Author : Carmelo C. Rafalà
Release : 2018
Genre : Utopias
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : /5 ( reviews)
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Book Synopsis The Utopian Impulse by : Carmelo C. Rafalà
Download or read book The Utopian Impulse written by Carmelo C. Rafalà. This book was released on 2018. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The utopian impulse has been behind some of the greatest human engineered catastrophes of the 20th century. The framework for constructing the utopian impulse has a foundation that goes back much further, to man's earliest beliefs in paradise. Belief in utopia reflects a need for utopia as there is a biological component to the utopian impulse. People have a natural need for order and an unwillingness to accept randomness. Under certain conditions, external forces beyond an individual's or a people's control, or which appear to be beyond control, will stimulate biological responses that increase vulnerability to utopian belief as well as inspire the actions necessary to bring about the existence of a utopia. This is the utopian impulse. In the works of Umberto Eco, both fiction and non-fiction, man's vulnerability to the cognitive processes that inspire utopian belief is a common theme. The reaction to social, economic, cultural, and political forces, which seem to have a mind of their own, increase a way of thinking that increases susceptibility to utopian impulses. Fear of the Other; belief in conspiracies; apophenia (seeing connections and patterns between otherwise random events); millenarianism; dietrologia (literally behindology); belief in unseen agents, whether human or divine, are all found within Eco's work. The very nature of human belief is explored in such a way as to bring into question not only belief itself but what is accepted as truth. The consequences of the utopian impulse are, as Eco illustrates, tragic. It is an attempt to impose an irrationally derived belief upon the natural world. This leads to a policy of the ends justifies the means. Eco, and history, show us that the means are the end.
