Utopia conquers death by fully realizing the unobjectified core of existence

Evidence

Yet there are stages in this conquest of death; for initially, even in our own world, there is a sense in which death and the present instant (as a darkness or hollowness) are related: “The unobjectified existence, the sheer fact of existing which has not yet become a Da-sein or real presence to the world, is undoubtedly among the very future sources of becoming itself and of the attempt to externalize that existence in a mediated Da-sein; but to the degree that it is the source of this entering of existence into process, it is also the source of the passing away of things. And this to the precise degree that the instant has been unable adequately to externalize itself, to the degree that the sheer fact of existing has not yet been realized. But because the central instant of our existence has not yet entered upon the process of its objectification and consequently of its realization, for that very reason it cannot fall prey to decay…. Precisely because the very core of existence has not yet betaken itself into sheer process and change, it cannot be touched by the transitoriness inherent in that change; in the face of death it is surrounded by the protective circle of the not-yet-living. Yet if that inner core of being should enter upon process, then even that self-objectification, and ultimately that self-intensification and consequently self-realization, would no longer be one of process: with such an emergent instant the devouring reign of Chronos would be at an end…. The core of existence, therefore, having at length been brought into being and therein consequently fulfilled, would through that very fulfillment for the first time have become extraterritorial to death; for death would, along with that process-oriented insufficiency to which it belongs, have become inconsequential, indeed would itself have died off.” So it is that the citizens of Utopia, while still mortal, will know eternal life; and this deathless promise, these intense, only dimly perceptible intimations of the triumph over death are among the ultimate symbols of hope, distorted in their otherworldly religious forms, and now restored to us with all the exalting force of secular revolution. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 277

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains Bloch’s notion that the unobjectified core of being is ‘extraterritorial to death’ — the philosophical mechanism by which utopian fulfillment abolishes mortality.
• XREF: Connects to Jameson’s dialectical method — totalization of the subject’s existence — and echoes Adorno’s notion of non-identity, where what is unobjectified resists the administered world. — connects to: Utopian thought finds its absolute limit in unmartyred, meaningless death rather than consoled martyrdom. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 263; A materialist utopian philosophy must reckon with death and sacrifice to survive. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 262; Utopia neutralizes death by making every present ontologically complete — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 276 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Adorno holds that eliminating death is the crucial test of utopian consciousness #corroborates (0.85) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1518
• Being-towards-death means accepting finitude as the core of authentic existence #contradicts (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 292
• Authentic existence requires accepting that we will die #contradicts (0.70) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 292