Utopia and Reality

Abstract

The antithesis of utopia and reality – a balance always swinging towards and away from equilibrium and never completely attaining it – is a fundamental antithesis revealing itself in many forms of thought. The two methods of approach – the inclination to ignore what was and what is in contemplation of what should be, and the inclination to deduce what should be from what was and what is – determine opposite attitudes towards every political problem. ‘It is the eternal dispute’, as Albert Sorel puts it, ‘between those who imagine the world to suit their policy, and those who arrange their policy to suit the realities of the world.’¹ It may be suggestive to elaborate this antithesis before proceeding to an examination of the current crisis of international politics.