Utopia and anti-Utopia in modern times
Utopia and anti-Utopia in modern times
复制标题
现代的乌托邦与反乌托邦
DOI：
10.1016/0191-6599(94)90387-5
复制
发表时间：
1994
影响因子：
0.3
通讯作者：
T. Luke
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
T. Luke
1004书评与斯金纳以及赫胥黎和奥威尔的两个反乌托邦。不幸的是，正如作者所承诺的那样，这本书确实是一本关于书籍而不是关于思想或意识形态的书。几乎所有曾经写过乌托邦或反乌托邦小册子的人都被拉进叙述中，作为乌托邦文学的作者，与贝拉米、威尔斯、赫胥黎、奥威尔和斯金纳一起被衡量和权衡。当然，库马尔还通过重读所有有关乌托邦思想的书籍，重述了大多数关于乌托邦思想的老生常谈：乌托邦开始于一个统一的基督教世界的解体，乌托邦被新世界的发现所控制，乌托邦是文学小说，被现代性的承诺和瘟疫所感染或打击，工业革命之前的文学衍生乌托邦让位于之后的技术科学乌托邦，进步的乌托邦被第一次世界大战后的恐怖反乌托邦所掩盖，现代性的乌托邦是社会主义的（或现代性的反乌托邦是社会主义的或现代性的反乌托邦是极权主义的），等等。虽然库马尔的评论涉及面很广，而且涉及面很广，但这本书往往没有超越赫茨勒的《乌托邦思想史》（1923）、卡提卜的《乌托邦》（1971）或曼努埃尔的《现代世界的乌托邦思想》（1979）。的确，像许多政治思想历史学家一样，库马尔采取了一种令人困惑的修辞转变，他试图通过回归乌托邦信仰的模糊起源来解释现代的乌托邦和反乌托邦，这些乌托邦信仰的形式和主题继承自古典和基督教世界，尽管是经过改造的。因此，柏拉图的《理想国》、赫西奥德的《工作与日子》、梭伦和利库尔格斯的《宪法》和柏拉图的《理想国》，与奥古斯丁的《上帝之城》、伯拉纠反对奥古斯丁原罪学说的论战，以及许多其他反律法主义和千禧年基督教教派，结合在一起，形成了库马尔的现代乌托邦主义的原始著作。虽然所有这些在历史上的起伏和编织可能会让一些人眼花缭乱，但它往往会分散这本书的中心论题与现代乌托邦主义和反乌托邦主义的主要联系。而且，库马尔试图将现代社会主义乌托邦主义的担忧与这些前现代人物联系在一起，尽管他不断地求助于托马斯·莫尔（Thomas More）或弗朗西斯·培根（Francis Bacon）的理论胶水，但他的努力从未令人信服。
1004 Book Reviews and Skinner and the two anti-utopias by Huxley and Orwell. Unfortunately, as the author promises, this book does turn out to be a book about books rather than ideas or ideologies. Just about anyone and everyone who ever wrote a utopian or dystopian tract is dragged into the narrative to be measured and weighed along with Bellamy, Wells, Huxley, Orwell and Skinner as an author of utopianising literature. And, of course, Kumar also rehearses most of the old familiar lines about utopian thinking by rereading all of the books about it: utopias begin with the dissolution of a unified Christendom, utopias are charged by the discovery of the New World, utopias are literary fictions taken with or stricken by the promises and plagues of modernity, utopias of literary derivations prior to the Industrial Revolution give way to technoscientific utopias afterwards, utopias of progress are overshadowed bydystopias of terror following World War I, utopias of modernity are socialist (or dystopias of modernity are socialist or dystopias of modernity are totalitarian), etc. While the reach of Kumar’s commentary is extensive, and the scope of his reach is exhaustive, this book often does not go very far beyond Hertzler’s The History of Utopian Thought (1923), Kateb’s Utopia (1971), or the Manuels’ Utopian Thought in the Modern World (1979).Indeed, like many historians of political thought, Kumar takes a perplexing rhetorical turn by seeking to explain utopia and anti-utopia in modern times by returning to obscure origins of utopian belief in forms and themes inherited from, albeit in transformed guises, the classical and Christian worlds. Consequently, Plato’s Republic, Hesiod’s Works and Days, Solon’s and Lycurgus’ constitution-building and Plato’s Republic are joined with Augustine’s City of God, Pelagius’ polemics against Augustine’s original sin doctrines, and a host of other antinomian and millenarian Christian sects to form Kumar’s source book of modern utopianism. While all of this bobbing and weaving through history may razzledazzle some, it tends to diffuse the main engagement of the book’s central thesis with modern utopianism and anti-utopianism. And, Kumar’s efforts to bond the concerns of modern socialist utopianism together with these pre-modern figures are never convincing, even as he continually resorts to Thomas More or Francis Bacon for some theoretical glue.