Irony and the Double Normativity of Utopia

Abstract

This contribution explores the normative dimension of utopias, broadly understood as narratives that prefigure perfect worlds, in which every trace of injustice disappears and a precise idea of good society is realised. By investigating the normativity of utopia, the fundamental role of irony will emerge. Irony is not only an essential attitude in utopian thought with respect to the reality of existing ethical-political relations, but is also a relativising attitude within the very models proposed by the different utopias. First, drawing on Rainer Forst’s thematisation of the double normativity of irony, I explore the first level of the normativity of utopia. Secondly, I examine the second level of the normativity of utopia. In fact, according to Forst, irony does not only turn outwards. This aspect constitutes a first level of normativity that could be defined as ‘diagnostic’, which can be fully placed within a typically theoretical-critical method. The ironic posture, on the contrary, also turns inwards, that is, towards the proposed utopia itself. Third, I point out that the ironic side of utopian thought is linked to criticism towards naive conceptions of progress that delude humans into the idea of a possible perfection.