Utopia as compensation for secularization

In this article, I argue for an historical understanding of the relationship between ideology and utopia/utopianism that positions the latter as a specifically modern compensation for the loss of the cosmologically grounded, unitary ideology supplied by the late medieval Christian Church. This claim...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThesis eleven Vol. 181; no. 1; pp. 20 - 33
Main Author Cunningham, Daniel
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.04.2024
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Churches
Compensation
Complicity
Criticism
Ideology
Middle Ages
Modernization
Secularization
Social scientists
Utopias
ideology
utopia/utopianism
secularization
modernity
religion
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Summary:In this article, I argue for an historical understanding of the relationship between ideology and utopia/utopianism that positions the latter as a specifically modern compensation for the loss of the cosmologically grounded, unitary ideology supplied by the late medieval Christian Church. This claim relies upon but revises Fredric Jameson’s early theorization of the collaboration between ideology and utopia/utopianism, which emphasizes that utopian elements allow ideology to offer subjects a ‘compensatory exchange’ for their complicity. Developing my central argument requires considering the current viability of the ‘secularization thesis’, which classically associated modernization with secularization but which has undergone heavy criticism and revision by social scientists over the past half-century. These theoretical discussions, finally, are couched within a critical appraisal of the status of utopianism in contemporary politics.
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ISSN:0725-5136
1461-7455
DOI:10.1177/07255136241240088