Some people treat “utopian” as a term of abuse. Not me. I don’t go along with the foes of art who act like totalitarianism is just around the corner whenever someone starts pointing out that since we ourselves have made our worlds into hells then we could unmake them and remake them, kinder and better.
Because we could. We make choices. We could make better ones.
We just don’t. I believe this was Adorno’s point when he said that what gets in the way of utopia is “possibility,” not reality. All that lies between this “unspeakable world that is” and that gleaming alabaster cities one is all our unrealized potential – our sins of omission.
The Church doesn’t have the original utopian vision, but it has a good one. Which it nurtures, on purpose. It’s hard to diss utopia when you’ve had “a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.”
Those better choices have to start somewhere.
By the grace of God.
We had great music yesterday, too.
Image: “The Artist’s Garden in Argenteuil (A Corner of the Garden with Dahlias),” Claude Monet, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Matters of Interpretation 