Wunschtraum und Albtraum. Zur Utopieforschung von Norbert Elias

In: Leviathan: Berliner Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft, Band 37, Heft 3, S. 477-489

Abstract

The article surveys and examines artistic and literary works spanning nearly 500 years regarding utopian themes. The author considers the works reviewed by Norbert Elias regarding this ideology and initiated by this paradigm of thought. By analyzing such works conceived by Ernst Bloch, "Geist der Utopie" and "Prizip Hoffnung"and "Utopian thought in the Western world" by Frank and Fritizie Manuel, among others; introduces the tone. Also, reviewed are items from the early 1980s during his days at the University of Bielefeld, including the early concepts of Thomas Morus, Utopia, 1516) and Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), from which Elias concentrated on in his writings. As the author and Elias both take a historiographical survey of utopianist literature, the tone changes in the works of Aldous Huxley (Brave New World, 1932) and George Orwell (1984, 1949); much reflected by linguistic characteristics and changes (i.e. We-I-balance). Though Elias tends to hold his line regarding Arcadian utopia (Arcadia, 1590) and courtly or sophisticated society; the finding of which tends be modeled as plastic and psychological in its apparatus, as highlighted among literature of the time. As Elias notes, for example, in Antoine Watteau's "Embarking to Cythera" utopian themes mirrored art throughout the Age of Enlightenment to the period of the French Revolution. The author continues following this historiographical theme in art and literature up to the turn of last century (i.e. H.G. Wells, Time Machine (1895) and Modern Utopia (1905), through which the empirical paradigm became known. The author opines by concluding that much of Elias social and humanities analysis tends to side on the melancholy; but quotes Wittgenstein regarding humanity's search regarding the Utopian vision; if not through words, then by continuously seeking. M. Diem