If There Is No Day After Tomorrow

“It is forbidden to dream again;

We maim our joys or hide them:

Horses are made of chromium steel

And little fat men shall ride them.

I am the worm who never turned,

The eunuch without a harem;

Between the priest and the commissar

I walk like Eugene Aram;

And the commissar is telling my fortune

While the radio plays,

But the priest has promised an Austin Seven,

For Duggie always pays.

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,

And woke to find it true;

I wasn’t born for an age like this;

Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?”

(Orwell 2022, 87)

If there is no day after tomorrow, there are no ideologies, no faith, no morals, no substance. The “today” is superficial; its goal is immediate. The obvious absurdity of a better future is the forerunner of intellectual poverty, perhaps intellectual erosion itself. 

The conservatives of the 20th century wanted to salvage the virtues of the old world, and the socialists sought to secure the justice of a new world for future generations. They believed in the possibility of shaping the world. Mass (labour) movements could never have emerged if their leaders¹, ideologists, and intellectual circles had been constantly micromanaging the problems of “today”. It is impossible to speak about societal change and worldviews without a vision of the future. It is utopia and dreaming that fill the largest sail of society’s boat.

In our age, it is “today” that rules. We hardly even close our eyes; dreaming is not only a waste of time, but perhaps sheer foolishness. Drawing plans of the distant future in the shadow of global climate change is the height of dilettantism. Uncontrollable private capital, paralysing globalisation, and the crushing waves of the information shit-tsunami have not only rendered political action impossible but also made it ridiculous. Who hopes for change is a lunatic - and we cannot be lunatics. Those who believe in science and grasp the weight of the coming catastrophe would be confronted by their own unscientificness, were they to act up². The future of human civilisation and with it any alternative³ to capitalism has been abolished, carpet-bombed, entombed in concrete, and a shopping mall was built on top of it. Today, everybody can buy whatever they want in it. Tomorrow, only that which will remain. 

In The Life of a Man, Lajos Kassák⁴  and Jolán Simon⁵  converse as follows, while sitting on the benches of the Budapest Zoo at the turn of the millennium (1900s):

“[J.S.] – It is right, how you speak. Very right. But after all, these are still only words, and life is getting ever harder to endure. What would happen to us if, for once, we thought seriously of our tomorrow and the day after tomorrow?

[L.K.] – We may helplessly crumble. But it is good that we live so deeply embedded in today. Always in today, which carries us over to tomorrow. We stay in the present, and so this intensity of life gives us the strength to keep on living. We do not despair because we have no time to despair.”⁶  (Kassák 1974, 744)

Kassák and Simon retreat to today to escape the hopelessness of the day after tomorrow. The desire to act in the present is what carries them forward. Their sense of the day after tomorrow, as workers part of the Hungarian socialist movement, was vastly different from the way we can imagine the future today. Although their lives on the personal level were hopeless, the collective future was bright. The cathartic vision of the revolution, the workers’ associations’ growing membership and the utopia of equality gave meaning to living in today. Individual work and development make sense in the light of the collective vision. The canon’s continuity is an anchor in time. Everybody contributes a rivet to humanity’s ship. The meaningfulness of the grand construction lies in the fact that just like our grandfathers did, our grandchildren will also take part in the monumental DIY. The makeshift ship of society will never be finished, but once it shall sail.

However, things have changed. The Danube dries up, the rivets run out. We no longer dream, and no plans are drawn up for a new Tatlin’s Tower⁷. While our collective future dwindles, all hurry to shelter their own individual future amidst the great drought. The gardeners cultivating their own garden⁸ content themselves with replacing apple trees first with raspberry bushes, then with cacti. The world falls apart into individual stories instead of collective visions.

“When used as a political communication technique, storytelling does not convey a political vision that reaches into the future and provides meaning and orientation. Genuine political narratives open up a perspective on a new order of things; they paint pictures of possible worlds. Today, we singularly lack such hopeful narratives of the future. We lurch from one crisis to the next. Politics is reduced to problem solving.”⁹ (Han 2024, 57)

Ideologies and collective visions give moral content to life. Morality has, beyond its intrinsic value, a distinguished role in sustaining societal coexistence. A moral philosophy that has a “day after tomorrow” is fundamentally different from one that does not. “Liberating” a moral framework from the obligation to address the day after tomorrow leads to a radical decrease in solidarity. The more conscious we are of the effects of our decisions on others – not just individuals, but on masses, both present and future – the more we care for our common affairs, for our “public park”. However, knowing that after us comes only the “flood”¹⁰, we may well be caught installing phallic golden fountains in our increasingly barren garden instead of building Tatlin’s Tower. Moreover, the dry flood that follows us is indifferent not only to the values of the future, but also to those of the past. In the all-powerful present that reigns without utopia, the accumulated knowledge, art, and treasures of the past hold no value. At most, the cactus-gardeners of our age can make use of their commodified versions.

What then shall the public park gardener–shipbuilder, drowning in this awful catachresis¹¹, do? We have already dismissed the two extremes, the far ends of the spectrum: engaging in the hopeless and futile battle for the collective good on the one hand, and the selfish cultivation of private gardens as an individual solution on the other. The former is rendered impossible by the climate catastrophe brought about by victorious globalised capitalism, while the individualistic “cultivate our gardens” response is socially irresponsible. In our jolly situation, the only somewhat viable solution I see is to expand and inhabit the space between these two positions. Between the grand communal utopias and the private gardens lies the possibility of partial self-determination of small- and medium-sized communities. The partial withdrawal from society opens up the space for a paradigm shift, for rewriting the existing canon and the creation of a parallel one. This loosens, to some extent, the constraints of a society without a “day after tomorrow”. The small community’s past seems shorter, and its future longer. Thus, each rivet driven into the common ship feels more significant. This creates a sense of belonging and a role for the individual. The solidarity felt towards the small community fills everyday life with moral content (admittedly less than if solidarity were directed toward society as a whole, yet likely more substantive). Dreaming up utopias once again becomes meaningful, as the significance and effectiveness of every act within the small community are more substantive, tangible and real than in society as a whole.

So all hands on deck, shovels and hammers at the ready, although before us the flood, after us comes only the catachresis.

To be continued in issue no. 3 of Cross-Cover Magazine. 

Notes:

1: Who made numerous mistakes, sometimes even historical crimes

2: It is not my intention to detail the effects of climate catastrophe and unsustainable “development” in this essay; there are countless studies on the subject that provide ample cause for horror – being horrified is precisely what I am doing here.  

3: “There is no alternative” – Neoliberal (an extremely pro-market political ideology that emerged in the 1970s and sought to dismantle the state), a campaign slogan primarily associated with Margaret Thatcher.

4: Lajos Kassák (1887-1967) was a socialist and avant-garde writer, poet, painter, and locksmith. He was the husband of Jolán Simon.

5: Jolán Simon (1885-1938) was a socialist actress, performer, and factory worker. She was the wife of Lajos Kassák.

6: Translation by the author.

7: Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953) was a Russian/Soviet avant-garde and constructivist architect and painter. Tatlin’s Tower, the (unbuilt) Monument to the Third International, commemorates both the victorious revolution and the future under construction, the centre of the Communist International (Őze 2024).

8: The conclusion of Voltaire’s Candide: “We must cultivate our garden!”

9: Translation by Daniel Steuer.

10: “Après nous, le déluge!” – „After us, the flood!” King Louis XV of France (1710–1774) (or his mistress) is said to have reacted thus to the deteriorating situation of the empire.

11: Use of a forced and especially paradoxical figure of speech (Meriam-Webster)