Why utopia?
Do you thirst for a better world? Do you feel that while you are doing important projects, political developments take societies in other directions? Or do you simply want to expand your work through long-term goals?
“Utopia is a negation of the existing, an intention towards something better, making possibilities concrete, a motivation towards activities, an articulation of needs and an option towards orientation. Utopian consciousness does not just exist alongside critical and political consciousness but forms a constellation with them” - Alexander Neupert-Doppler in "“Utopie - von Roman zur Denkfigure”" (2015).
Let’s work together, so you don’t just develop your critical and political consciousness, but add a utopian consciousness to them!
Utopia as a defence against “populism”
Stephan Duncombe, in speaking about “populism” points out that “populists” (my inverted commas) have success due to their strength of simplistic visions. He says that we need alternative visions for our societies. While many myths and contemporary stories (like “Lord of the Rings”) have a basic structure of fall and redemption, the fall of the banking system in 2008 didn’t bring visions other than those which are narrow and ethnocentric. He puts this down to the mantra of TINA – There Is No Alternative.
No, we need to replace them with TAMARA – There Are Many Awesome Realistic Alternatives. What can these be? Let’s work together to find out.