Utopias PAST AND PRESENT
In 1992 Francis Fukuyama wrote The End of History and the Last Man, arguing that liberal democracy is “the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution.” This constituted a rejection of utopian thinking, which, for many, has already been discredited by its totalitarian progenies in the twentieth century. Yet the end of history seems to be coming to an end. Technological optimism, cultural pessimism, integralist hopes, and climate fears all call for a restoration of the concept of a future. The time, then, seems ripe for turning our attention to utopian thinking again. Is utopia an ever-present dimension of deliberative reasoning, or does it have a history? Is utopia the secular transference of religious ideas, such as redemption? What can a utopia be good for, if it cannot be put into practice?
In the first dinner discussion we will look at Aaron Bastani’s Fully Automated Luxury Communism (2018). In the second meeting we will discuss Andrew Willard Jones’ Before Church and State: A Study of Social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX (2017). In the third and final discussion, we will consider essays on the history of utopian thinking and arguments both for and against it.
This series of dinner discussions will take place in our office on Monday evenings and will be led by Haidun Liu (Morningside). It is open to undergraduates and recent graduates.
schedule
Monday, November 15 at 6 PM
Monday, November 22 at 6 PM
Monday, November 29 at 6 PM