The Death of God and the Temporalization of Utopia

Abstract

In this talk Roger Griffin will explore the idea that the erosion of the lived reality of a suprahistorical and supratemporal realm (heaven, divine eternity) through the forces of secularization and modernization has led to what Reinhard Koselleck calls 'the temporalization of utopia'. The proliferation of utopian projects since the 18th century can be seen as ways of resolving the socio-political dilemmas of the present or transcending the experience of anomie and existential emptiness by projecting an idealized 'eternal' reality onto the historical process at which case they become potentially realizable through human action and 'the will'. The talk will argue that such rebellions against what Walter Benjamin calls 'empty homogeneous time' should be seen as manifestations of 'programmatic modernism', playing an equivalent role in challenging existing external historical reality as the 'epiphanic modernism' of artists such as Van Gogh or Kandinskyplayed in challenging 'normal' perceptions of reality. The most powerful instance of this process in recent years is the Salafi Jihadism of Daesh.

Roger Griffin is widely acknowledged to be one of the world's foremost experts on the socio-historical and ideological dynamics of fascism, as well as the relationship of various forms of political or religious fanaticism, and in particular contemporary terrorism, to modernity.

Everyone welcome.