Sartre reduces Bloch’s Utopia to a comforting lie.

Evidence

But from a Sartrean point of view, the union of consciousness and being is a contradiction in terms, remains forever unrealizable. It is clear, therefore, that for Sartre the system of Bloch is one which remains a prisoner of the optical illusion that Being and Nothingness attempted to exorcize. Bloch’s doctrine of Utopia thus finds itself reduced to a kind of philosophy of as-if, a kind of lie which helps live. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 270

Categorization

• XREF: The charge that Utopian thought is a ‘philosophy of as-if, a lie which helps live’ echoes the trajectory of Jameson’s own dialectic and foreshadows the later distinction in The Political Unconscious between ideology and Utopia. — connects to: Scholars reduce Beauvoir’s existentialism to Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 400; The real has become an alibi for the model and our lost Utopia. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 399
• DEEPTHINKING: The two-step here — Bloch’s hope doctrine genuinely parallels Sartre’s future-directed lack, yet the difference (wishing vs. lacking) flips it into a gentle self-deception — is a compact model of the dialectical comparison Jameson keeps performing.

Broader Connections

• Scholars reduce Beauvoir’s existentialism to Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. #exemplifies (0.88) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 400
• The real has become an alibi for the model and our lost Utopia. #expands (0.80) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 399