Utopian thinking’s value survives even where its theoretical basis is flawed.
Evidence
The structure stands or falls, as we see it, with the concept of non-repressive sublimation. The objections to this are many, and Marcuse himself knows them best. Nevertheless, showing the courage to release utopian energies againwith the uninhibitedness of the eighteenth centuryin times like ours makes a peculiarly strong impression. If anything, he will have given rise to at least one reflection, even among the toughest of those in the audience: an awareness of the extent to which we all unconsciously share the conventional resignation that reinforces existing conditions in our thoughts, without testing the `conception’ lying behind those conditions, the objective possibility that they can undergo historical development. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2321
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization and its non-repressive sublimation concept, and to the broader Frankfurt School debate on utopia versus resignation. — connects to: Utopian visions reveal a system’s limits only through failed attempts at transcendence — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 470; Theory clarifies social fate even if it cannot prevent it. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1455; Utopian urban plans fail without social psychological realism about people (+5 more)
- QUESTION: What exactly are the listed ‘many objections’ to non-repressive sublimation, and which side did Adorno and the Institute end up taking on them?
Broader Connections
- The value of utopian visions lies in their unfinished energy, not their completion.
#expands(0.88) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 208 - Failed attempts to realize philosophy retroactively justify its continued relevance.
#corroborates(0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2529 - Utopian visions reveal a system’s limits only through failed attempts at transcendence
#expands(0.82) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 470 - Utopian urban plans fail without social psychological realism about people
#qualifies(0.80) - Philosophical inconsistency can generate richer intellectual movements than rigid logical consistency.
#expands(0.80) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2085 - Once-believing in a utopia makes one an especially insightful post-utopian critic
#expands(0.78) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 821 - Theory clarifies social fate even if it cannot prevent it.
#corroborates(0.75) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1455 - The utopian impulse is amoral, persistent energy that spawns forms regardless of worth.
#qualifies(0.75)