Picture Imperfect
Subtitle: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age
By: Russell Jacoby.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2005
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 211
ISBN-13: 9780231128940
Copyright date: 2005
Subjects: Utopias; Dystopias; Utopias -- Religious aspects
Description: Utopianism suffers from an image problem: A recent exhibition on utopias in Paris and New York included photographs of Hitler's 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 today's society. Shaped by the works of Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Gustav Landauer, and other predominantly Jewish thinkers, iconoclastic utopianism revives society's 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 God's 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.

(Source: [Columbia University Press](https://cup.columbia.edu/book/picture-imperfect/9780231128940))
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Preface
pagenum: ix; title: Acknowledgments
pagenum: xix; label: 1.
title: An Anarchic Breeze
pagenum: 1; label: 2.
title: On Anti-Utopianism: More or Less
pagenum: 37; label: 3.
title: To Shake the World off Its Hinges
pagenum: 83; label: 4.
title: A Longing That Cannot Be Uttered
pagenum: 113; title: Epilogue
pagenum: 145; title: Notes
pagenum: 151; title: Index
pagenum: 199