Abstract
Patrice Vermeren opens up the notion of utopia in this chapter, as he traces its development across several centuries. Vermeren contrasts the idea of eternal utopia with that of persistent utopia. Eternal utopia, Vermeren argues, relegates us to a specific place on the “map of the world” and, in this sense, functions as a “coffin.” This notion of utopia is totalitarian. Persistent utopia, on the other hand, is a concept created by Abensour, who is inspired by the new utopian spirit of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Vermeren suggests that utopia in this sense allows us to rethink the coordinates of the world. It suggests a path of emancipation from the liberal project of modern democracies.
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Notes
- 1.
Françoise Proust, “Nouvelles Considérations Intempestives,” in Futur Antérieur (L’Harmattan, 2015), 28; Jordi Riba, “Miguel Abensour: Pensar la Política de Otro Modo,” in Filosofías Postmetafísicas: 20 Años de Filosofía: Francesa Contemporánea, ed. Laura Llevadot and Jordi Riba (Barcelona: UOC Editorial, 2012), 215–24.
- 2.
Horacio González, “Le Processus de Libération des Textes,” in Critique de la Politique: Autour de Miguel Abensour, ed. A. Kupiec and E. Tassin (Paris: Sens et Tonka, 2006), 29.
- 3.
Bronislaw Baczko, Les Imaginaires Sociaux, Mémoires et Espoirs Collectifs (Paris: Payot, 1984), 84.
- 4.
“Livre d’Or” is commonly translated as “guestbook.” However, in this passage, the reference to the “livre d’or” is analogous to the Venetian and Genoan book keeping practices of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, wherein names of official patrician families were recorded. In this context, the word/book Utopia is part of a lineage of texts that are thought of as authoritative, or “projects of ideal legislation,” such as Plato’s Republic.—Trans.
- 5.
By 1771, the Dictionnaire de Trévoux contained eight volumes and was considered a “universal” French and Latin dictionary.—Trans.
- 6.
“Le réel ne s’utopiera jamais.” Here utopie is transformed into an invented verb “utopier.” In a similar vein, the translation performs a similar task using the noun utopia and creating the invented verb “to utopianize.”—Trans.
- 7.
Louis-Sébastien Mercier, L’an 2440: Rêve S’il En Fut Jamais (Bibliothèque Des Utopies) (Paris, France: Adel, 1977).—Trans.
- 8.
The Dictionnaire de la Langue Française, put together by Émile Littré and commonly known as Littré, is a four-volume dictionary of the French language published by Hachette in Paris, dated between 1863 and 1872, with a second edition dated between 1872 and 1877. Currently, an online version is made available at https://www.littre.org/.—Trans.
- 9.
No citation provided in the original.—Trans.
- 10.
Friedrich Engels, Socialisme Utopique et Socialisme Scientifique (Paris: Éditions Sociales, 1962).
- 11.
Miguel Abensour, Les Formes de l’Utopie Socialiste-Communiste: Essai sur le Communisme Critique et l’Utopie (PhD diss., Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, 1973), vol. 1, 31.
- 12.
Jean Larnac, Georges Sand Révolutionnaire (Paris: Éditions Hier et Aujourd’hui, 1947), 231.
- 13.
Maximilien Rubel (1905–1996) dedicated his life to studying Marx and published his Works in the collection titled La Pléiade. He argued that “Marx is not the founder of a constituted scientific economy; he is the author of a critique that renders political economy nonexistent.” According to Abensour, Rubel replaces the monolithic Marx, “the father of the worker’s movement,” with a living Marx, one who is open, left unfinished, and loyal to his critical spirit, as opposed to Louis Althusser, for whom “Capital is a work upon which Marx must be judged.” Miguel Abensour and Louis Janover, Maximilien Rubel, Pour Redécouvrir Marx (Paris: Sens et Tonka Publishers, 2008), 37.
- 14.
Miguel Abensour, Les Formes de l’Utopie Socialiste-Communiste: Essai sur le Communisme Critique et l’Utopie (PhD diss., Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, 1973), vol. 2, 201.
- 15.
Miguel Abensour, “Marx: Quelle Critique de l’Utopie?,” in Rencontres Autour de Pierre Fougeyrollas, ed. Pierre Ansart (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1993), 28.
- 16.
Miguel Abensour, “Persistante Utopie,” in L’Homme est un Animal Utopique (Arles: Editions de la Nuit, 2010), 172.
- 17.
Ernst Bloch, Le Principe Espérance (Vol. 1) (Paris: Gallimard, 1976), 176.
- 18.
Emmanuel Lévinas, Autrement qu’être ou Au-delà de l’Essence [Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence] (Paris: Fata Morgana, 1974), 63, cited by Miguel Abensour. See Miguel Abensour, “L’Utopie du Livre,” in Emmanuel Lévinas: La Question du Livre, ed. Miguel Abensour and Anne Kupiec (Paris: IMEC, 2008), 78.
- 19.
Miguel Abensour, “Le Procès des Maîtres-rêveurs,” Libre 4, (1978). Reprint in Miguel Abensour, Utopiques 1 (Arles: Editions de la Nuit, 2011), 72.
- 20.
Abensour, “Persistante Utopie,” 11.
- 21.
Walter Benjamin, Paris, Capitale du XIXe Siècle (Paris: Éditions de Cerf, 2000).
- 22.
Miguel Abensour, “Emmanuel Lévinas: L’Intrigue de l’Humain: Entre Méta-politique et Politique,” interview by Danielle Cohen-Levinas (Paris: Hermann, 2013).
- 23.
No citation provided in the original.—Trans.
- 24.
“Insistances Démocratique: Sentretien avec Miguel Abensour, Jean-Luc Nancy & Jacques Rancière,” Vacarme, 48, no. 1 (2009): 11, http://www.vacarme.org/article1772.html.
- 25.
Miguel Abensour, Para una Filosofía Política Critica: Ensayos, trans. Scheherezade Pinilla Cañadas and Jordi Riba (Barcelona: Anthropos, 2007).
- 26.
Jacques Rancière, “Sens et Usage de l’Utopie,l’utopie” in L’Utopie en Question, ed. Michele Riot-Sarcey (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 2001), 43–57.
- 27.
Jacques Rancière, “La Politique n’est-elle que la Police?,” in Et Tant pis pour les Gens qui sont Fatigués: Entretiens (Paris: Éditions Amsterdam, 2009), 116.
- 28.
Patrice Vermeren, “Le Postulat de l’Égalité et la Démocratie à Venir,” Diogène 220 (2007): 60–77.
- 29.
Miguel Abensour, Pour une Philosophie Politique Critique (Paris: Sens et Tonka, 2009), 43.
- 30.
González, “Le Processus de libération des textes,” 31.
- 31.
Manuel Cervera-Marzal, Miguel Abensour: Critique de la Domination, Pensée de l’Emancipation (Paris: Sens et Tonka, 2013), 13.
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Vermeren, P. (2020). The Map of the World and the Coffin of Utopia. In: Frausto, O., Powell, J., Vitale, S. (eds) The Weariness of Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19341-6_3
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