Mapping the Unmappable: Dichotomies of Utopianism

Abstract

One of the most challenging issues regarding contemporary utopianism is the contradiction between a positive orientation toward the future (interpreted as hope) and negative representations of this same orientation (in the sense of fear). Contrary to the tendency, which strives to a single, though an all-encompassing and broad designation of utopia, following a single concept, we argue in this paper that utopia and utopianism as such can be, at best, grasped through a series of dichotomies, contradictions, or paradoxes. From early utopian strategies dating back millennia to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, utopias always feature contradictory tendencies, which require closer inspection. It may be that in this contradictory nature of the utopian lies the key to understanding not only our past and present, but also the future. The most important in this sense turns out to be the difference between the “true” (or the iconoclast) and “false” (or the blueprint) utopia. Even though during the twentieth century the utopian hopes turned into dystopian fears, the only way to a different and possibly better future, therefore, seems to be offered by the “true”, iconoclast utopia, which keeps alive probably the most important trait of human existence: hope.