The Revolution: Past Society and Culture?

[cowslayer]

I have been wondering; for a revolution to fully be successful, wouldn't we have to create an entire new culture of which new social relations would be based off of?

I might just be talking out of my ass, but it seems that a major hindrance to past socialist and even just general political revolutions in which the form of government was radically changed, was that the culture of the previous society was intertwined with the expected social aspects as well as economic aspects. (i.e. In the degraded capitalist society of today, it seems that celebrities have more political influence on the public than the politicians themselves).



What do you think people of RevLeft? For a revolution to truly be accepted en masse, would we have to create an entire new culture?

I ask this because I am fascinated by the French Revolution and the Jacobins tried to create an entirely new French culture with new week days, new holidays, new music, etc.

[Savage]

Do you just mean culture that is the direct result of right-wing attitudes? Creating an 'entirely new culture' if such a thing were possible, would not be at all necessary, the art of the capitalist world is not a reactionary force that will seek to reinstate private monopolies after the socialist apocalypse.

[el_chavista]

for a revolution to fully be successful, wouldn't we have to create an entire new culture of which new social relations would be based off of?

New social relations emerge from within the old systems. Consider, for instance, the free software as a communist product.
I think culture was proven to be beyond ideology.


i.e. In the degraded capitalist society of today, it seems that celebrities have more political influence on the public than the politicians themselves

Never the less, entertainment industry support the cultural hegemony of the bourgeoisie. I suspect that in Latin America some artists are helped to become celebrities by political interests of the transnational mass media.


I ask this because I am fascinated by the French Revolution and the Jacobins tried to create an entirely new French culture with new week days, new holidays, new music, etc.

By the same token, "socialist realistic art" or attempts to create a new socialist culture like the orchestras without directors in the URSS were a misleading "class" approach to culture.

[scarletghoul]

I have been wondering; for a revolution to fully be successful, wouldn't we have to create an entire new culture of which new social relations would be based off of?

I might just be talking out of my ass, but it seems that a major hindrance to past socialist and even just general political revolutions in which the form of government was radically changed, was that the culture of the previous society was intertwined with the expected social aspects as well as economic aspects. (i.e. In the degraded capitalist society of today, it seems that celebrities have more political influence on the public than the politicians themselves).



What do you think people of RevLeft? For a revolution to truly be accepted en masse, would we have to create an entire new culture?

I ask this because I am fascinated by the French Revolution and the Jacobins tried to create an entirely new French culture with new week days, new holidays, new music, etc.
Yes. This is exactly what the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China was about - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
Its worth researching, the idea was to build a new proletarian socialist culture. the MLMRSG done a good paper on it - http://www.mlmrsg.com/attachments/049_049_CRpaper-Final.pdf

Althusser had some good ideas about ideology too, he talked about the 'ideological state apparatuses', and how their role was 'reproduction of the relations of production'. we need to take over the ideological apparatusses as well as repressive state apparatuses for socialism to last at all; we need to make sure that the relation of production being produced are not the old capitalist ones

[Aurorus Ruber]

I think that creating elements of a new culture could certainly help. Writing literature that presents the values associated with the Left in a positive light would counter the current cultural bias toward "capitalistic" values like rugged individualism and machismo (as seen in action films and such). I imagine many Marxists would argue that focusing on culture like this is putting the cart before the horse, though. A new culture appropriate for socialism will emerge when socialism becomes the dominant mode of production, as per the theory of historical materialism. Not everyone subscribes to that interpretation, though, and I wouldn't write off the importance of establishing a cultural base against the dominant one.

[hatzel]

It's somewhat difficult to be entirely sure of what you're getting at, but as I understand it, this is partly an issue of the whole top-down vs. bottom-up debate. Or, it is potentially so, and can become so. A fundamental part of the transition to socialism, or between any two systems, is the relationship between people. We could take an example of Nazi Germany, and there were, of course, plenty of racists knocking about, here and there. Had some socialist revolution happened in the late 30's, though...what, would the racists in that society suddenly change their ways, as if by magic, just because the official ideology of the regime they are under no longer advocates racism? Of course not! A successful transition to socialism requires us to interact with each other differently. At the moment, there are people who are so self-centred and hell-bent on personal wealth that they are willing to exploit other people; the transition to socialism won't magically change this person. Hence there comes the issue.

The Jacobins, as well as Mao (as scarletghoul mentioned) implemented top-down methods to attempt to force a change in people, to break their ties to the old system, and the old ways of interaction and social organisation. To create something fresh and new and lovely. Bottom-up, of course, involves the people themselves desiring to make a break from the past, to change the way they interact with eachother. People themselves saying "my personal desires aren't more important than another individual's well-being", people wanting to be part of a different system, free from greed and selfishness and all that stuff. In this case, there is absolutely no need for a Jacobin approach of trying to force an artificial break. Instead, the people themselves would develop. In the same way that popular usage of language changes and develops over time, without the need for some central language academy, such as they have in some countries, to come in with new rules about spelling, grammar and word usage. The popular parlance in England today is quite different from that in Shakespeare's time, almost entirely because the people themselves developed the language, and made it into something new, by their own will. This is very different than what would happen if the state today declared that everybody in England must speak Esperanto, and forced it upon them, which is effectively what we mean by synthesising and attempting to implement a new culture by force, rather than letting it develop naturally.

Top-down centralised creation and enforcement of a new 'proletarian' culture and cultural values effectively comes down to the belief that the proletariat cannot themselves be trusted to behave properly, to treat each other properly, to not desire to return to their old ways, before the revolution. By making pre-revolutionary society seem as unfamiliar as a foreign country, with a totally different cultural system, different holidays, even a different clock, calendar or writing system, is a somewhat effective way of forcing people into the future, by shutting the door to the past. Such methods were used, to a greater or lesser extent, in France, Norway, Turkey, the Soviet Union, China. Anywhere where the regime may have changed somewhat. I would argue that it's no substitute for people willingly throwing themselves into the future, casting off all their previous restraints by their own free will rather than having them forcibly pulled off by a third party. Working on the assumption that a socialist society made up of capitalists isn't going to work out particularly well, and trying to force their minds to change, to make them (unwilling) socialists, is pretty darn totalitarian, and runs the very real risk of these people reverting to their old ways as soon as the metaphysical boot that is pushing their opinion down releases any pressure...

But what can I say? I make no guarantee that this is anybody's official position :rolleyes:

[ckaihatsu]

I think that creating elements of a new culture could certainly help. Writing literature that presents the values associated with the Left in a positive light would counter the current cultural bias toward "capitalistic" values like rugged individualism and machismo (as seen in action films and such). I imagine many Marxists would argue that focusing on culture like this is putting the cart before the horse, though. A new culture appropriate for socialism will emerge when socialism becomes the dominant mode of production, as per the theory of historical materialism. Not everyone subscribes to that interpretation, though, and I wouldn't write off the importance of establishing a cultural base against the dominant one.


I agree with your first sentiment that culture is essentially a byproduct of the prevailing mode of production.

The tricky part is that the dominant ruling class culture also exerts cultural imperialism / hegemony over the people of the world, so many efforts are made -- on the cultural plane -- just in attempts to neutralize that kind of influence, especially in regards to younger, more-impressionable generations.

What's far more important is the kind of thing we do here at RevLeft -- straight-up political discussions that go over the ins and outs of the social reality itself, such as power relations, etc. This can be called a *political culture* in and of itself, without reference to any more-folksy and/or ethnic kind of culture that we're used to thinking of when we think 'culture'.

I agree that attempting to invent a "proletarian" culture out of nothing would be contrived at best -- that's why Stalinist-type "socialist realism" productions are so easily ridiculed because they're obviously not expressing anything genuinely artistic.

[ckaihatsu]

It's somewhat difficult to be entirely sure of what you're getting at, but as I understand it, this is partly an issue of the whole top-down vs. bottom-up debate. Or, it is potentially so, and can become so. A fundamental part of the transition to socialism, or between any two systems, is the relationship between people. We could take an example of Nazi Germany, and there were, of course, plenty of racists knocking about, here and there. Had some socialist revolution happened in the late 30's, though...what, would the racists in that society suddenly change their ways, as if by magic, just because the official ideology of the regime they are under no longer advocates racism? Of course not! A successful transition to socialism requires us to interact with each other differently. At the moment, there are people who are so self-centred and hell-bent on personal wealth that they are willing to exploit other people; the transition to socialism won't magically change this person. Hence there comes the issue.


Hi, again. I'd like to jump in and take issue with your contention here.

You're basically saying that a successful bottom-up transition to a socialist society would have to include a significant *social* dimension, to the point where people would have to make some kind of *personal* transformations -- in their character, in their behaviors -- so as to be congruent with the overall (increased) humaneness of such a newfound society.

And, furthermore, you're saying that even a successful transition to a socialist world would not *guarantee* that each and every person would conform to such a general elevated enlightenment -- people could very well continue to harbor bad attitudes and negative dispositions.

My disagreement is with your *perspective*, or *orientation*, to all of this -- while I certainly appreciate the general bottom-up inclination, I *don't* think that matters of politics (mass policies) and economics (material management) have *anything* to do with ground-level *personal* characteristics. Rather, professional positions are filled and emptied on the basis of *professional performance* according to the requirements of that role within the larger scope of social organization -- institutions, profit-making, etc.

This formalism is a *good* thing when it comes to matters of revolution, fortunately, since overturning the core dynamics of such a formalized system means that *all* component roles would change at the same time -- this would also have implications for the more *informal*, day-to-day social relations that you describe.