It is not without reason that advocacy for political utopias is often scorned, dismissed outright, or simply denounced as a manifestation of naïveté (or even infantilism). The argument typically boils down to this: those who plead for such utopian models of society are, so the accusation goes, merely chasing phantasms, which appear impracticable in light of the prevailing social, political, and institutional conditions.

When Marx, in his Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, points out that the demand to relinquish illusions about one’s own condition (for Marx: one’s class position) amounts to a demand to give up a condition which itself requires illusions, he of course has in mind a critique of religion – culminating in the famous dictum that religion is to be regarded as the “opium of the people.” Religion, Marx argues, ensures that people – put succinctly – are pacified, thereby preventing them from becoming aware of the unjust structural conditions of a capitalist system defined by exploitation. In other words: the capitalist social system engenders a condition which, for its own maintenance, requires religious illusions. Marx thus concludes consistently that “[…] religious misery is at the same time the expression of real misery […]”[i] In short: a symptom of the capitalist system, within which many seek a metaphysical refuge in order to – at least psychologically – escape their own circumstances.

So far, this is the conventional interpretation of Marx’s argumentation as developed in the Philosophy of Right. A closer analysis of Marx’s quotation, however, raises further and no less relevant questions: Does there exist any condition that does not require illusions at all? Regardless of whether the exploitative dynamics of capitalism have been overcome or not?

Jacques Lacan’s statement that those who believe they have fallen for no illusion or deception are, in fact, subject to the deepest error – “Les non-dupes errent”[ii]– aptly captures the point that illusions must be understood as an inseparable aspect of human life itself, and that a state free of illusions cannot, in the final analysis, exist.

Returning to Marx’s dictum: the question should not ultimately be how to realize a social condition that is not dependent on the illusions of the subjects living within it. Rather, the question is to what extent the illusions necessary to sustain an original social condition can be replaced by new illusions.

This leads directly to the core issue to be unfolded here: instead of striving for an imagined state free of all illusion, the focus – particularly with respect to socio-political matters – should be on how regressive illusions might be replaced by progressive ones.

By regressive illusions – this constitutes one of my central theses – I mean those in which there exists, as Marx already made clear, a dialectic between expression and rebellion. More concretely: social critique based on regressive illusions does not abolish the grievances it targets but instead tends to reinforce them. This can be explained by the fact that the impulse underlying regressive forms of illusion, though directed against a present experienced as deficient, in its logic typically yearns backwards. With his concept of retrotopia, Zygmunt Bauman[iii] aptly captured how contemporary social critique can be shaped by such regressive tendencies: in the face of an overwhelming present, people project their hopes not onto utopias – a possible non-place in the future – but onto what Bauman terms retrotopias: an allegedly better, harmonious place that allegedly once existed in the past. The regressive moment in such illusions lies precisely in assuming that such a harmonious state ever truly existed. Such illusions, it must be added, can be found both on the political right and the left. Ultimately, the mechanism of regressive illusions is defined by the fact that existing social relations of power and domination remain untouched.

While this retrotopian longing manifests quite overtly in right-conservative circles as a desire for a return, within left-progressive movements it typically appears less as a conscious wish and more as an unconscious logic underlying their own political projects – thereby also stabilizing (or even reinforcing) existing relations of power and domination. In short: what may at first glance appear progressive (at least in its form) often carries profoundly regressive implications at its core. The much-proclaimed identity politics of the left (though the term “left” itself could be debated at length) constitutes one example among many. Instead of embodying the universalist ideal of equality (which from a genuinely progressive standpoint should extend to all human beings), it reproduces tribalistic logics that again reduce individuals to specific and isolated identities.

An even clearer example can be observed in the phenomenon of “woke capitalism,” or – as Nancy Fraser once aptly put it – progressive neoliberalism.[iv] Recently, coinciding with Donald Trump’s increasingly authoritarian second term, Jeff Bezos – billionaire owner of both Amazon and the Washington Post – announced a drastic measure:[v] from now on the Washington Post would be restricted to covering only two themes: personal freedom and free markets. Instead of dismissing this act of censorship outright (though one certainly could), it is worth taking a step further and recognizing that Bezos’s regressive decision follows a fundamental logic that paradigmatically represents a regressive illusion – albeit, as is often the case with regressive illusions, clothed in progressive guise.

Put differently: the basic mechanism underlying Bezos’s censorship decision is the same one underlying seemingly more progressive phenomena such as “woke” capitalism. Whether a corporation adopts so-called progressive or regressive stances, what ultimately matters is the smooth functioning of the company itself and the safeguarding of profits. It suffices to recall that only in 2020 Bezos launched the Bezos Earth Fund, pledging $10 billion to combat climate change. Yet here too, as Carl Rhodes astutely points out[vi], it is not a genuinely progressive concern at play, but an instrumental calculation serving corporate interests, just as with the decision concerning the Washington Post.

This illustrates paradigmatically why both “woke capitalism” and Bezos’s curtailment of the Post represent two sides of the same coin: regressive illusions that ultimately strengthen and cement the power of profit-driven corporations themselves.

But how, then, can progressive illusions be developed? In other words: what may be considered constitutive of progressive illusions? The impetus should be to reconsider what Horkheimer once termed “social totality.” In Traditional and Critical Theory, Horkheimer emphasizes how the traditional theorist (in contrast to the critical theorist) contributes to stabilizing existing structures of power. As Horkheimer puts it:

“The scholar and his science are incorporated into the apparatus of society; his achievements are a factor in the conservation and continuous renewal of the existing state of affairs, no matter what fine names he gives to what he does. His knowledge and results, it is expected, will correspond to their proper “concept,” that is, they must constitute theory in the sense described above. In the social division of labor the savant’s role is to integrate facts into conceptual frameworks and to keep the latter up-todate so that he himself and all who use them may be masters of the widest possible range of facts. Experiment has the scientific role of establishing facts in such a way that they fit into theory as currently accepted.”[vii]

A careful reading of Horkheimer permits the conclusion that regressive illusions are primarily an epistemological problem – and that progressive political practice must first address this epistemological issue. What distinguishes the critical theorist is precisely recognition of their own entanglement within structures of power: that is, the inevitability of illusions. Put differently: progressive illusions differ from regressive ones in that they do not attempt to force facts into compliance with a given concept (a fixed social order) but instead seek to transform the very concept – and thereby social circumstances themselves. Of course, this cannot be regarded as a wholly illusion-free undertaking, since transforming existing condition (even driven by progressive intent) still depends on a set of beliefs.

With Adorno, one might add that regressive illusions consist precisely in their inability to acknowledge the objective contradictions of what exists. In Negative Dialectics, for instance, Adorno underscores how the contradiction within the concept of freedom is already embedded in the concept itself. As soon as one attempts to apply the abstraction of freedom to the concreteness of social reality, the contradiction becomes evident. The incomplete realization of freedom within society – for example, because poverty prevents many from realizing freedom’s promise – stands in contradiction to freedom’s abstract and idealist claims.

As Adorno writes:

“The concept of freedom lags behind itself as soon as we apply it empirically. It is not what it says, then. But because it must always be also the concept of what it covers, it is to be confronted with what it covers. Such confrontation forces it to contradict itself.”[viii]

The inevitability of such contradictions – which can provoke discomfort in the subject and thus open the possibility of social progress – is not acknowledged by the regressive element underlying certain illusions. Regressive illusions cultivate a worldview marked by avoidance of contradiction. To return once more to “woke capitalism”: here too the contradiction between abstraction and concreteness fully emerges. In abstraction, the adjective announces an awakening to all forms of social injustice. Yet the substantive reality it clashes with persists: an economic system that generates those injustices in the first place. It is this contradiction that “woke capitalism” cannot acknowledge – and therein lies precisely the regressive element at its core.

Notes:

[i] Marx, K & Engels, F. Werke-Band 1. 1981, p. 379. Dietz-Verlag: Berlin. https://marx-wirklich-studieren.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/mew_band01.pdf  (translated from German to English).

[ii] Lacan, J. Les Non-Dupes Errent. 1974, p. 1.  http://www.lacaninireland.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Book-21-Les-Non-Dupes-Errent-Part-1.pdf

[iii] Bauman, Z. Retrotopia. 2017. Suhrkamp-Verlag: Berlin https://www.suhrkamp.de/buch/zygmunt-bauman-retrotopia-t-9783518073315

[iv] Fraser, N. From Progressive Neoliberalism to Trump—and Beyond. 2017. American Affairs. https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/11/progressive-neoliberalism-trump-beyond/

[v] Sullivan, M. Jeff Bezos is muzzling the Washington Post’s opinion section. That’s a death knell. 2025. The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/26/jeff-bezos-washington-post-opinion

[vi] Rhodes, C. Why progressive gestures from big business aren’t just useless – they’re dangerous. 2021. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/28/progressive-gestures-big-business-useless-dangerous

[vii] Horkheimer, M. Traditional and Critical Theory. 2002, p. 196. Continuum: New York. https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/critique1313/files/2019/09/Horkheimer-Traditional-and-Critical-Theory-2.pdf

[viii] Adorno, T.W. Negative Dialectics. 1973, p. 151. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd: London. https://platypus1917.org/wp-content/uploads/adorno_negativedialectics.pdf