Facs
Transcript
half-consciously alive: not “What shall we do?” (I think this question belongs to 20 years ago also), but the question “How could the state of disintegration, the state of dehumanization, the state of becoming into an object, which threatens everybody today, how can this be overcome? Is there a picture of a state of society which, differs from our presently given society and which nevertheless does not have the character of utopia?” Utopia means: to do just what I called legalistic socialism or legalistic pacifism. But there is a possibility of the ultimate present in all cultural realms without transforming the culture in terms of a utopian ideal which, as such, never can be actualized in time and space, and which therefore leads (and I can speak in this year [1956] of 70 years of experience, from my first year of life on) [1886] [smiling] – the result is always metaphysical disappointment! Every utopia had this consequence, that after a certain time it will be revealed in its erroneous character; one will see that one had believed in a wrong god, and had tried to avoid what Christianity symbolizes in the Cross.
Now if this is so, then a culture which is neither utopian nor cynical – these are the two things – which neither leaves things go according to the power structures, nor believes in a fulfillment in time and space – could be called a theonomous structure. This word is derived from theos (God) and nomos (law). The word theonomy is in parallelism to two other words: autonomy (from autos, being oneself the law to oneself), and heteronomy (from heteros, strange, foreign, outside, a law which doesn’t come from inside but from outside). Religion – and this