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Journal ArticleDOI

Hope, Critique, and Utopia

21 Feb 2005-Critical Horizons (Routledge)-Vol. 6, Iss: 1, pp 63-86
TL;DR: The authors assesses the extent to which the category of hope assists in preserving and redefining the vestiges of utopian thought in critical social theory, arguing that the current philosophical and everyday interest in social hope can be traced to the limited capacity of liberal conceptions of freedom to articulate a vision of social transformation apposite to contemporary suffering and indignity.
Abstract: This paper assesses the extent to which the category of hope assists in preserving and redefining the vestiges of utopian thought in critical social theory. Hope has never had a systematic position among the categories of critical social theory, although it has sometimes acquired considerable prominence. It will be argued that the current philosophical and everyday interest in social hope can be traced to the limited capacity of liberal conceptions of freedom to articulate a vision of social transformation apposite to contemporary suffering and indignity. The background to these experiences is the structural changes associated with the injustices of globalisation, the mobilisation of the capitalist imaginary and the uncertainties of the risk society. The category of hope could assist in sustaining the utopianism of critical theory through con joining normative principles with a temporal orientation. Yet, the paradoxes of the current phase of capitalist modernisation have further denuded notions of...
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article present an integrative theoretical model that specifies social psychological mechanisms by which utopian thinking, which activates the social imagination, may enhance collective action intentions oriented toward social change and human progress.
Abstract: We present an integrative theoretical model that specifies social psychological mechanisms by which utopian thinking, which activates the social imagination, may enhance collective action intentions oriented toward social change and human progress. The model synthesizes complementary insights from interdisciplinary research programs on utopianism, hope, construal level, and system justification to identify mechanisms by which imagining better societies: (a) increases social hope, (b) yields an abstract mindset that bridges the psychological distance between the status quo (“here and now”) and a better possible future, (c) decreases system justification motivation, and (d) promotes social justice-oriented forms of collective action.

13 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Following Baum's proposition that planning be understood as the organization of hope, there has been limited scholarly engagement with what might be involved in fostering hope through planning pr... as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Following Baum’s proposition that planning be understood as “the organization of hope,” there has been limited scholarly engagement with what might be involved in fostering hope through planning pr...

13 citations


Additional excerpts

  • ...A distinction adapted from Browne (2005)....

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Book ChapterDOI
09 May 2008
TL;DR: This article explored the movement to rehabilitate concepts of "critical hope" and "utopia" through critical pedagogy and found strong parallels between philosophical and pedagogical developments in social critique.
Abstract: In this essay I explore the movement to rehabilitate concepts of ‘critical hope’ and ‘utopia’ through critical pedagogy. There are not only strong parallels between philosophical and pedagogical developments in social critique, but also unfinished pedagogical projects within critical theory itself. And while critical educators often ground their pedagogical work in the theoretical tradition, critical theorists have much to learn from the challenges that their philosophical work creates in politico-educational and cultural practice.

11 citations


Cites background from "Hope, Critique, and Utopia"

  • ...24 It has perhaps predictably been argued that this is simply an ideological expression of the more structural ‘dissipation of utopian energies’ in post-modern capitalist societies (Browne 2005; Sinnerbrink et al. 2005)....

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  • ...Critical theory and critical pedagogy: challenges in theory and practice These dilemmas are gaining visibility in new scholarship about hope and utopia (Browne 2005; Crapanzano 2003; Smith 2005)....

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  • ...It is, in this definition, a ‘synthesis of normative and empirical analysis to disclose change in the present that prefigure an emancipated or democratic society’ (Browne 2005: 65)....

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  • ...Interpreted within this framework, the ‘crisis of hope’ can neither be reduced to a world-historical threat to human nature nor explained as an epiphenomenal ‘shift in critical reflections on late modernity from the possibility of utopia to the problem of hope’ (Browne 2005)....

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  • ...Sarah S. Amsler 27 and transformative pedagogical practice are based (see also Browne 2005: 69)....

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Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: Sociologists have recently been very much concerned with whether the topic of their investigation has changed, particularly with the question of whether the global has replaced the national as the context of social relations as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Change is a central problem for the discipline of sociology. It is often claimed that sociology originated as a discipline to comprehend the major changes that characterised modern society, especially those bequeathed by two revolutions: the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. Sociology approaches the question of change at a number of different levels, and major theoretical traditions can be demarcated in terms of their conceptions of change, particularly with respect to their interpretations of the origins, agencies, scale, preconditions, consequences and potentials of change. As a discipline that is in dialogue with the present state of society, sociologists’ thinking about change is affected by contemporary trends and developments. Sociologists have recently been very much concerned with whether the topic of their investigation has changed, particularly with the question of whether the global has replaced the national as the context of social relations. C Wright Mills once described the best work in sociology as establishing a connection between history and biography. The sociological imagination enables individuals to turn their personal experience of private troubles into public issues that are recognised as shared (Wright Mills 1959). Sociology accomplishes this reflection through disclosing general patterns in social relations and revealing connections between different dimensions of society.

4 citations


Cites background from "Hope, Critique, and Utopia"

  • ...Sociological interpretations of contemporary change are not just concerned with the distinction of the present from the past but also the tendencies that are likely to shape the future development of society (see Browne 2005, 2008)....

    [...]

  • ...…increased insecurity in employment, along with paradoxically in the Australian context an increase in the average weekly working hours of full-time employees, political disaffection, distrust of institutions and ideological uncertainties, and the predicament of the ecological crisis (Browne 2005)....

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  • ...In my opinion, this is partly because of empirical changes that are counter to former visions of social progress, particularly the rising inequalities in the distribution of wealth and income over recent decades, the perception of increased insecurity in employment, along with paradoxically in the Australian context an increase in the average weekly working hours of full-time employees, political disaffection, distrust of institutions and ideological uncertainties, and the predicament of the ecological crisis (Browne 2005)....

    [...]

References
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Book
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: The Rise of the Network Society as discussed by the authors is an account of the economic and social dynamics of the new age of information, which is based on research in the USA, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, it aims to formulate a systematic theory of the information society which takes account of fundamental effects of information technology on the contemporary world.
Abstract: From the Publisher: This ambitious book is an account of the economic and social dynamics of the new age of information. Based on research in the USA, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, it aims to formulate a systematic theory of the information society which takes account of the fundamental effects of information technology on the contemporary world. The global economy is now characterized by the almost instantaneous flow and exchange of information, capital and cultural communication. These flows order and condition both consumption and production. The networks themselves reflect and create distinctive cultures. Both they and the traffic they carry are largely outside national regulation. Our dependence on the new modes of informational flow gives enormous power to those in a position to control them to control us. The main political arena is now the media, and the media are not politically answerable. Manuel Castells describes the accelerating pace of innovation and application. He examines the processes of globalization that have marginalized and now threaten to make redundant whole countries and peoples excluded from informational networks. He investigates the culture, institutions and organizations of the network enterprise and the concomitant transformation of work and employment. He points out that in the advanced economies production is now concentrated on an educated section of the population aged between 25 and 40: many economies can do without a third or more of their people. He suggests that the effect of this accelerating trend may be less mass unemployment than the extreme flexibilization of work and individualization of labor, and, in consequence, a highly segmented socialstructure. The author concludes by examining the effects and implications of technological change on mass media culture ("the culture of real virtuality"), on urban life, global politics, and the nature of time and history. Written by one of the worlds leading social thinkers and researchers The Rise of the Network Society is the first of three linked investigations of contemporary global, economic, political and social change. It is a work of outstanding penetration, originality, and importance.

15,639 citations

Book
01 Jan 1990
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a Phenomonology of modernity and post-modernity in the context of trust in abstract systems and the transformation of intimacy in the modern world.
Abstract: Part I:. Introduction. The Discontinuities of Modernity. Security and Danger, Trust and Risk. Sociology and Modernity. Modernity, Time and Space. Disembedding. Trust. The Reflexivity of Modernity. Modernity and Post-- Modernity?. Summary. Part II:. The Institutional Dimensions of Modernity. The Globalizing of Modernity. Two Theoretical Perspectives. Dimensions of Globalization. Part III:. Trust and Modernity. Trust in Abstract Systems. Trust and Expertise. Trust and Ontological Security. The Pre--Modern and Modern. Part IV:. Abstract Systems and the Transformation of Intimacy. Trust and Personal Relations. Trust and Personal Identity. Risk and Danger in the Modern World. Risk and Ontological Security. Adaptive Reactions. A Phenomonology of Modernity. Deskilling and Reskilling in Everyday Life. Objections to Post--Modernity. Part V:. Riding the Juggernaut. Utopian Realism. Future Orientations. The Role of Social Movements. Post--Modernity. Part VI: . Is Modernity and Western Project?. Concluding Observations. Notes.

14,544 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider a situation where a subject's only appropriate response to an injury to its own person is to defend itself actively against its assailant, which they call a "struggle".
Abstract: ness of law' does not yet have its reality and support in something itself universal'.\" and thus lacks the executive power found in state authority every subject must defend its rights by itself and, hence, each subject's entire identity is threatened by theft.\" The affected subject's only appropriate response to this injury to its own person is to defend itself actively against its assailant. This 'repercussion' of the crime for its perpetrator in the form of the injured person's resistance is the first sequence of actions that Hegel explicitly calls a 'struggle'. What emerges is a struggle of 'person' against 'person', that is, between two rights-bearing subjects, a struggle for the recognition of each party's different claim: on the one hand, the nflict-generating claim to the unrestricted development of that subjcct's subjectivity; on the other hand, the reactive claim to social respect for property rights. Hegel considers the outcome of the struggle un1('OHlwd by the collision of these two claims to be a foregone conclulon, In Ihlll only one of the two divided parties can refer the threat 22 Hegel's Original Idea unconditionally back to itself as a personality, because only the injured subject struggles, in resisting, for the integrity of its whole person, whereas the criminal is actually merely trying to accomplish something in his or her own particular interest. Therefore, as Hegel quickly concludes, it is the first, attacked subject that 'must gain the upper hand' in the struggle, because it 'makes this personal injury a matter of its entire personality'r\" Hegel follows this social conflict, which starts with a theft and ends with the 'coercion' of the criminal, with a third and final stage of negation, namely, the struggle for honour. With regard to its starting conditions alone, this case of conflict represents the most demanding form of intersubjective diremption [Entzweiungj. This conflict is based not on a violation of an individual assertion of rights, but rather on a violation of the integrity of the person as a whole. Admittedly, Hegel once again leaves the particular motives behind this conflict-generating crime indeterminate here. The reasons, in each case, why a person sets about destroying the framework of an existing relationship of recognition by injuring or insulting the integrity of another subject remain unclear. At this point, however, the reference to a totality is presupposed for both participants in the conflict, in the sense that each is fighting for the' entirety' of his or her individual existence. This can be understood to mean that the intention behind the criminal's insulting act is to demonstrate one's own integrity publicly and thereby make an appeal for the recognition of that integrity, but then the criminal's insulting act would, for its part, have its roots in a prior experience of being insufficiently recognized as an individuated personality. In any case, the two opposing parties in the emerging conflict both have the same goal, namely, to provide evidence for the 'integrity' of his or her own person. Following the usage of his day, Hegel traces this mutually pursued intention back to a need for 'honour'. This is initially to be understood as a type of attitude towards oneself, as it is phrased in the text, through which 'the singular detail becomes something personal and whole'.\" 'Honour', then, is the stance I take towards myself when I identify positively with all my traits and peculiarities. Apparently, then, the only reason that a struggle for 'honour' would occur is because the possibility of such an affirmative relationto-self is dependent, for its part, on the confirming recognition of other subjects. Individuals can only identify completely with themselves to the degree to which their peculiarities and traits meet with the approval and support of their partners to interaction. 'Honour' is thus used to characterize an affirmative relation-to-self thol hi flll'll('ll/rally tied to the presupposition that each individunl jlllI'lklllililly l'I'I'!·!vt'/\"l Crime and Ethical Life 23 intersubjective recognition. For this reason, both subjects in the struggle are pursuing the same goal, namely, the re-establishment of their honour which has been injured for different reasons in each case by attempting to convince the other that their own personality deserves recognition. But they are only able to do this, Hegel further asserts, by demonstrating to each other that they are prepared to risk their lives. Only by being prepared to die do I publicly show that my individual goals and characteristics are more significant to me than my physical survival. In this way, Hegel lets the social conflict resulting from insult turn into a life-and-death struggle, a struggle which always occurs outside the sphere of legally backed claims, since 'the whole [of a person] is at stake' .36 However unclear this account may be on the whole, it offers, for the first time, a more precise overview of Hegel's theoretical aims in the intermediate chapter on 'crime'. The fact that, in the progression of the three stages of social conflict, the identity claims of the subjects involved gradually expand rules out the possibility of granting a merely negative significance to the acts of destruction that Hegel describes. Taken together, the various different conflicts seem rather to comprise precisely the process that prepares the way for the transition from natural to absolute ethical life by equipping individuals with the necessary characteristics and insights. Hegel not only wants to describe how social structures of elementary recognition are' destroyed by the negative manifestation of freedom; he also wants to show, beyond this, that it is only via such acts of destruction that ethically more mature relations of recognition can be formed at all, relations that represent a precondition for the actual development of a 'community of free citizens' .37 Here, one can analytically distinguish two aspects of intersubjective action as the dimensions along which Hegel ascribes to social conflicts something like a moral-practical potential for learning. On the one hand, it is apparently via each new provocation thrust upon them by various crimes that subjects corne to know more about their own, distinctive identity. This is the developmental dimension that Hegel seeks to mark linguistically with the transition from 'person' to 'whole person'. As in the earlier section on 'natural ethical life', the term 'person' here designates individuals who draw their identity primarily from the intersubjective recognition of their status as legally -ompetent agents, whereas the term 'whole person', by contrast, refers io individuals who gain their identity above all from the intersubjective I'\\'l'ognit:ion of their 'particularity'. On the other hand, however, the 1'11111(' hy which subjects gain greater autonomy is also supposed to 111'11\\\\· jlllih 10 1;I'1'111t·1' knowledge of their mutual dependence. This is 24 Hegel's Original Idea the developmental dimension that Hegel seeks to make clear by letting the struggle for honour, in the end, change imperceptibly from a conflict between single subjects into a confrontation between social communities. Ultimately, after they have taken on the challenges posed by different crimes, individuals no longer oppose each other as egocentric actors, but as 'members of a whole'.\" When these two dimensions are considered together and as a unity, then one begins to see the formative process with which Hegel aims to explain the transition from natural to absolute ethical life. His model is guided by the conviction that it is only with the destruction of legal forms of recognition that a consciousness emerges of the moment within intersubjective relationships that can serve as the foundation for an ethical community. For, by violating first the rights and then the honour of persons, the criminal makes the dependence of individuals on the community a matter of common knowledge. To this extent, the social conflicts that shattered natural ethical life prepare subjects to mutually recognize one another as persons who are dependent on each other and yet also completely individuated. In the course of his argument, however, Hegel continues to treat this third stage of social interaction, which is supposed to lead to relations of qualitative recognition among the members of a society, merely as an implicit presupposition. In his account of 'absolute ethical life', which follows the crime chapter, the intersubjective foundation of a future community is said to be a specific relationship among subjects, for which the category of 'mutual intuition' emerges here. The individual 'intuits himself as himself in every other individual' .39 As the appropriation of Schelling's term 'intuition' [Anschauung] suggests, Hegel surely intends this formulation to designate a form of reciprocal relations between subjects that goes beyond merely cognitive recognition. Such patterns of recognition, extending even into the sphere of the affective (for which the category of 'solidarity' would seem to be the most likely label),\" are apparently supposed to provide the communicative basis upon which individuals, who have been isolated from each other by legal relations, can be reunited within the context of an ethical community. In the remaining parts of the System of Ethical Life, however, Hegel does not pursue the fruitful line of thought thus outlined. At this point, in fact, the thread of the argument drawing specifically on a theory of recognition breaks off entirely, and the text limits itself, from here on, to an account of the organizational elements that are supposed to characterize political relations in 'absolute ethical life'. As a result, however, the difficulties and pl'Obll'\"1H 1'11111 flegel's reconstructive analysis had already failed 10 ndd\"I'1I11 III 1111'IlI'('vioUfl slages rornain open nt Ih(, ('1

2,813 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 1989
TL;DR: A chronicler who recites events without distinguishing between major and minor ones acts in accordance with following truth: nothing that has ever happened should be regarded as lost for history as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: A chronicler who recites events without distinguishing between major and minor ones acts in accordance with following truth: nothing that has ever happened should be regarded as lost for history. The class struggle, which is always present to a historian influenced by Marx, is a fight for the crude and material things without which no refined and spiritual things could ehindxist. Historical materialism wishes to retain that image of the past which unexpectedly appears to man singled out by history at moment of danger. "In relation to the history of organic life on earth," writes a modern biologist, "the paltry fifty millennia of homo sapiens constitute something like two seconds at close of a twenty-four-hour day. The present, which, as a model of Messianic time, comprises entire history of mankind in an enormous abridgment, coincides exactly with the stature which the history of mankind has in the universe. Historicism contents itself with establishing a causal connection between various moments in history.

2,119 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Ghassan Hage as discussed by the authors argues that public concern about immigration stems from the distress that white Australians feel in the face of their declining power in multicultural Australia, and draws the two phenomena together.
Abstract: Both MairiAnne Mackenzie and Alastair Davidson (this issue) comment on the relationship between immigration and multiculturalism. The following extract is reprinted with permission from the last seven pages for Ghassan Hage’s new book, White Nation. It draws the two phenomena together and argues that public concern about immigration stems from the distress that ‘White Australians’ feel in the face of their declining power in multicultural Australia. The term ‘White’ stands for people of European origin while the term ‘Third World-looking’ people denotes most of the rest.

1,712 citations