Utopia as compensation for secularization.

This article examines the historical relationship between ideology and utopia/utopianism, arguing that modern utopianism functions as a compensation for the loss of the unified, cosmologically grounded ideology once provided by the late medieval Christian Church. It situates this claim within debates on the secularization thesis, which links modernization to secularization but has been revised to emphasize "existential security" as a key factor influencing religiosity and political ideology. The article contrasts the centralized, religiously unified ideology of late medieval Europe with the pluralistic, marketized political ideologies of modernity, highlighting how utopia emerged as a necessary political tool to offer competing visions of the future in a secularized context. Drawing on and revising Fredric Jameson's theory, it contends that utopia serves both pacifying and mobilizing functions within ideology, reflecting enduring human desires for hope and redemption under changing historical conditions.