Non-places

In the previous post I have outlined Adorno's vision of utopia. This should be distinguished from the way Marcuse used the term in The end of utopia. Marcuse claims that ideals of the emancipated society have often been reproached with being "utopian". He then goes on to prove that an emancipated society is possible - or at least that it is impossible to claim that it is not possible. But Marcuse himself adds to the confusion of terms that critics of critical theory have made use of when accusing Marxism of "utopianism". U-tupia, the non-place, should not be understood as a plan for reality to follow. As Adorno showed the question of whether redemption can ever come is besides the point - but I would go even further and claim that posing this question already distorts the function of utopia. Utopia is a regulatory mechanism, an imaginary vantage point set into emancipated society from which our world is viewed. This is the meaning of non-place: the vantage point of the utopian gaze is beyond the world. Yet because it is never possible to step outside the world this gaze remains bound by it, it remains a historical contingency. In fact it is bound by history the strongest when it feigns independence, thereby regressing to mere ideology. The point of utopia is not to gaze upon emancipated society, but to step into emancipated society and gaze upon the existing. But since every utopian view is historically contingent, each historically existing society constructs a different emancipated society, utopia is not static. Utopian society can not be fixed for all times, but fulfills its functions only if it changes together with the society it mirrors.