing their reality critically because of the fact that their utopian

prospects were being undermined. They were thrilled when the

communists tried to get rid of money, social status, and ranks

in the army. The dreams of the European avant-garde about the

“new man” seemed on the edge of turning into a reality.

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Leon Trotsky, who was a Marxist revolutionary and theorist, said

in Literature and Revolution, that communism would ultimately:

“(…) develop all the vital elements of contemporary art to

the highest point. Man will become immeasurably strong-

er, wiser, and subtler: his body will become more harmo-

nized, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more mu-

sical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic.

The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aris-

totle, a Goethe, or a Marx, and above this ridge new peaks

will rise.”11

The Russian Modernists were looking to transform society through

artistic experiments that would cast a utopian light over the revo-

lutionary struggle.

Vladimir Tatlin, the founder of Constructivism, did not bring tech-

niques and design to art as Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus fol-

lowers did. Tatlin wanted to transform abstract utopian concepts

into concrete ideas by conceptually precise and innovative use of

technology. Tatlin’s idea was to change social reality by exploring

the possibilities that painting and sculpture offered. He wanted to

reconfigure painting and sculpture by saying that they deal with

actual worldly experience in real space and therefore time. Tat-

lin’s tower would have been the same height as The Empire State

building. The plans showed for the tower to be slightly tilted and it

was meant to have moving parts, which would make it constantly

change its silhouette. This would show the Italian Futurists idea of

architecture in “constant flux” and would embody all the elements

of constructivism such as mobiles and kinetic art. His work fused

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technology with utopia and sculpture with real space, trying to

give new form to urban life. The monument would have had one

circular line moving up towards the sky, which seemed to resem-

ble a line without an end, symbolising utopian hopes.

However, the tower was never built, due to the lack of resources.

Russia was still a backward country and the promise of the uto-

pian ideas proposed by communism along with Modernist artistic

intentions were just a matter of abstract formulas. All these got

sucked into propaganda and inspirational literature, but they did

not have the strength to be born and materialize into concrete

society shaping creations.

Footnotes9 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, State and Revolution,

Martino Publishing, 2009.10 Karl Heinrich Marx, Ethics of Freedom,

Dr George G. Brenkert, Routledge, 200911 Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution,

Haymarket Books, 2005.

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Utopiaand

ideology

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Utopiaand

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The Bolshevik revolution and many other political and social ten-

sions within a Europe - that was dealing with shifting political

and social situations, with a changing climate in all aspects - were

encompassing a quite radical new world with an unpredictable

nature and substance in the same time. The resources were not

there to invest in all the utopian artistic efforts that were envi-

sioned as transforming societies, and as a result of this, the ideals

were fading away, ending up as tales of a fantastic past. However,

this was not a good enough reason for people to give up think-

ing of a brighter future, of a better life. Maybe the outcome of the

Russian revolution was not what it was intended in the first place,

but showed the world the attempt that Modernism made to ma-

terialize this dream through art. Utopian ideas proved to be very

powerful, but of course also showed a flipside to the coin; the same

ideas were capable of developing nightmarish side effects. They

became powerful weapons instead of sincere vehicles, and started

to be used to corrupt, manipulate or even destroy. History shows

that ideals and good intentions could be absorbed by malicious

institutions in their rise to the levels of ideology. The 20th century

was referred to as ‘the age of ideology’. Since the Enlightenment,

the world was the stage of a great theatre of ideas that had the drive

and ground to be put into practice. Utopian thinking has been

involved into thinking about and within an ideology but mainly

describes a tendency opposing ideology.

Philosopher and sociologist Karl Mannheim was the first person

to associate utopia with ideology in his controversial paperwork

Ideology and Utopia. For him, ideology and utopia were at the core

of understanding how and why people think the way they do.

He was implying that the ideas we have, the way we think, and the

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Utopia and ideology

beliefs that come out of that, are all influenced by our social situa-

tion and environment. The beliefs of the people in power, he called

ideology and the beliefs of the people that wanted to overthrow the

system utopia. His central argument was that both kinds of beliefs

were to hide the reality of their position. Ideology was there for

the people in power to not become aware of any weakness in their

position and utopia’s function was to keep the people that did not

have the power from being aware of how difficult it is to change

the system. And they both keep believers from being aware of the

strengths in the other’s position.

In the mentioned work, Mannheim sustains that ideology and uto-

pia come out of political conflict. He wrote:

“The concept ‘ideology’ reflects the one discovery which

emerged from political conflict, namely, that ruling

groups can, in their thinking, become intensively interest-

bound to a situation that they are simply no longer able

to see certain facts which would undermine their sense of

domination… The concept utopian thinking reflects the

opposite discovery of the political struggle, namely that

certain oppressed groups are intellectually so strongly in-

terested in the destruction and transformation of a given

condition of society that they unwittingly see only those

elements in the situation which tend to negate it. Their

thinking is incapable of correctly diagnosing an existing

condition of society. They are not at all concerned with

what really exists; rather in their thinking they already

seek to change the situation that exists”.12

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Manheim spends a lot of time talking mostly about ideology, but

nevertheless stresses the importance of utopia. He ultimately

maintains that utopia is more important than ideology. He ar-

gues that in the case of the fall of an ideology, in a crisis situation,

people will naturally recycle their values as a matter of necessity.

On the other hand, in case of the disappearance of utopian ideas

and action, human society would become politically and socially

stagnant. A society that lacks a utopian tendency might very well

become a dead society.

Later on, the theologian Paul Tillich creates a sum of distinctions

between utopia and ideology, arguing that a utopian knows that

his ideas are not real, but believes they will become real, whilst the

ideologist, on the other hand, does not know this and most likely

is not concerned with this.

Although most thinkers used both words separately, there were

other thinkers that in their considerations used both words togeth-

er. Much later, the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur used the terms

ideology and utopia together, saying that both ideology and utopia

have positive and negative characteristics. The negative form of

ideology is a form of distortion and that of utopia is fantasy. The

two positive points of ideology are ‘legitimation’ and ‘integration

or identity’; the positive aspects for utopia are ‘an alternative form

of power’ and ‘exploration of the possible’. So ideology tells a story,

which justifies the existence and beliefs of some group of people

and provides an identity to the group. However, stories are a dis-

tortion of what really happened, so it is important to unmask this

distortion.

Utopia and ideology are closely related because, at the core of any

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utopia, there is an ideology, a pretty picture of how the world would

look if the hopes of the ideology were to be realized. It is possible,

but more difficult for a utopia to become an ideology as a utopia

has to become attractive and powerful enough to transform hopes

and desires into beliefs and action.

Most of the utopian ideas I have come across do not go through

this process and, if they do, they mostly fail. However, if a utopia

becomes a system of beliefs and sees it possible to come to power

in a small community, a country or on an even larger scale, it is

almost inevitable that, during this process, it becomes an ideology.

When it is that far, it will be challenged by other utopias, which

want to overthrow the ideology. In the end utopias are the ways

in which ideologies are challenged. The process by which utopias

become an ideology can vary depending on each situation and it is

not entirely obvious how their inner mechanisms function. But it is

very easy to believe that, if a utopia is strong enough, it can trans-

form desires, hopes and dreams into grounded systems of beliefs

that are able to take the form of a social and political movement.

Footnotes12 Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia,

London Routledge, 1991.13 Paul Tillich, On Ideology and Utopia,

London Routledge, 1990.14 Paul Ricoeur, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia,

Columbia University Press, 1986

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People nowadays are challenged by the phantoms of utopias. It is

difficult to create an original idea that will bring new contributions

to universal thinking, accompany a change in universal thinking,

or would be so strong to motivate people towards a new wave of

changing actions. Utopia has become ordinary or a commodity,

but is not at all removed from the preoccupation of people. Only

its characteristics have been severely altered.

Modernism has spread throughout the globe, but has lost its edge.

There is an obsession with utopian politics, the new and individu-

alism. It needs to be interpreted in nowadays terms. What Mod-

ernism gave, was the shock of something new. However, the shock

soon loses in strength when it is repeated. Artists and philosophers

thought it possible for a work of art to be an end in itself. While art-

ists opposed tradition, they did not reject it completely, but created

their own or made it new.

The role that was once performed by Modernism is now taken over

by the cultural industry. The cultural industry is now generating

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the technological innovations. It has institutionalized the new.

The idea of the new has been robbed of its critical character. Ironi-

cally, the art works that used to be ideological tools, or propaganda

machines, now only occupy the sterile walls of museums or maybe

worse, a quiet corner in a private collection. The criticality of the

work is stolen and the meaning faded. A work of art has taken on

a pretext of being sold or as a tool to sell something else and that

anything can serve that purpose. Museums are, in a way, the fu-

neral homes for the Modernist legacy. Our striving for a better life

made us slaves of consumer culture, of our own disfigured child:

capitalism and its darkest mutations.

Liberal society is dangerous in the sense that it applauds cultural

rebellion and swallows it. It allows the modernists to safely build

their empires and admire themselves. The goal of modernism was

transforming everyday life by multiplying ways in which we can

look and experience our lives. It showed the world its own absurd-

ity; it showed the replaceable character of reality.

T.S. Eliot, a critic and poet, in his essay “Tradition and the indi-

vidual talent” argues:

“Modernism recognized the past in its presence and trans-

formed the past in terms of the present. Modernists of the

most diverse temperaments combined the aesthetic con-

tributions of what were considered ‘primitive’ civiliza-

tions with the utopian possibilities hidden in technology.

These artists thereby enrich reality, increased the resources

of creativity, and expanded the realm of experience. Their

cosmopolitanism strengthened the ability of art to combat

the conventional and habitual”.15

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The new

And indeed through art, society is renewed, but at the price of al-

ienation maybe. What was once a fundamental critical gesture,

today might be seen as entertainment? These courageous gestures

towards change seemed to be a matter of the utmost necessity, but

nowadays we take all their outcomes for granted. What is more

dangerous then? To become a utopian thinker and to try and put

your ideals into practice or to let utopias be inspirational history?

When one is involved one cannot really be aware of creating an

outcome opposing the ideal. It seems as unpredictable as a game of

roulette. Talking about unpredictability, there were thinkers that

were preoccupied with how things developed through time and

how they might evolve in the future.

The essay of the German cultural critic Walter Benjamin,

“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”16, has been

influential across the fields of cultural studies, media theory, ar-

chitectural theory and art history. Written at a time when Adolf

Hitler was already Chancellor of Germany, it was produced in the

effort to describe a theory of art that would be “useful for the for-

mulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art.” He argued

that, in the absence of any traditional, ritualistic value, art in the

age of mechanical reproduction would inherently be based on the

practice of politics. In the beginning of his work, he references Paul

Valery by agreeing with the fact that the art that was developed in

the past differs from that of the present and, because of that, our

understanding and treatment of it must develop in order to un-

derstand it in a modern context and develop new techniques. He

introduces the Marxist theory as it is applied to the construction

of society and the position of art in the context of Capitalism. He

explains the conditions to show what could be expected of capi-

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talism in the future, which ends up exploiting the proletariat and

ultimately making it possible to abolish Capitalism itself.

At the same time, he looks at the development of mechanical vis-

ual reproduction of master works, demonstrating that technical

reproduction is not a modern thing, though modern methods al-

low for greater accuracy when mass produced. He talks about the

idea of authenticity, mostly in regard to reproduction. The chang-

ing values of exhibition are analysed, from old works which were

for private viewing in contrast to the modern art, which is mainly

focussed on mass exhibition. This is, in combination with ways of

showing it to much larger audiences than previously possible. He

looks at the changes in society’s values over time,

“the manner in which human sense perception is organ-

ised, the medium in which it is accomplished, is deter-

mined not only by nature but by historical circumstances

as well.”16

The positive aspect of the cultural industry is apparent as it was

possible for huge amounts of people to enjoy more experiences.

What used to be alternative culture slowly became known, famil-

iar, integrated and accessible for a larger audience. Considering

the larger picture, it could be said that the experiences generated

by popular culture are superficial or not as deep as the ones en-

joyed by a small elite group. The added value of television and cin-

ema no less, although the popularity of reality soaps and gossip

tabloids show otherwise.

Ideologies, in terms of prefabricated tastes and customs, start play-

ing a role in the choice on what to spend your hard earned cash.

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However, one can say that ideologies always have a moment of

truth; if this were ignored, it would cause a stagnant political and

social routine. That is why the people that are simply against the

cultural industry never really have any concrete argument to give

as an alternative. The culture industry offers a much contested

terrain and it should be seen as one form of cultural production

among others. No more, no less.

Theodor W. Adorno, a German sociologist and philosopher known

for his critical theory of society, was directly influenced by Walter

Benjamin. Critical theory describes the neo-Marxist philosophy

of the Frankfurt School, which Walter Benjamin was also part of.

They were all interested in modernizing Marxism and understand-

ing modernity. They were also looking at the relationship between

art and capitalism. Frankfurt School theorists continued on the

path of critical methods produced by Marx and Freud. Critical

theory maintains that ideology is the most important obstacle to

human liberation. Critical social theory is a form of self-reflective

knowledge that considers both understanding and theoretical ex-

planations to reduce dependence on systems of domination, to

expand the scope of autonomy and reduce domination. Adorno

said that advanced capitalism had managed to contain or put an

end to the forces that would bring about its collapse and that the

revolutionary moment, when the transformation to socialism was

possible, had passed. He mentions in the beginning of his “Nega-

tive Dialectics”, that philosophy is still necessary as the time to re-

alise it was missed. He continues by saying that capitalism created

a stronger foundation for itself through its attack on the objective

basis of revolutionary consciousness and through liquidation of

individualism, which had been the basis of critical consciousness.

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So when looking at its totality, Adorno regards it as an automatic

system. This is comparable with Adorno’s idea about society as

a self-regulating system, from which one must escape (but from

which nobody can escape). For him it existed, but says it is inhu-

man.

When it comes to art, Adorno stipulates the importance of knowl-

edge in the understanding of art. It comes from a high art perspec-

tive opposing low art and mass culture. Adorno looked at the world

from the point of view of someone schooled in the theories of Marx

and Freud and is very much interested in the impact of capitalis-

tic society on artistic production. He is concerned with two main

questions: can art survive in a late capitalist world and can art still

contribute to the transformation of mass society into something

more real and more satisfying in an artistic sense? These two ques-

tions are at the core of his opinion about mass commodity culture

changing the way art is produced and consumed. He mainly ar-

gues that art, at one point, tried to express a critical view of life and

society. However, under capitalism, it has the tendency to trans-

form into just another cultural industry. He also says that Freud

understood how dreams and the unconscious operated and, with

that, allowed the cultural industry to manipulate their audiences

scientifically. Advertising is psychoanalysis put into practice; the

Hollywood film is also part of this industry. Emotions are laid out

like a dream for consumer satisfaction. Electronic mass media

provides for the lower tastes and desires in the subconscious of

an audience; it exploits its weakness and stimulates them into de-

siring things they do not need. Therefore, advertising basically op-

erates by creating fantasies that are fulfilled by consumer culture.

Adorno compares modernist art with “fireworks”. Now, every day

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has its fireworks and if you have the right technology you can make

every moment last as long as you want. This causes a condition in

which what is real and what is fiction seamlessly blends together

into a ‘hyper-reality’. This is what the culture industry has con-

structed.

Jean Baudrillard, a modern French sociologist, philosopher and

cultural theorist, is best known for his analyses of the modes of

mediation and technological communication and is mainly con-

cerned with the way technological progress affects social change,

including consumerism. Baudrillard’s main focus is on consum-

erism and how different objects are consumed in different ways.

For him, it is consumption, opposed to production, which is the

main drive in capitalist society as the ‘ideological genesis of needs’

comes before the production of goods to meet those needs.

The ideas of hyper-reality and simulation were first proposed by

him, saying that the world became confused with what is real and

what is reproduction and that people are even unable to see the

difference between them. He questions what is real, going as far

as saying that, today, there is no such thing as reality. He came up

with the concept of ‘Simulacrum’, which is contradictory to the

concept of reality as we usually understand it. He says that simu-

lation is the current stage of the simulacrum: all is composed of

references with no referents, a hyper-reality. Within the industrial

revolution, the dominant simulacrum was the product, which can

be multiplied endlessly in a factory. Consumerism is, in a certain

regard, the reverse of utopia. When talking about ideology and

ideals, Baudrillard thinks that, in this world, neither liberal nor

Marxist utopias are not believed in any longer.

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Footnotes15 T.S. Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent,

The Sacred Wood, 1921,

http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw4.html16 Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of

Mechanical Reproduction,1936,

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/

philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.html17 Theodore Wiesengrund Adorno, Negative Dialec-

tics 1966, Bloomsburry Publishing PLC, 1981.18 Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation 1981,

The University of Michigan Press, 1994.

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General Ethics

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GeneralEthics

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General Ethics

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How can one look at utopias and assume that what is proposed

has any moral significance. In pondering over the idea of utopia,

there is a constant awareness of the incapability of men to conceive

an ethically viable utopian system. Moreover, how can one, in a

post utopian society, stipulate the importance of utopias without

looking foolish?

There is something called general ethics, which is split up into two

parts, individual and social ethics. Human action, its legitimizing

norms and fundamental principles can be looked at if it is about a

person as an individual, when it is about his individual happiness.

We call this individual ethics (sexual ethics, moral responsibil-

ity, individual conscience, individual freedom, individual happi-

ness) ‘micro-ethics’. Human actions can also be researched from

the level of a human community, humans as they live in the world

of things, other people, larger groups. This is called social ethics

and most often ends up in political philosophy (ethics of love, la-

bour, friendship, nature, future generations). Social ethics is also

called ‘macro-ethics’.

Looking at the intentions of a person’s actions, a distinction can

be made between intentional ethics, on the one hand, and conse-

quentialism on the other. Some ethical theories state that, when

you are determining if someone has acted in an ethical way, you

should only look at the intention of the person and not at the act

itself or the outcome of the act, how morally despicable the con-

sequences might be.

Other ethical theories look only at the outcome of the act as the

way in which one can judge if an act is ethical or not, how morally

despicable the intentions might have been. This is called conse-

quentialism. Most ethical systems are in between these two ex-

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tremes and, when judging if an act is ethical or not, look at both

the intention and the consequences of the act, albeit to a different

degree from one theory to the next.

Considering the object of the act, the interpretations are the same

for all ethical theories. The object of an ethical act is ‘the good’.

However, what is considered to be good differs radically from

one theory to the next. ‘Good’ can be described in different ways,

namely what is ‘good for us’ and what is not necessarily ‘good for

us,’ but is ‘good in itself’. That which is ‘good for us’ can be divided

into what we experience subjectively as being ‘good for us,’ such

as pleasure and that which is objectively ‘good for us’ for our col-

lective organism. This also includes virtue and moderation, which

we do not immediately experience as ‘good for us.’

‘Good in itself,’ on the other hand, is that which establishes some

kind of objective standard of goodness that we have to live by, even

if it makes us unhappy and if there is no benefit for our collec-

tive organism in the foreseeable future. In content ‘good’ is not so

much described as an object (pleasure or happiness), but deter-

mined as a general concept to which our behaviour should con-

form. With this division, the existing ethical systems can be placed

into two categories that appear in different variants throughout

history: teleological and eudemonistic. In which any philosophi-

cal account that holds that an end goal exists in nature, mean-

ing that, corresponding to goals found in human actions, nature

inherently tends towards definite ends. Second is deontological

ethics. Deontology is the normative ethical position that judges

the morality of an action based on the attachment of the actions

to rules. Sometimes it is described as ‘duty’ ethics as rules ‘bind

you to your duty’.

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I relate utopias and my first reference in this paper work – the quote

from “The Fountainhead”, based on the text of Ayn Rand – to eth-

ics. If one thinks of ethics from the point of view of The Architect,

it must share the same thought of questioning the nature of the

stated principles. There is a fundamental ethic that every person

has and it relates according to that to everything else around. The

principles of The Architect do not seem to correspond to the gen-

eral ethics, which is why he is part of a trial. But in his relationship

with the world, his personal ethic makes sense. In fact, he states

his arguments so well that it shifts perspective and makes one re-

consider a certain system of values. This is the moment in which

Ayn Rand’s utopian message becomes apparent. The architect is in

the role of someone changing the ethical norms in society. At the

end of his trial, he is considered almost unanimously to be right in

his convictions and wins the support of the jury (representing ‘the

people’). To a certain extent, the ideals of The Architect are quite

romanticized and seem implausible. The message is coherent, but

if we end up comparing ourselves with this model, The Architect

is synonymous to any superhero. Thus he and his ideals do not

seem so accessible in reality. He comes across as an abstraction,

as a utopia in himself.

Footnotes19 Simon Blackburn, Ethics a Very Short Intro-

duction, Oxford University Press, 2001.

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MoralFact

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MoralFact

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The first question that comes up to any ethicist is: Why does the

moral character of our actions matter and what is the fundamental

principle of our morality? Moral principle is not achievable through

theoretical knowledge. The moral has to be applied in different

modes of validity. In this way, the end result should be moral fact.

What is the use of the moral good, the moral sense of ethics, and

the conscious awareness of a moral that forces an absolute com-

mitment upon us? It is not about a fact in the empirical sense of the

word, the factual experience of morality. It is after all never pos-

sible to prove with absolute certainty that it was a truly ethical act

looking at it from the outside. Given the fact that moral conscience

exists, under which conditions would it be possible?

Immanuel Kant argued that human concepts and categories struc-

ture our view of the world and its laws, and that reason is the source

of morality. Kant’s major work, the “Critique of Pure Reason” 20,

aimed to use reason together with experience and to move beyond

what he saw as failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics.

He wanted to resolve the debate between empirical and rationalist

approaches. Kant argued that experience is purely subjective with-

out first being processed by pure reason. What Kant has in mind

is not to create a foundation of moral fact as something apparent

from experience for which you would search outside of cause or

causal explanation. Such an explanation would never be able to

understand the moral as moral. Kant wants to go back, by using a

process of regressive analysis, to the fundamental aspect of moral

conscience. In other words, he wants to search for the presupposed

fundament that is implied in moral conscience itself. What is the

thing that we unconditionally have to assume for morality to be

what it actually is?

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This shows Kant’s research as neither a sort of invention of ethics

nor moral itself. Kant’s analysis definitely assumes that there is an

ethical praxis and the accompanying conscience. Praxis meaning

an act without a purpose beyond the act itself, without a product,

with a goal in itself and when it is performed in the best way pos-

sible.

This again brings us to “the Fountainhead” in which The Architect

formulates his Praxis and uses these grounds to bring about a new

ethic. In contrast to what Kant is trying to establish, Ayn Rand uses

the subject of ethics to create a specific kind of moral conscience,

one that corresponds more to the likes of a political tool.

From Kant’s time to the present, his analysis has been the reason

for a large amount of critique. In the first place, it is said that Kant

has narrowed down ethics into a matter of subjectivity and good

will; ethics is turned into a matter of basic convictions. It is also said

that Kant merely proposes an interior ethic, in which any realiza-

tion and any effect it has on the real world, is unimportant. As long

as the intentions are good, the act is of no importance. For Kant,

the will is never only a wishing. For him the will contains just as

well the need to exercise the will for so far as it is possible within

our capabilities. The will is not indifferent towards externalizing

in the political and social world. In this last part it is the case that

the determining reason lays in the subject itself. Individuals simply

act in a world that is never fully in their power. Since moral is set

in a playing field in which the individual is responsible, the mere

result, the objective consequence cannot be a way of determining

morality itself. The alternative to a pure ethic of disposition, one

that is fixed on a successful outcome, stresses the individual with

responsibilities that he could never fully take upon himself.

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Footnotes20 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason 1781,

Kessinger Publishing, 1990.

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Moral Crisis

Moral Crisis

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Moral Crisis

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One often hears about ’moral crisis’, apart from economic, politi-

cal or cultural crisis. It’s to our concern to not take this matter to

lightly. When we have a crisis here, it does not just mean a sim-

ple degradation of some traditional values from the moral codex,

a demise of family values, or a reminiscing of better times.

Because of new scientific insights and changing elements in social

organisation, certain values can be subject to change. Those val-

ues change in their concrete forms. Change does not necessarily

mean that it is something we have to be worried about, but makes

us aware of society as a dynamic system. At the same time, we

must not take away from the fact that a society in constant change

demands strong adaptability from its inhabitants. Crisis also

does not mean that there is a lack of these kinds of reformulations.

There seems to be a general agreement about a few fundamental

ethical convictions, expressed for instance in human rights. In

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the case of a crisis, it must be understood more radically, namely

that it is a legitimization crisis. The foundations of normativity it-

self seem to come under scrutiny. The factual consensus does not

seem rationally justifiable from an objective foundation. This is

well expressed in the ‘Apel paradox’:

“A universal, meaning an inter-subjective ethics

of responsible solidarity seems at the same time

to be necessary and impossible”.21

Karl-Otto Apel, a German modern philosopher, studied the

foundations of the ethics of joint responsibility. He came up

with the paradox of our modern era, firstly, ‘a need for uni-

versal ethics’ and, secondly, the difficulties found in such an

ethical inter-subjective validity. Global expansion of scien-

tific and technical civilization rejects a moral power in mi-

crospheres (family, and neighbourhood) that cannot be con-

trolled. Consequences concern the destiny of humanity itself.

But in today’s world, inequality threatens human existence itself

by all the direct and indirect effects of technical (post) industrial

civilization. Because of that, ethical issues common to people on a

planetary scale and ineffectiveness of moral conservatism, should

be replaced by an ethic of responsibility.

Such an ethic is necessary. For the first time people are confronted

with a planetary responsibility. Science and technology have an

effect on the whole of nature and humanity (nuclear armament,

the disappearing rainforests). Precisely this situation creates the

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Moral Crisis

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need for a global and inter-subjective ethics. At the same time, ex-

actly this kind of an ethic seems to be utopian. Through scientific

objectivity, we seem to be able to come up with an inter-subjective

validity. As in the realm of science and technology, one creates a

value-free description in which everything consists of facts. Eve-

rything that is connected to norms and values seems, on the other

hand, to end up in the terrain of subjective irrationality. That is

where you find the paradox: the one situation that increases this

legitimization-need is also the one incapable of fulfilling it.

Apel applies the paradox to the macro-level but it is also recogniza-

ble on the individual level: more complex technology also increas-

es the need to deal with the consequences. Also, our knowledge

and the implications of all sorts of actions have increased as well

as the things we can choose now with respect to what the natural

or social fate was. Moreover, there is a growing interdependence,

even on a global scale.

Footnotes21 Karel Otto Apel, Understanding and Explanation,

MIT Press Ltd 1988, page 487

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Conclusion

Conclusion

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Conclusion

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Conclusion

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In the end philosophy does not solve problems. The idea is that

philosophy is not here to solve problems but to redefine them. It

shows that what we experience as a problem is a false problem. If

what we experience as a problem is a true problem, then we do not

need philosophy.

How, for instance, does a philosopher approach the problem of

freedom? It is not are we free or not, it asks a simple question: what

does it mean to be free? This is what philosophy basically does. It

does not ask stupid ideal questions, such as whether there is truth.

No, the question is: what do you mean when you say this is true?

The Russian avant-garde was part of a revolutionary struggle in

which they found their truth in the idea of revolution. The devas-

tation of World War I, the rise of technology, and the space in be-

tween ideologies provided a level playing field from which society

could be reshaped. Literature, sculpture and painting appropri-

ated themselves with the task of making these changes visible to

the public. Although it failed, they tried to institute a new ideology

through art.

The Architect finds his truth in a praxis that supports his funda-

mental convictions, allowing him to project his ideas onto the

world. In the end, it is a question of how one implements their

ideas into society, the responsibility one has in this role and how

to deal with that responsibility in an ethical way.

What one sees in, for instance, modern day Western countries are

ideologies that advocate a situation in which every day has its fire

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Conclusion

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works. There seems to be no time in between one idea and the next.

The possibility for ideas to find ground and develop is undermined

as a result of this climate. This system is allowing and even asking

for fireworks in order to create a situation where there is no time

to contemplate brilliance or stupidity. This cannot be called an

ethical way of dealing with the responsibility you have towards

the people.

This leads to opposition, and opposition to liberalism was the norm

among Modernists. Not only was parliament seen as tainted by the

selfish interests of different factions but, far worse, it was boring; its

politics rested on coalitions, consensus, and routine. Parliament

symbolized the meaninglessness of everyday life. This was true for

many modernists on the left as well as on the right. When it came

to liberal politics, what united the modernists was ultimately more

important than what divided them.

The misleading character of ideologies is probably best defined in

the phrase from Marx’s Capital: ‘They do not know it, but they are

doing it’. We feel free because we do not even have the language to

express our unfreedom. The fundamental idea of ideology is not

to create the illusion of hiding the real state of things, but that of

the fantasy structuring our social reality itself. When an ideology

does not function, people will gain new insights into their predica-

ment. When utopia, or dystopia for that matter, fails to be present

in society, it will have disastrous consequences.

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Concept Utopia

ConceptUtopia

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ConceptUtopia

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Concept Utopia

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Before any work is done or before one can speak of an end result,

ideas have the space to be utopian. Once it enters the realm of real-

ity, there is fierce resistance to ideas in relation to what the world

deems possible. What is commonly not understood is the necessity

of utopias, the relationship between ideology and utopia and how

ideology functions within society. It is a fact that ideology plays

into the constructs of the mind. The society we live in does not

operate on the idea of utopia but on the illusion of utopia. There

is a certain steady pace progress that is presented as the way the

world operates. Our brains function in ways that can be read as

code and an ideology plays into that code.

In the end, there needs to be a way of confronting our reality, even

with our seeming inability to deal with certain problems. This is

the position of a creator; it is the role of a creator to relate to his sur-

roundings critically, making no compromises in his artistic values

and keeping his moral convictions high. That is utopia.

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Bibliography

1 The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand 1943, Chapter 18,

Harpercollins Publishers, 1961.

2 Ayn Rand, Mike Wallace, CBS, 1959, youtube 02:17 min

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ukJiBZ8_4k

3 Plato, The Republic,Aris & Phillips Ltd, 2007.

4 Karl Raimund Popper, Utopia and Violence,

London Routledge Classics, 2002, page 46.

5 Karl Raimund Popper, The Open Society and Its

Enemies, Princeton University Press, 2013, page 151.

6 Jacob Talmon, Utopianism and Politics, London,

Conservative Political Centre, 1991.

7 Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments,

Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, 1982.

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page 29

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8 Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope,

Oxford Blackwell, 1986.

9 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, State and Revolution,

Martino Publishing, 2009.

10 Karl Heinrich Marx, Ethics of Freedom,

Dr George G. Brenkert, Routledge, 2009

11 Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution,

Haymarket Books, 2005.

12 Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia,

London Routledge, 1991.

13 Paul Tillich, On Ideology and Utopia,

London Routledge, 1990.

14 Paul Ricoeur, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia,

Columbia University Press, 1986

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page 45

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Bibliography

15 T.S. Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent,

The Sacred Wood, 1921,

http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw4.html

16 Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of

Mechanical Reproduction,1936,

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/

philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.html

17 Theodore Wiesengrund Adorno, Negative Dialec-

tics 1966, Bloomsburry Publishing PLC, 1981.

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18 Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation 1981,

The University of Michigan Press, 1994.

19 Simon Blackburn, Ethics a Very Short Intro-

duction, Oxford University Press, 2001.

20 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason 1781,

Kessinger Publishing, 1990.

21 Karel Otto Apel, Understanding and Explanation,

MIT Press Ltd 1988, page 487

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Image Credits

Tate.org.uk

Content:

Naum Gabo,

Linear Construction in

Space No. 1 (1942)

Perspex with nylon

monofilament,

61.3 x 61.3 x 13 cm

Art Gallery of Ontario,

Toronto,

Photographer unknown.

Bibliography

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Used Font

Utopia Std

Designer:

Robert Slimbach

Design date: 1989

Publisher: Adobe

MyFonts debut:

Dec 3, 2007

Graphic Design

Designer:

Frank van ‘t Woudt