The Perpetual Itch

Utopia, The Perennial Heresy, by Thomas Molnar. Sheed and Ward, $5.95

PROFESSOR Thomas Molnar, pursuing a study that has_ increasingly dominated his periodical writing, addresses himself in his most recent book to the question of the meaning of utopianism within the total context of Western civilization. Molnar sees utopianism as constituting a perennial temptation to men who would liberate themselves from the wounds of sin, itself a dimension consubstantial with human existence. The dissolution of the personality wrought under the pressure of gnostic utopianism leads to the secularization of religion, to the deification of man, and to the end of philosophy. The perpetual itch to achieve salvation within history causes utopian movements to suppress, with the bayonet if necessary, whatever imperfections they imagine still to exist within the political community. There is, therefore, a direct link between tyranny and _ utopian dreaming, according to the author. Using Teilhard de Chardin as symptomatic of contemporary utopianism, Molnar sees the French visionary aS a man who projected his Omega point as the culmination of history, of a time to be brought to fulfillment through the marriage of love and science. That such a finality not only wounds the fabric of human decency but that it also destroys the inviolable center of human personality Molnar demonstrates brilliantly. Marshalling evidence from Trotsky, Cabet, Hertzka, and Chauncey Thomas, his book brings home to the reader, vividly and _ skilfully, the essential immorality of stretching man upon the Procrustean bed of wish fulfillment.

FW

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Frederick D. Wilhelmsen

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Utopia, The Perennial Heresy, by Thomas Molnar. Sheed and Ward, $5.95

PROFESSOR Thomas Molnar, pursuing a study that has_ increasingly dominated his periodical writing, addresses himself in his most recent book to the question of the meaning of utopianism within the total context of Western civilization. Molnar sees utopianism as constituting a perennial temptation to men who would liberate themselves from the wounds of sin, itself a dimension consubstantial with human existence. The dissolution of the personality wrought under the pressure of gnostic utopianism leads to the secularization of religion, to the deification of man, and to the end of philosophy. The perpetual itch to achieve salvation within history causes utopian movements to suppress, with the bayonet if necessary, whatever imperfections they imagine still to exist within the political community. There is, therefore, a direct link between tyranny and _ utopian dreaming, according to the author. Using Teilhard de Chardin as symptomatic of contemporary utopianism, Molnar sees the French visionary aS a man who projected his Omega point as the culmination of history, of a time to be brought to fulfillment through the marriage of love and science. That such a finality not only wounds the fabric of human decency but that it also destroys the inviolable center of human personality Molnar demonstrates brilliantly. Marshalling evidence from Trotsky, Cabet, Hertzka, and Chauncey Thomas, his book brings home to the reader, vividly and _ skilfully, the essential immorality of stretching man upon the Procrustean bed of wish fulfillment.