Which line do you yourself see in your way of critical thinking?
'I have never shied away from going against my own little clubs. This started early on in the field of development aid in which I was active myself, I warned about the moralising tone. Or, a few weeks ago I was in Bremen for a commemorative weekend for the cultural critic Ivan Illich, my teacher, who died last year. He was remembered there as a guru, while I also had some critical notes. But those were not heard at all.'
You would prefer being critical to being loyal?
'You can only be loyal if you are also critical, is my idea. I would hate it if people would not be critical towards me. Anyway, if I am critical of development aid it does not mean that I do not like these people. I care more about them then about people who do nothing at all.'
Did you swallow your criticism of technology when you became attached to the UT? 'No, not at all. But some people want to go back to a better time and glorify the past. Technology can do much, for worse, but also for better. I am less negative about technical then about social utopias, as the latter always show violent and totalitarian tendencies.'
You do not want to glorify the past, but are also critical of thinking in utopias. What else is there?
'I think that cultural criticism should not appeal to the past, everything used to be better, but also not to utopias, creating a blueprint for another society. We are in the present. I am not nostalgic for another society.'
Does that make you an optimist?
'Well, that is not the right word. Call me anti-pessimistic. I immediately contradict people who think defeatist. I cannot believe that everything will go wrong. I have children and grandchildren, I speak to young students daily. Those stories of doom and decline cannot be true.'
And yet, in your speech at the prize ceremony you speak of a tough new Iron Age we live in.
'What I mean is this. The one percent richest people on the planet own more than sixty percent of the world population. We live in a tough time with many inequalities and injustices. We have to focus on this in cultural criticism, without losing ourselves in past times or in a utopia.'
What will the 5,000 euro you won be spent on?
'I would like to publish a Dutch translation of the last book of Illich. I did not forget how much I owe him. I dedicate this prize to him. But I would also like to thank all my students for their input and discussions.'
Transl. DvA
