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Article: Utopia: no Garden of Eden. (Trends).(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Sojourners Magazine
- Article date:
- July 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Sojourners. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Have you ever noticed how much of our political language relies on binary logic? "Binary what?" you say--think the North and South Pole.
Here's an axiom that's half a binary pair: Before making an appeal for political action, describe a moment when the problem did not exist, at least in the form or to the degree it does now. Creating this mental space will then enable people to make progress by looking backward, effectively re-creating a past social order.
Alternative to axiom one: Promise freedom and justice in a world that is yet to come. Although here and now life is alienated, the future will break into history and transform what we have here into an ...