The critical-ideological analysis and the issue of utopia
Initially placed within different fields of human thinking, ideology and utopia have become elements in the discourse specific to social-political philosophy and theory, even if sometimes this state of affairs has done nothing but deepen the conceptual ambiguity of these two central figures of the social imaginary. The various perspectives from which the relationship between ideology and utopia has been analysed cannot claim to provide a rigorous explanation of the meanings that they hold, or, implicitly, of the roles that they play within the sphere of social knowledge. The two concepts seem to be intertwined, and therefore any investigation of the social imaginary which seeks to delimit the influence of ideology on institutional practices and human behaviours is inevitably accompanied by considerations about utopia. Precisely from this perspective, this paper aims to capture the grounds of the theoretical-political interpretation regarding the issue of utopia. What I intend to highlight shall be framed by the main coordinates of the critical-ideological analysis, a type of analysis which, from my viewpoint, is applicable to both utopianism and political mythology.
Keywords: ideology, utopia, ideological analysis, historicism, dialectics, social engineering
1 Paul Ricoeur, Eseuri de hermeneutică / Essays in Hermeneutics, Humanitas Publishing, Bucharest, 1996, p. 285.
2 For a very useful analysis of utopian approaches in literature, see Bogdan Crețu, Utopia negativă în literatura română / Negative utopia in Romanian literature, Cartea Românească Publishing, Bucharest, 2008, pp, 11-38.
3 David Miller (coord.), Enciclopedia Blackwell a gândirii politice / The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, Humanitas Publishing, Bucharest, 2006, p. 769.
4 Krishan Kumar, Utopianismul / Utopianism, Du Style Publishing, Bucharest, 1998, p. 31.
5 Cf. Brânduşa Palade, “Introducere la ediţia românească”, in Krishan Kumar, Op. cit., pp. 20-21.
6 “The basic similarity between totalitarianism and utopianism would be that they both promote a single and indubitable truth, which should be imposed on everyone, including on those who do not believe in it; in a totalitarian society or in an utopian one, disputes regarding the means, and even less regarding the purposes, are not allowed” (David Miller, coord., Op. cit., pp. 772-773).
8 Paul Ricoeur, Eseuri de hermeneutică / Essays in Hermeneutics, Humanitas Publishing, Bucharest, 1996, pp. 284-285.
9 Cf. Karl Popper, Mizeria istoricismului / The Misery of Historicism, ALL Publishing, Bucharest, 1996. The author makes right from the start a distinction between pro-naturalist methodological schools (“which are in favour of applying the methods of physics in social sciences”) and anti-naturalist schools (“which are against using such methods”).
10 The distinction between the closed society and the open society (see Societatea deschisă şi duşmanii ei / The Open Society and its Enemies, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1993, 2 vol.) was taken over by Popper from Henri Bergson’s work, Cele două surse ale moralei şi religiei / The Two Sources of Moral and Religion (Institutul European, Iaşi, 1992); if Bergson sees it as a religious distinction, Popper modifies its meaning, transforming it into a rational distinction.
11 For this reference, see Karl Popper, Societatea deschisă şi duşmanii ei / The Open Society and its Enemies, Humanitas Publishing, Bucharest, 1993, vol. I, pp. 80-81 and Logica cercetării / The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Scientific and Encyclopaedic Publishing, Bucharest, 1981, p. 79 and next, and pp. 90-91.
12 The natural laws which operate within the societal framework are called sociological laws by Popper.
13 Raymond Aron, Lupta de clasă. Noi prelegeri despre societăţile industriale / Class Struggle. New lectures on industrial societies, Polirom Publishing, Iaşi, 1999, p. 103.
14 For this issue, see Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1968; Karl Mannheim, Louis Wirth, On Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1949 (re-edited by Kessinger Publishing’s Rare Reprints, New York, 2001).
15 Sorin Antohi, Op. cit., p. 52.
16 Idem.
17 For the principle of falsifiability, see subchapter 6, titled “Falsificabilitatea ca criteriu de demarcaţie” / „Falsifiability as a demarcation criterion”, of Logica cercetării, ed. cit.
18 Paul Ricoeur, Op. cit., p. 284.
19 For comments relative to the ideological analysis applied by Popper to Plato’s writings, see Sorin Bocancea, Cetatea lui Platon / Plato’s City, Institutul European, Iaşi, 2010.
20 Cornelius Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1975, p. 104.
21 Idem.
22 Gerard Stan, „Interpretarea ideologică văzută ca interpretare ironistă. Cazul Popper”, in Ştefan Afloroaei (coord.), Interpretare şi ideologie / Interpretation and ideology, Publishing House of the „Axis” Academic Foundation, Iaşi, 2002, p. 102.
23 Idem, p. 103.
24 Idem, p. 113.
25 On the other hand, Popper’s criticism may be criticised on the grounds that, although it has blamed all utopian thought, and linked it to totalitarian thinking, there are some of its products which do not refer to social change in circumstances such as those described by Plato or Marx. Thus, “the most convincing fact against Popper’s tirade is, probably, the fact that most utopian thinkers did not claim that their projects should have been imposed through revolution or constraint; more often, they put forth such ways towards utopia as education, small-scale experimentation or even democratic election” (David Miller, coord., Op. cit., p. 773).
26 The full picture is provided by the contemporary exegesis of Ricoeur’s conception about the relationship between ideology and utopia: “Ideology and utopia operate at three levels in social life: as distortion, as legitimation and as integration/identity. They do not simply represent the social world as it is, but they function in different ways in relation to praxis. At the most superficial level, ideology acts by distorting reality, since utopia is nothing more than a fantasy. At the next level, ideology serves to cover the distance between pretence [of legitimacy, m.n. D.Ş.] and faith [in the authority which claims that it is legitimate, m.n. D.Ş.]. By contrast, utopia challenges the dominant system and supports an alternative to it. At the deepest level, ideology functions in an integrating manner, in order to preserve the group’s identity, since utopia produces an imaginative variation of this identity, advancing other practical alternatives which may be implemented” – Darren Langdridge, ”Ideology and utopia: social psychology and the social imaginary of Paul Ricoeur”, in Theory & Psychology, vol. 16 (5), 2006, pp. 653-654.
27 G. H. Taylor, “Editor’s Introduction”, in Paul Ricoeur, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia, New York: Columbia University Press, 1986, p. xxiii.
28 Paul Ricoeur, Op. cit., p. 312.
29 In this respect, following Ricoeur’s line of thought, Dauenhauer argues that this identity “should be consistent with both the current conditions in which social life must be experienced and the benign possibilities that these conditions render viable” – Bernard P. Dauenhauer, Paul Ricoeur: The Promise and Risk of Politics, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 1998, p. 223.
30 Paul Ricoeur, Op. cit., p. 312.
