Strategies for avoiding misfortune


Where political philosophy, neurology and aesthetic theory astonishingly all insist on dismissing conscious, controlled action and causal action as naive, more and more people are nevertheless demanding the right to the working hypothesis that, by acting, we can, if not find happiness, then at least develop strategies for avoiding misfortune.

Our rescue attempt oscillates between pragmatism and utopia, and the modesty of the formulation does not imply making do, but rather the pragmatic will not to be held back by fundamental disputes concerning a far, far distant future.

So what new scenarios of social reality can we conceive? How can we change our environment, even if we cannot really know whether it will be for the better? What is the goal, what is the vision?

Strategies for avoiding misfortune; a cautious metaphor for the consciously sceptical belief in the possibilities of action. Action between image and deed, post-ironic but not un-ironic, active but not activistic. A Kantian duty without the protestant seriousness, pathos as an everyday reality.

Such strategies focus on a productive attitude that does not abandon the power of a utopia but nevertheless bears aspects of feasibility in mind. There is an action between pragmatism and utopia that shapes our everyday life, that creates public spheres and sometimes saves the world a bit.