Confronting Inauthenticity – Utopias of David Bowie

David W. Orr, Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse

Given the enormity of the subject matter, writing a relatively short and accessible book on the social aspects of climate change is a considerable challenge even for the most seasoned writer. This has not deterred David Orr, with his book Down to the Wire ranging over topics that include religion, politics (and the connections between the two), energy systems, and the psychology of hope and den...

‏‎intellectuals: utopias of dystopias‎‏

‏‎‏‎utopia has, for four centuries, accompanied that hope of progress and that striving for betterment. it now straggles against a widespread sense that this has been an illusion, or an impossible dream. the utopian idea can never entirely disappear, but utopia as a form of the social imagination has clearly weakened. if it cannot instill its vision in the public consciousness, the consequences...

A Phenomenology of Inauthenticity

ion in which reflection subordinates him (TA 85). In other words, the individual becomes mere thing, possessed by a vaporous “aggregate” that can think and choose for him; only the collective can determine how things will go, so there seems to be no individual responsibility. In this special sense, “the public” is defined as the opposite of free association from earnest passion, or authentic de...

Envisioning Real Utopias

A BOOK on utopias by a Marxist sociologist seems promising, perhaps even courageous. In Envisioning Real Utopias, Erik Olin Wright seeks to counter widespread cynicism about radical social transformation. To do this he offers what he calls “real utopias,” which might appear a contradiction or oxymoron. For Wright, however, utopias are not fantasies, or not only fantasies. In the current period ...

Scientific Utopias