Between Utopia and Civil Disobedience. The Question of Violence in Edward Abramowski’s Social and Political Thought

Abstract

The article attempts to examine the problem of violence in Edward Abramowski’s socio-political thought from the perspective of two concepts: utopian thinking, which, according to Karl Popper, inevitably leads to violence, and civil disobedience or an act of resistance to authority that rejects violence in principle. The first part of the article shows how Abramowski’s critique of utopianism shapes his vision of a world devoid of violence, realised step by step through grassroots institutions. The second part, then, is devoted to ‘collective conspiracy against the government’, which, as one of the ways of practising his utopia, allows the struggle for national liberation. Ultimately, it seems that the rejection of violence puts Abramowski closer to piecemeal engineering than to a utopian one, while his social vision fits into Popper’s concept of open society.