[599] 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^a 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^b. But there is a possibility of the ultimate^c present in all cultural realms without transforming the culture^d in terms of a utopian ideal which, as such, never can be actualized in time ^eand 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^f 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,^g and had tried to avoid what Christianity^h symbolizes in the Crossⁱ. Now if this is so, then a culture^j which is neither utopian nor cynical--these are the two things--which neither leaves things go according to the power^k structures, nor believes in a fulfillment in time^l and space--could be called a THEONOMOUS structure. This word is derived from theos (God) and nomos (law). The word theonomy^m is in parallelism to two other words: autonomyⁿ (from autos, being oneself the law to oneself), and heteronomy^o (from heteros, strange, foreign, outside, a law which doesn’t come from inside but from outside). Religion--and this