Against prophecy and utopia

Thesis Eleven 120 (1):104-118 (2014)
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Abstract

In this essay, I take as a starting point Foucault’s rejection of two different ways of thinking about the future, prophecy and utopianism, and use this rejection as a basis for the elaboration of a more detailed rejection of them, invoking complexity-based epistemic limitations in relation to thinking about the future of political society. I follow Foucault in advocating immanent political struggle, which does not seek to build a determinate vision of the future but rather focuses on negating aspects of the current conjuncture. I extend this argument into an ethical register, arguing that the same arguments apply mutatis mutandis to our personal lives. I conclude by engaging with Jacques Lacan’s account of subjectivity, and the interpretation of its political import furnished by Yannis Stavrakakis, drawing from these additional supports for my position, in particular the rejection of utopianism as an attempt to avoid limitation by the real.

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Mark G. E. Kelly
Western Sydney University

Citations of this work

For Foucault: against normative political theory.Mark G. E. Kelly - 2018 - Albany: State University of New York Press.
Educational Studies and the Domestication of Utopia.Darren Webb - 2016 - British Journal of Educational Studies 64 (4):431-448.

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References found in this work

The Law of Peoples.John Rawls - 1999 - Philosophical Quarterly 51 (203):246-253.
Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism?Chantal Mouffe - 1999 - Social Research: An International Quarterly 66 (3):745-758.
Lacan and the Political.Yannis Stavrakakis - 2000 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 62 (3):603-604.

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