Abstract

Frederick Turner argues in The Culture of Hope that avant‐garde attitudes have become obsolete, inhibiting, and altogether blind to the creative possibilities of the future, with its new science and technology and triumphant capitalism. Paradoxically, Turner argues, the cultural future involves a regression to a classical spirit, indeed, to traditional modes of representation and a new religiosity. But Turner has sold avant‐garde achievement short, even misrepresented it, however correct his analysis and assessment of its current character. He has also overestimated capitalism and religion, and his paradigm deploys clichés of decadence and renewal in a Manichean struggle. While his hopefulness is admirable, it is tragically inadequate.