By Lucia Billing
We have mastered the art of fear all too well, it has made itself comfortable with us, crawling into our homes and placing itself there. We are so used to it that it is almost unnoticeable. It is so commonplace that we seek it out through combined imaginations that satisfy our desires as well as our egos. Unable to comprehend our world, and comprehend the potential of its possibilities, we shroud ourselves in cynicism until it gnaws at our core. It is a solution that is way too harsh to ourselves, while at the same time letting us get away too easily.
Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? What are we waiting for? What awaits us?
Many only feel confused. The ground shakes, they do not know why and with what. Theirs is a state of anxiety; if it becomes more definite, then it is fear.
Once a man travelled far and wide to learn fear. In the time that has just passed, it came easier and closer, the art was mastered in a terrible fashion. But now that the creators of fear have been dealt with, a feeling that suits us better is overdue.
– Ernst Bloch, in The Principle of Hope (Introduction)
Ernst Bloch is a blip in the intellectual trajectory of German 20th Century thinkers. His prose is lovely to read, much less dry and unaffected than you would expect from his spatiotemporal profile. Most of all, he does not seem to be fully miserable. Even in his later work, which is slightly more defeatist, he still holds on to some faith. While (most of) Bloch’s work is generally uplifting, the dread of Minima Moralia leaves one depleted. To find an intellectual who still retained some lust for life is always a treat.
Bloch took on the task of characterising himself with a label that few willingly wear – Utopian. Even before our time, Adorno pointed out that Bloch took on the complicated task of “restoring honour to the word ‘utopia’” signifying that the word was already carrying a pejorative connotation. Bloch embodies – despite being an “atheist” Jew – a link between Christians and Marxists. He sought to find a ‘third way’ or a compromise to the most often opposing groups, arguing that Christianity held values and elements which would be appealing and beneficial to socialism. Along with his conceptions of Utopia, Bloch has been understood as messianic – another bad word – stating that “messianism is the red secret of every revolutionary” Although Marx’s beliefs in themselves were doubtfully Messianistic (whether they were or not isn’t the point right now) his legacy is one which is undoubtedly characterised by it. Furthermore, the Soviet project was one imbued with it. Its success became second to the process, because the great task they had embarked on was beautiful enough.
The story goes: ‘There is an unpainted wall at the border of the city, and two men visit it. The first man asks the other why there is such an ugly, unpainted wall surrounding them. The other man answers that the wall is not ugly, it is beautiful, because it will be painted soon.’
Obviously, something is up since they are being surrounded by a wall, and the first man is right to question that, but the idea of an ugly wall being beautiful since it will soon be painted is quite a delight. The fact is that this story – a critique of the never-ending Soviet project – can serve as an example of Bloch’s concept of the not-yet-being, and of a barometer of our personal relationship to it.
Bloch’s ontological framework perceived our world as existing in a continuous process of creation. He asserted that the atoms have given us the tools for endless possible combinations, but they have not yet finished compounding. His concept can find itself creeping into writings about liminality – locations which seem to occupy a space between the not-yet and the no-longer. The ‘no-longer’ of these spaces is what gives them their eerie, haunted attributes.
The absence of the ‘no-longer’ in Blochian (?) thought is what stocks it with its particular optimism. The aforementioned ‘wall’ in the story does not have to instil us with discomfort and dread which seemingly unfinished, bare, construction seems to do to us. Perhaps the second man is right, as if our world is in a constant state of creation. If it is imbued with the not-yet, the wall might be painted soon, and perhaps it can be beautiful because of that fact.
The Christian ethos of Bloch’s work, particularly in his concept of the not-yet, is palpable. His appropriation of religious language does not shy away from the rematerialization of religion in the form of the ‘Warm-Stream’ of Marxism.
‘What-Is according to possibility' and ‘What-Is in possibility',
cold and warm stream in Marxism
– Ernst Bloch, in The Principle of Hope (Introduction)
He wrote that “only an atheist could be a good Christian and only a Christian can be a good atheist.” His conception of salvation, and of a God-death is symptomatic of his embracing of the not-yet. If the world is being created as we speak, then a ‘true’ Christian as well as a ‘true atheist’ can only exist after being created. ‘Being’ was to be best found through transitional and transformative processes.
Indeed, his spirit, parallel to a devout one, causes analogous occurrences between biblical texts and the ones of Bloch. In particular, the introduction to The Principle of Hope describes Hope similarly to how 1 Corinthians 13 portrays Love.
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Quite a long quote, but a very pretty passage. Here as well, completeness exists only in the future which functions as the Utopia that the not-yet will bring. Corinthians sees the world as being in part, as a continuous process of creation, which will end when we “shall know fully”. The Messianism present in the passage is (if we detach ourselves a tiny bit from the context) much more personal than expected, it also seems to function less punctually. The completeness of which it refers to, if one follows Bloch’s thought, can come to be universal and ongoing. To anyone familiar with the writer, this passage immediately jumps out as having the possibility of being an extract of one of his works, if only ‘love’ was replaced with ‘hope’. He writes:
Its [hope’s] work does not renounce, it is in love with success rather than failure. Hope, superior to fear, is neither passive like the latter, nor locked into nothingness. The emotion of hope goes out of itself, makes people broad instead of confining them, cannot know nearly enough of what it is that makes them inwardly aimed, of what may be allied to them outwardly. The work of this emotion requires people who throw themselves actively into what is becoming, to which they themselves belong. It will not tolerate a dog’s life which feels itself only passively thrown into What Is, which is not seen through, even wretchedly recognized. The work against anxiety about life and the machinations of fear is that against its creators, who are for the most part easy to identify, and it looks in the world itself for what can help the world; this can be found. How richly people have always dreamed of this, dreamed of the better life that might be possible.
– Ernst Bloch, in The Principle of Hope (Introduction)
Utopianism and Messianism are probably to remain dirty words for a long time and for good reasons. They have come to imply a sloth in which there is a wait, rather than work. However, much can be taken from an ontological framework of the not-yet, if we do not forget that it requires labour. Bloch’s philosophy cannot exist without an ethos which venerates toil. The issue comes from when we start to venerate misery. Fear is “in love with failure;” the pessimist does not want tragedy but revels in smug correctness when it does strike. There is a danger to equating optimism to subservience or naïvité in which its absolute necessity is dismissed. Even if only as a pastime, a temporary fix, a Utopian vision which posits our world as still being in the ‘not-yet’ can serve as a practice to help us endure it.
Listen!
if the stars are lit,then someone must need them, of course?then someone must want them to be there,calling those droplets of spittle pearls?And wheezing,in the blizzards of midday dust,he rushes to God,fearing he’s out of timeand sobbing,he kisses God’s sinewy hands,tells Him that it’s important,pleads to Him that the star must shine!vowingthat he won’t survive the starless torment!And later,he wanders, worried,though seemingly calm and fit,and tells somebody:“Finally, nothing canfrighten you,right?!”Listen!if the stars are lit,then someone must really need them?then it is essentialthat at least one staralightsover the rooftops each night?!
– Vladimir Mayakovsky, in “Listen!” (translated by Andrew Kneller)