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<p>This article takes its starting point from the current high-profile discourse on polycrisis. Futures studies draw on futures literacy and future skills to address questions about how to deal with discontinuous futures. It is proposed that the tension between a&#xa0;(new) legibility of a&#xa0;future world and the provision of competent ways of dealing with it can be made productive through the concept of negative skills. Negative skills encompass recognizing when inaction is necessary and when the limits of a&#xa0;familiar way of dealing with something have been reached. Drawing on the psychoanalytic concepts of avant-coup and empty waiting, the article argues for the necessary handling of emotions that arise from a&#xa0;world whose fundamental coordinates are changing. Against the backdrop of radically changed points of reference in Christian views of apocalypse and salvation since 1800, the authors argue for a&#xa0;distinction between two forms of narrative dealing with emotions: a&#xa0;counterphobic form that leads to splitting, externalization, or hostility and renders the future static in that it strives only for the return of the well-known past, and a&#xa0;tension- and emotion-tolerant form (emotional future-capability) that is capable of turning toward the unknown of a&#xa0;future present in its openness. This is concluded with reflections on utopian thinking.</p>

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The future of utopian narratives: emotional future-capability as a way of dealing with discontinuous times

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年11月20日

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  • Timo Storck,
  • Thomas Meier

摘要

This article takes its starting point from the current high-profile discourse on polycrisis. Futures studies draw on futures literacy and future skills to address questions about how to deal with discontinuous futures. It is proposed that the tension between a (new) legibility of a future world and the provision of competent ways of dealing with it can be made productive through the concept of negative skills. Negative skills encompass recognizing when inaction is necessary and when the limits of a familiar way of dealing with something have been reached. Drawing on the psychoanalytic concepts of avant-coup and empty waiting, the article argues for the necessary handling of emotions that arise from a world whose fundamental coordinates are changing. Against the backdrop of radically changed points of reference in Christian views of apocalypse and salvation since 1800, the authors argue for a distinction between two forms of narrative dealing with emotions: a counterphobic form that leads to splitting, externalization, or hostility and renders the future static in that it strives only for the return of the well-known past, and a tension- and emotion-tolerant form (emotional future-capability) that is capable of turning toward the unknown of a future present in its openness. This is concluded with reflections on utopian thinking.