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This paper problematises the justification of ‘postist’ revisions of humanism. In the first part of the paper, a line of thought that persistently marks the self-perception of man is presented. It stretches from Plato, through Pico della Mirandola and Kant, all the way to existentialism and philosophical anthropology in the twentieth century. In it, man is understood as chronically deficient in their own ‘nature’ or ‘essence’, and his privileged status is built from this rootlessness. The second part of the paper is dedicated to the relationship of transhumanism and critical posthumanism to humanism. Transhumanism is found to harmoniously continue and/or radicalise the humanist project of self-creating and self-transcending man, while critical posthumanism advocates a rethinking and redescription of man in view of what are considered to have been the disastrous consequences of humanism: a transgression in relation to everything different from man by anthropomorphising it and anthropocentrically measuring it against himself. The concluding part of the paper detects a certain arbitrariness in the understanding of humanism by its critics, reminds that even within such a broadly understood humanism, critical moments have been inherited as its own content and corrective, and that announcements of radical cuts and ruptures with the humanistic tradition are perhaps redundant. It is also noted that something non-negligible has changed with the contemporary challenges of technoscience – artificial intelligence, informatics, robotics –but it is contested that this change in social history requires a cardinal rejection, change or neglect of the intellectual heritage that enables responses to it and/or a rational dispute about it. A synoptic overview of humanist landmarks and their post-humanist condemnations is suggested, which would respect the heritage of humanist thought and the right or even the obligation built into it of its critical review.

The theme of this paper is the relationship to „others“ – other civilizations and cultures in the history of Earth, and other species and different forms of life in science fiction. The analysis of Star Trek series and films shows that, despite considerable endeavor to adopt „multiculturalism“ as a principle, and despite a conscious effort to respect and celebrate diversity, „colonial narrative“ remains in force in the popular science fiction visions of the future. Fear and/or violence are typical reactions that (un)hiddenly repeats the pattern of our thinking of otherness and treatment of different ones whenever it comes to aliens, whether they are foreigners or extraterrestrials.

The main question of this article is why imagine other worlds. In addition to shedding light on the motivation, we also examine the imaginative processes, their resources and the associative arrangements available to imagination in the construction of new worlds. We see ‘other worlds’ as both utopian and as fantastic spaces, following the hypothesis that the space of fantasy is never entirely free. We place particular emphasis on the space and time of utopia, and on the aspect of the novelty. The paper is divided into four parts. The first takes into account the path to the other world, or the methodical problem of imagination. The second wants to portray the other world, or the limitations to imagining something entirely different and new. The third part inquires about the cost of utopian thinking: what is lost in the process, what is sacrificed to its flattening gestures? Finally, despite all these limitations, in the fourth part we consider the significance of utopian thought for social theory.

У првом делу рада аутор проблематизује потребу дефинисања жанра научне фантастике, излажући аргументе савремених теоретичара који су уверени у неуспех досадашњих покушаја да се то учини. Та настојања се потом представљају кроз ликове карактеристичних представника два приступа дефинисању научне фантастике: историјског и формалистичког. Налази се да историјски приступ не нуди конклузивно одређење тог жанра већ пре, напротив, безобално шири његове границе. У формалистичком приступу запажа се спор тумача који стављају нагласак на одредницу науке и оних који радије потенцирају фикцију приликом покушаја дистинктивног одређења научнофантастичног жанра. У завршном делу рада указује се на могућност помирења фантастике с науком сагледавањем научне фантастике као весника научних открића: научнофантастична пракса може се засновано интегрисати у науку и њену историју уколико се уклоне „сцијентистичка“ и „креативистичка“ предубеђења која томе стоје на путу. Закључак рада сугерише да то помирење није оправдано, интегрисање још мање, уколико укида антагонистичку, али продуктивну напетост научних факата и књижевне фикције.

The theme of this paper is the relationship to „others“ – other civilizations and cultures in the history of Earth, and other species and different forms of life in science fiction. The analysis of Star Trek series and films shows that, despite considerable endeavor to adopt „multiculturalism“ as a principle, and despite a conscious effort to respect and celebrate diversity, „colonial narrative“ remains in force in the popular science fiction visions of the future. Fear and/or violence are typical reactions that (un)hiddenly repeats the pattern of our thinking of otherness and treatment of different ones whenever it comes to aliens, whether they are foreigners or extraterrestrials.

U tekstu se polazi od pitanja zbog čega se zamišljaju drugi svetovi. Pored motiva za zamišljanje, pažnja se posvećuje samom procesu zamišljanja, resursima i asocijativnim sklopovima koji su dostupni zamišljanju u izgradnji svetova koji se od našeg razlikuju. „Druge svetove“ određujemo i kao utopiju i kao prostor fantazije, rukovodeći se hipotezom da taj prostor nikada nije u potpunosti slobodan. Poseban naglasak stavljamo na prostor i vreme utopije, kao i na dimenziju novog. Tekst je podeljen u četiri celine, od kojih se prva bavi motivom za fantaziju; druga razmatra moć mašte i ograničenja zamišljanja; treća u svom središtu ima „cenu“ fantazije, potiranje složenosti postojećeg sveta. U četvrtom se delu razmatra značaj utopijskog mišljenja za društvenu teoriju.

Tema ovog teksta je odnos prema jednoj posebnoj klasi „drugih“. Dok su u zemnoj istoriji u pitanju bile druge civilizacije i kulture, u naučnoj fantastici je po pravilu reč o drugim vrstama i drugačijim oblicima života. Na primeru serija i filmova Zvezdanih staza pokazuje se da, uprkos značajnom naporu da se „multukulturalizam“ usvoji kao vlastito načelo i uprkos svesnom nastojanju da se poštuje i slavi različitost, „kolonijalni narativ“ ostaje na snazi i u vizijama budućnosti popularne naučne fantastike. Strah i/ili nasilje su tipske reakcije koje manje ili više (ne)skriveno ponavljaju obrazac našeg mišljenja drugosti i postupanja prema drugačijama kad god je reč o tuđinama, bilo da su oni stranci ili vanzemaljci.