We have the power to imagine futuristic futures and utopias.
Philosopher Simon Critchley once said that philosophy begins with despair, especially religious and political despair. The case of the humanities is also not very different. But this frustration is useful because it means we want something more. We can imagine a different world. It is about the possibilities of utopia, that place of mind that we wish to be realized.
Nietzsche mentions this in his introduction birth of tragedy That the Greeks had a pessimism of power. He believed that it was difficult to look into the abyss of life because life is dark and difficult. But what art provides us is a veil to see into this abyss. Therefore, he says, both art and life depend entirely on the laws of optics, of perspective and illusion. Both depend on the requirement of the error. That is to say, we can put on this veil of art and art ultimately helps us to bear the light emanating from the abyss and imagine another way.
This is similar to what the Belgian philosopher Isabelle Stengers refers to in her book Another World Is Possible. capitalist magic, His view is that capitalism is flagging the future. But we may have to ask, what is the future of the future? One of the things the humanities provide is the ability to imagine the foreseeable future. A future that has not been claimed by others. The idea that there are disappointments, but another future is possible. What the humanities allow us to do is to imagine these futures and try to make them a reality.
German philosopher Martin Heidegger in his essay building, Accommodationand thinking, says that before we build, we inhabit. Which may sound counterintuitive, but he points out that we live and the way we live determines what we want to create. We think about the ways in which we live now, and we build from that dwelling. So, the idea is to imagine the humanities as other ways of being, other modes of existence, other ways of carrying ourselves in this world. Heidegger says that housing and construction are ends and means. However, as long as all this is in our mind, we tend to take housing and construction as two separate activities. An idea in which something is true, yet at the same time by the means and ends schema, we block our view of a necessary relationship. Because building is not just a means or a way to live. To build is already a dwelling in itself.
So, how are we going to build from that idea of housing? Because in doing so we allow new things to emerge. And in realizing these possibilities, we allow new relationships to emerge. Which is to take things that didn’t exist in the world before and allow new connections to be made and unveiled. In doing so, we impart a spirit of care and an ethic of care for the future and for the foreseeable future.
There is an old German band named Kraftwerk. They did a lot of electronica, and they had a song called antenna It was as follows: “I am the antenna, catching vibrations. You are the transmitter, giving information”, The lyrics loop, reverse themselves, and loop again. The idea is that we are continuing to play this cultural game of broadcast and reception. Author Tom McCarthy said in his essay, transferAndpersonal remix, “One can start writing when one is already writing. One can start thinking when one is already thinking. But who is this? A culture comes before us and surpasses us. A language that precedes us will survive us. This gives us the possibility of pessimism of power. Taking language, which is our habitat, and turning its bars poetically and imagining other futures.
as vladimir tells estragon waitingfor godot, “I cannot continue”. Maybe he’s saying to himself half because he’s not even fully looking at Estragon, “I can’t go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on”. or as Samuel Beckett says in his be worsward, “try again fail again fail better.” Universities teach us to master things – that’s the whole point of university. But one of the keys to what the humanities allow us to imagine is vulnerability. In a world that is constantly changing and that has to be sensitive to the ecology of change, to imagine vulnerability is to imagine an ecology that is not only human but beyond human. Utopias that are teeming with non-human environments.
vibhude@gmail.com