There are many signs that seem to confirm we are living through a profound crisis, marked by threats of catastrophe and civilizational regression. Our contemporary world is beset by multiple cataclysms: ecological, social, economic, geopolitical, demographic, and psychological, all associated with increased dispossession, the rise of authoritarian tendencies, the normalization of violence, and armed conflict. The logic of capitalist operation appears to have exhausted its capacity to confront and resolve these crises, establishing a new normal that points to a kind of “uneven and combined apocalypse.” 

Given this scenario, the question arises: how do we confront it? In the mid-20th century, authors such as Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno conceived of history as a “permanent catastrophe,” while Günther Anders spoke of a “time of the end.” For them, catastrophe was not a future threat, but a present reality that, if left unchecked, would intensify until it led to annihilation. Their diagnoses regarding the transformation of subjectivity, the self-destructive logic of self-preservation, and the domination of nature seem more relevant today than ever. 

“But where there is danger / there also grows that which saves us,” wrote Hölderlin, in a verse quoted by Benjamin. Does this maxim still hold true? If catastrophe has become the normal mode of reproduction of the capitalist order, the task of critical theory cannot be limited to mapping threats, but must also seek out traces of possibility, mobilizing energies capable of breaking the civilizational inertia that exacerbates the crisis. 

What could constitute a utopian impulse today that prevents us from resigning ourselves to what seems inevitable and that can connect with elements capable of averting the consummation of catastrophe? How, ultimately, can we understand today the links between catastrophe, critique, and utopia without denying the gravity of what threatens us or offering merely speculative solutions? 

Lecture given by Jordi Maiso.

Image credits: adapted from Armer Engel, 1939 – Paul Klee.