The Privatization of Hope: Ernst Bloch and the Future of Utopia

[sic] #8

by Peter Thompson (Editor), Slavoj Žižek (Editor)

The concept of hope is central to the work of the German philosopher Ernst Bloch (1885–1977), especially in his magnum opus, The Principle of Hope (1959). The "speculative materialism" that he first developed in the 1930s asserts a commitment to humanity's potential that continued through his later work. In The Privatization of Hope , leading thinkers in utopian studies explore the insights that Bloch's ideas provide in understanding the present. Mired in the excesses and disaffections of contemporary capitalist society, hope in the Blochian sense has become atomized, desocialized, and privatized. From myriad perspectives, the contributors clearly delineate the renewed value of Bloch's theories in this age of hopelessness. Bringing Bloch's "ontology of Not Yet Being" into conversation with twenty-first-century concerns, this collection is intended to help revive and revitalize philosophy's commitment to the generative force of hope.

Contributors . Roland Boer, Frances Daly, Henk de Berg, Vincent Geoghegan, Wayne Hudson, Ruth Levitas, David Miller, Catherine Moir, Caitríona Ní Dhúill, Welf Schröter, Johan Siebers, Peter Thompson, Francesca Vidal, Rainer Ernst Zimmermann, Slavoj Žižek

Genres: Philosophy, Utopia

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Peter Thompson is Sydney Mayer Lecturer in Early American History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St. Cross College.

Reviews

[Annabelle Fozard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Žižek stresses me out, but that’s a personal dilemma

[Knecht René · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book because Ernst Bloch sparked my interest in 'The Spirit of Hope' (Byung-Chul Han) and discovered recently that Žižek also has written a book - i.e. co-'edited' with Peter Thompson - on Ernst Bloch.

The preface of Žižek is very beautiful with the Žižekian insight related to Revolutions: the sobering effect of the morning after: "In the revolutionary explosion as an Event, another Utopian dimension shines through, the dimension of universal emancipation, which is the excess betrayed by the market reality that takes over "the day after". (Preface p. xix)

The introduction and essay of Peter Thompson are quite readable and give a good overview with interesting links to Žižek, Walter Benjamin, Nietzsche, Left-Heideggerism, Badiou, Hegel, ...

"Along with Walter Benjamin he (i.e. Ernst Bloch) also took from the Lurianic Kabbalah the idea of the daily manifestations of Hope as surplus "shards of light", left over from the creation of the world as negativity, and translated them into the concept of VORSCHEINE (pre-illuminations) of a better world. These Vorscheine function in religion as the dispersed symbols of the divine which emerged form the negative creation of the world into a void of un-beingness, but also in the world as pre-illuminations of something not yet possible due to the absence of thee necessary conditions for their realization." (p. 84)

"To put in Žižekian terms, the negative creation of the Real means that though the shards of light are imprisoned on the 'other side', the otherness of the other side is in fact ‘this side'. We are, in that sense always-already the Other to ourselves, As Rimbaud put it, "Je est un autre" ..." (p.85)

'".. hope is equable with Badiou's 'Set of no Set' ..." (p. 88)

"Truth is beyond comprehension because it contains within it the void that drives us on ... to achieve comprehension would be to nullify the void, to negate the negation and remove all drive ....(P.88)

"The utopian pregnancy is, in Žižek's terms, the 'empty' signifier which means meaning as such." (p. 100)
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Many interesting quotes and links throughout the whole book. I've not yet read all essay's but see some interesting insights in 7. Zero Point: Encountering the Dark Emptiness of Nothingness ( essay of Frances Daly, p. 164, ff) with some contributions/ links on Novalis and Schiller (The Image at Säis) and Otto's Mysterium Tremendum/Fascinosum, ...

Probably the whole book is more interesting if you are familiar with Bloch and Žižek's Lacanian + Hegelian thought to catch the insights and elaborations. Not always easy to read.