Faustian hope and power: Bataille, Bloch, Habermas

ENThe article discusses the ideas of Bataille and Bloch about the transgressiveness of hope and the role of hope’s energy in the cases of individual and collective actions. A hope is the “not-yet-conscious,” but it is not neutral; it is socially and culturally oriented. There are many forms of expectation, but the article focuses on the Faustian visions that, according to O. Spengler, characterize Western thinking. The principle of hope explored by Bataille, Bloch, and Habermas presupposes that individuals or cultural communities create different fantasies of the future, and turn them into utopias and rational projects of modernization. Faustian hope exists either as a disruptive, cynical desire for the vertical power, or as a narcissistic, even ecstatic practice. The article discusses Faustian hope in the case of the vertical of power and the state of exception.