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55 EINBLICKE
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EINBLICKE: Herr Kreuzer, does utopianism still play a role in
our lives today?
KREUZER:Most certainly – if we are able to reduce our everyday
acts of repression.Which, of course, are not few. It‘s also amat-
ter of technical development.Since digitalisation, information
channels have been decoupled from physical factors. This is
just how it is – to argue against it would be pure Ludditism.
Take smartphones for example. There is nothing external to
the flowof information anymore.The user has become part of
the information flow. Constant accessibility – fungibility – is
becoming ubiquitous.
EINBLICKE: The new electronic media as a utopia blocker?
KREUZER: No, of course not. And if you use a smartphone
properly it makes lots of things easier.There‘s nothing wrong
with that.But we have to look at what itmeans to be constantly
available, permanently reachable though this highly innova-
tive technology. It‘s like the completion of a development that
began with the Industrial Age. "The ideal worker in a loom",
Diderot once quipped, "is the person who has become one
with the loom, right down to his digestive processes."
EINBLICKE: To what extent?
KREUZER: People become stimulus relays. It‘s a zero-one-
reaction – this is what Walter Benjamin referred to in one
text as the reflex-determined character that no longer forms
experiences and thus no longer has any stories to tell, nor an
history. All that‘s left is a perpetual obligation to react – no
reflection or even Greek phronesis, in other words practical
consideration. This is repressed by mere reflexes in response
to visual stimuli. An omnipresence of images, of icons, which
is ultimately detrimental to the image. The point is not to
look at anything properly. Just react. This of course alters the
apparatus of our consciousness.
EINBLICKE: And obscures the utopian in our everyday lives?
KREUZER:Well there are differing notions as towhat a utopia is.
It was Ernst Blochwho introduced the decisive concept to 20th
century discussion.A utopia is not something, the philosopher
said, that supervenes upon reality in any way. Of course such
utopias also exist, in the formof technical utopias, for instance.
The transport utopias of the 1960s, for example, which make
one shudder just to look at them today.No,what Blochmeant
was that decisive moment: something is happening with me.
I realise that I‘m not satisfied. I want something more. And I
realise that this is not merely a random wanting or planning
or just wishful thinking.
EINBLICKE:What then?
KREUZER:That there is a reason for it, a motivation that leaves
one dissatisfied with what is at hand. In this sense utopia is
not about adding something of one‘s own invention.Utopia is
muchmore about having something as a certainty, something
that is not yet realised – but which determines one‘s actions.
Something as an experience date. It was this that Bloch defi-
ned as "the darkness of the lived moment".
EINBLICKE: Can you give an example?
KREUZER: Everyone knows these moments from childhood.
Ray of Light in a City of Sand
Everyone has gathered them, whether as children or adults: utopias and experiences of happiness. But what role do uto-
pias play in everyday life? Are we still at all aware of them? And what is their philosophical significance? Johann Kreuzer, a
Bloch expert at Oldenburg, discusses a concept that has its roots in reality – yet also goes far beyond it.
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Personal Details
Prof. Dr. Johann Kreuzer,Hochschullehrer für Philosophie an der Uni-
versität Oldenburg, forscht zur Geschichte der Philosophie – neben
Hölderlin und Augustinus bilden Hegel und Adorno Schwerpunkte
– und leitet die Oldenburger Adorno-Forschungsstelle. Er ist Mit-
herausgeber eines Adorno-Handbuchs und Ausgewählter Schriften
von Ernst Bloch. Seit 2010 ist Kreuzer Mitglied des siebenköpfigen
Vorstands der internationalen Hölderlin-Gesellschaft.
Prof. Dr. Johann Kreuzer, Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Oldenburg, conducts research on the history of philosophy with a
focus on Hölderlin and St. Augustine as well as Hegel and Adorno.
He also heads the Adorno Research Centre at Oldenburg. He is co-
editor of an Adorno reader and the selected writings of Ernst Bloch.
Since 2010 Kreuzer has been a member of the seven-member board
of the International Hölderlin Society.