<![CDATA[The Spirit of Utopia (Meridian (Stanford, Calif.).)]]>

false <![CDATA[The Spirit of Utopia (Meridian (Stanford, Calif.).)]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173329675m/274676.jpg 274676 3 <div>I am. We are. That is enough. Now we have to start. These are the opening words of Ernst Bloch’s first major work, The Spirit of Utopia, written mostly in 1915-16, published in its first version just after the First World War, republished five years later, 1923, in the version here presented for the first time in English translation. The Spirit of Utopia is one of the great historic books from the beginning of the century, but it is not an obsolete one. In its style of thinking, a peculiar amalgam of biblical, Marxist, and Expressionist turns, in its analytical skills deeply informed by Simmel, taking its information from both Hegel and Schopenhauer for the groundwork of its metaphysics of music but consistently interpreting the cultural legacy in the light of a certain Marxism, Bloch’s Spirit of Utopia is a unique attempt to rethink the history of Western civilizations as a process of revolutionary disruptions and to reread the artworks, religions, and philosophies of this tradition as incentives to continue disrupting. The alliance between messianism and Marxism, which was proclaimed in this book for the first time with epic breadth, has met with more critique than acclaim. The expressive and baroque diction of the book was considered as offensive as its stubborn disregard for the limits of “disciplines.” Yet there is hardly a “discipline” that didn’t adopt, however unknowingly, some of Bloch’s insights, and his provocative associations often proved more productive than the statistical account of social shifts. The first part of this philosophical meditation—which is also a narrative, an analysis, a rhapsody, and a manifesto—concerns a mode of “self-encounter” that presents itself in the history of music from Mozart through Mahler as an encounter with the problem of a community to come. This “we-problem” is worked out by Bloch in terms of a philosophy of the history of music. The “self-encounter,” however, has to be conceived as “self-invention,” as the active, affirmative fight for freedom and social justice, under the sign of Marx. The second part of the book is entitled “Karl Marx, Death and the Apocalypse.” I am. We are. That’s hardly anything. But enough to start. </div> 266344 1979 The Spirit of Utopia (Meridian (Stanford, Calif.).) total:8|5:3|4:3|3:2|2:0|1:0| 8 33 22 0 4 0 false false Thu Nov 26 08:44:49 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 26 08:44:49 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Thu Sep 24 18:12:15 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 24 18:12:15 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Sep 17 12:53:42 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 17 12:53:57 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Aug 07 15:48:51 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 07 15:48:51 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Jun 23 03:16:19 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 23 03:16:27 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Jun 06 20:33:36 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 06 20:33:36 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Tue Apr 14 19:25:15 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 14 19:25:15 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Sep 13 19:57:18 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 13 19:57:28 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Wed Aug 13 15:46:20 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 13 15:46:20 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Sat Jun 28 18:10:26 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 28 18:10:26 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Fri Aug 15 12:23:36 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 02 14:54:32 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 15 12:23:36 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Wed Feb 20 15:29:41 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 20 15:29:41 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Fri Feb 08 21:53:29 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 08 21:53:29 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Fri Jan 25 03:28:41 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 25 03:28:54 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Wed Dec 26 09:54:49 -0800 2007 Wed Dec 26 09:54:49 -0800 2007 0 0 false false Thu Oct 11 19:00:12 -0700 2007 Thu Oct 11 19:00:17 -0700 2007 5 0 false false Mon Aug 13 21:06:16 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 13 21:06:16 -0700 2007 4 0 false false Fri Jul 20 19:47:39 -0700 2007 Fri Jul 20 19:47:39 -0700 2007 0 0 false false Sat Jun 16 11:04:08 -0700 2007 Sat Jun 16 11:04:12 -0700 2007 4 0 false false Mon Jun 04 17:54:24 -0700 2007 Mon Jun 04 17:54:24 -0700 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=274676