my motto
the motto of the blog is taken from the refrain of the title song of Xavier Naidoo’s latest album. the first sentence identifies a space of possibilities for the improvement of the human condition hic et nunc (my translation: “everything can get better, let’s bring heaven down to earth”). the second sentence reassures us that we might take a moral responsibility for realising possibilities for the good (“everything ought to get better, let’s bring heaven down to earth”). and the last sentence provides us with the synthesis: we act according to the responsibility, and we are confident (“everything will get better, we bring heaven down to earth”).
i understand these lines as a call for working towards the realisation of philosopher Ernst Bloch’s not-yet.
this message seems, at a first glance, in sharp contrast to Karl R. Popper’s well-known criticism. but Popper’s criticism holds only for utopianism that does not take into account missing possibilities for realisation – not for Bloch’s concrete utopia that is anchored firmly in the hic et nunc.
i like Xavier Naidoo’s songs. in particular, i like his song “Gib Dich Nicht Auf” (my translation: “Don’t give up yourself”). in that lyrics Xavier Naidoo asks you not to deprive yourself of your dreams when more and more swapping them for commodities you don’t need. this reminds me of the criticism of the consumer society en vogue among the generation of 1968 in which i grew up. thinking of the gadgets icts provide us with today this criticism is still timely.