Conflicting imaginaries: antagonism and the sociology of utopian aspirations

Sergej Seitz

doi:10.4396/2024066S

Sergej Seitz

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4396/2024066S

Parole chiave: Karl Mannheim, conflict, utopia, ideology, antagonism

Abstract

This article provides a re-reading of Karl Mannheim’s founding treatise on the sociology of science, Ideology and Utopia (1929), against the backdrop of current invocations of a ‘crisis of truth’ as well as a ‘crisis of political imagination.’ Mannheim’s own historical diagnosis shows many lines of connection to the present, as he assumes both a radicalization of political conflict and an exhaustion of utopian forces, which makes emancipatory alternatives to the status quo increasingly inconceivable. Mannheim offers resources for rethinking the conflictual, antagonistic character of political imagination and gives way to elaborating a heuristic conception of antagonistic political imaginaries.

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