[Sociology] Retrotopia – The urge of going back in time

Around 500 years ago Thomas More, an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist, described the concept of utopia. It is the idea, that people could achieve human happiness in some future state, island or fixed place. The vision was that everything humans try to achieve is done by the romantic idea that it will increase the quality of life for them, and future generations. Oscar Wilde once described progress as utopias, which became reality. This believe was carried over centuries. Especially in the years after the wars in Europe in the 20th century people believed in a better future for them and their children.

However, during the last decade for the first time the concept of utopia in Europe changed. Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish sociologist and one of the world's most eminent social theorists, describes in his new book “Retrotopia” how faith in utopia got lost in recent years. The idea has not died completely but has re-emerged in a new way that todays vision does not focus on the future-to-be-created but the past. He calls this phenomenon retrotopia, the desire to go back in time and live in a better world, which was abandoned by us long time ago. The phenomenon can be clearly witnessed in latest surveys about the future well-being of European citizen as most of them don’t see the world become a better place for their children. Todays generations merely just hope to be able to hold on the the same level of social status in the future. Having lost all faith in the idea of building an alternative society of the future, many turn instead to the grand ideas of the past, buried but not yet dead.

Retrotopia – Zygmunt Bauman