Abstract

Bartosz Kuźniarz

Where goest thou, Truman? On the Secret Life of Modern Utopia

The essay takes a closer look at one of the "antinomies of postmodernity", distinguished by Fredric Jameson in his 1994 book The Seeds of Time. Times after the fall of communism have witnessed a tremendous revival of anti-utopian thinking, ranging from the Eastern European lustration frenzy up to the western revisions of the French Revolution period. Jameson shows that the strongest arguments against utopia are in fact utopian arguments them­selves. For example, the neoliberal, free market ideology — which denounces all forms of social planning, calling for a pure form of the market — despite its scientific outlook, backed by the authority of economics, hinges in reality on the utopian nostalgia for a perfect social order. The widespread anti-utopian mentality is dependent upon secretly provided utopian gratifications. Anti-utopian fears of the consequences of social projects are camouflage for a dif­ferent kind of utopia at work in the contemporary world society. The essay shows this specific (anti-)utopian entanglement of modern man through the example of Paul Weir's "Truman Show". Truman escapes the artificial, ster­ile, simulated conditions of Sea Haven in order to become part of the reality which the western audience perceives as decent, normal, free and livable. On the other hand, this "emancipating" gesture conceals the fact that the scenario from which Truman escapes is in "real life" the very epitome of the global, postmodern, capitalist order.