{"product_id":"picture-imperfect-utopian-thought-for-an-antiutopian-age-9780231128957","title":"Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"The choice we have is not between reasonable proposals and an unreasonable utopianism. Utopian thinking does not undermine or discount real reforms. Indeed  it is almost the opposite: practical reforms depend on utopian dreaming.\"--Russell Jacoby  Picture Imperfect  Utopianism suffers from an image problem: A recent exhibition on utopias in Paris and New York included photographs of Hitlers Mein Kampf and a Nazi concentration camp. Many observers judge utopians and their sympathizers as foolhardy dreamers at best and murderous totalitarians at worst. However  as noted social critic and historian Russell Jacoby argues in this salient  polemical  and innovative work  not only has utopianism been unfairly characterized  a return to an iconoclastic utopian spirit is vital for todays society. Shaped by the works of Theodor Adorno  Walter Benjamin  Ernst Bloch  Gustav Landauer  and other predominantly Jewish thinkers  iconoclastic utopianism revives societys dormant political imagination and offers hope for a better future. Writing against the grain of history  Jacoby reexamines the anti-utopian mindset and identifies how utopian thought came to be regarded with such suspicion. He challenges standard readings of such anti-utopian classics as 1984 and Brave New World and offers stinging critiques of the influential liberal and anti-utopian theorists Hannah Arendt  Isaiah Berlin  and Karl Popper. He argues that these thinkers mistakenly equate utopianism with totalitarianism.  The reputation of utopian thought has also suffered from the failures of  what Jacoby terms  the blueprint utopian tradition and its oppressive emphasis on detailing all aspects of society and providing fantastic images of the future. In contrast  the iconoclastic utopians  like those who follow Gods prohibition against graven images  resist both the blueprinters obsession with detail and the modern seduction of images. Jacoby suggests that by learning from the hopeful spirit of iconoclastic utopians and their willingness to accept new possibilities for society  we open ourselves to new and more imaginative ideas of the future.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45789860954165,"sku":"ByrdShop_0231128959","price":26.23,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780231128957.jpg?v=1784701194","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/picture-imperfect-utopian-thought-for-an-antiutopian-age-9780231128957","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}