As above, so below: the juncture between utopian beliefs and everyday life

(2014)

The juncture between utopian beliefs and everyday life is any act of fairness. The placement of an abstract point somewhere in the distance of the shining future, while unrealizable, is the realization of a certain actual movement towards that futuristic chimera which could not have occurred without its assistance. 

Utopians are humanised by their Utopias, but certainly one should consider the other side of the coin. Just as one variety of Utopianism humanises the Utopian’s everyday behaviour, so does another dehumanise in proportion. Utopianism is dangerous, as it involves basic drives, but inevitable and ubiquitous. There is scarcely a group but has its own sense of the shining future which is magically going to make life more equal or less entropic.

The point at which overarching ideology and beating individual intersect is complex, fascinating, and lost in a sea of ideologues. But pure ideological drives can be extracted from that sea, divorced from particulars, distilled to essentials. Comparative ideology is at least a tonic for an age of ideologues the prevailing custom of whom is to talk all at once. The resemblance to Black Sea polyphonic folk music is unmistakeable.