Utopia as counter-logical social practice

Abstract

The central question of this dissertation is “What is the function of utopia today?”. This question already implies a certain kind of historicity. It implies the possibility of utopias having different functions in different times. This is why a larger question is in this dissertation asked as well: “what functions of utopia have become emphasized in the history of utopian thought?”. And to answer both of these questions will I need to ask a third question: “What kind of different forms has the concept of utopia taken during its historical existence?”. Herein it is argued that utopias can be understood as relational counter-images and counter-practices grounded in the historical circumstances they are developed in. This dissertation focuses especially on the historical changes the function of utopia has gone through and on the function of utopia in the current neoliberal era in which utopianism has become suspicious socio-political mode of thought. The main function of utopia, in this context is the disruptive function, which has the possibility of opening social and political imagination to new possibilities. Especially the possibility of different experimental social practices is explored in this dissertation. These practices are described with the concept of a “utopian counter-logical social practice”. This concept is one developed through the usage of autonomist Marxist theoretician John Holloway’s texts. The concept refers here to a collectively carried out practice which is at the same time within, against and outside of the present. It is within the present since it exists in the here-and-now. It is against since it orients itself according to a logic of practice that challenges and relativizes the practices of the existing society. It is outside of the present since it prefigures new and better forms of being in its very existence. Utopian counter-logical social practice is here regarded as having a disruptive function which has the possibility of causing “cracks”, not only in the social cohesion of the existing society, but also in the worldview of the subject. Utopian counter-logical social practice has the potential to offer new, surprising perspectives on the existing society for the subject. It is argued that utopian counter-logical social practices have the potential to cause disruption on both ideological and practico-structural levels.