A society that realizes sphere autonomy and hinges around the nonserving value spheres can be called Cartesian modernity, as it follows Cartesian rationality. If it is a utopia, at least it escapes the reproach of being another effort of bestowing happiness on mankind, because unlike the classic utopias it does not aim at happiness. If we are Cartesian selfs, a broad spectrum of autonomous value spheres is just what people tend to produce. If it presents our nature rather than a utopia, we can expect it to already exist somehow. Actually, this is the case, because modern society is differentiated into the spheres I have described, even though in an imperfect form.

Are there chances that it can be more perfectly realized? Popper hoped the victory of the Allies against Hitler would be the victory of the open against the closed society, but it was not. The closed society threatens modernity more than ever before. It appears today in two forms: as religious fundamentalism and as the authoritarian power state. Both forms are symptoms of the sickness of the liberal state. The liberal state is a conceptual contradiction. The liberal core idea of equal liberty demands to shrink the state to a justice enforcement institution, which the state has never been; even the liberals have expected it to promote the interests of the inhabitants of its territory.