Marxist views on aesthetics

[Aurorus Ruber]

I have long wondered how Marxism and other revolutionary currents understand the field of aesthetics and how they evaluate various art movements and styles throughout history. It seems reasonable to assume that Marxist analyses of art and aesthetics would address the political and economic context of a given style. One can imagine, for instance, that they would hold the Rococo style in low regard for its opulent frivolity and connection to the French aristocracy of the Ancien Régime. Likewise I might expect Marxism to regard Gothic stylings rather negatively given their Medieval and religious roots.

On the flip side, I have often wondered what artistic styles and aesthetic values the revolutionary left favors. I have often seen movements like realism in 19th century France (or at least Courbet) or constructivism in revolutionary Russia cited as movements associated with the left. That suggests to me that the aesthetics of the radical left lean toward naturalism or abstract austerity, rather than say romanticism or organic sensuality. Does that impression make sense?

[Creative Destruction]

aesthetics are socially determinant, in large part, and what aesthetics start off as "countercultural" are typically absorbed into the ruling system (a process known as "recuperation.") i think that's about as far as you can take a Marxist analysis of it. there's no 'positive' or 'negative' aspect of particular aesthetic styles, where it regards Marxism. it's personal taste. for example, i think Brutalism is horrid and oppressive, but there are some people who think it is an expression of a "socialist aesthetic." some even wrongly take it further, like 870, who say that disliking Brutalism is (lol) "counter-revolutionary," which is, of course, dumb as shit. often, you can tell a person's ideology by the aesthetic style they favor, but that, again, isn't necessarily a positive or negative judgement on the style itself. i've seen leftists infatuated with nazi aesthetics.

[Turinbaar]

Marx's analysis of aesthetics is defined by the questions of determinism and free will. In his university days he wavered between law, philosophy and poetry, and kept up with the arts and literature throughout his life. It is simplistic to reduce the matter to a movement of resolution back into the ruling order, otherwise one could say the same with leftist and workers movements. The development of an aesthetic unbound by the ruling ideology, unhindered by self-degeneration is integral to building a socialist movement that is of similar quality.

For more on Marx's views read here:
http://ciml.250x.com/archive/marx_engels/on_me/mikhail-lifshitz-the-philosophy-of-art-of-karl-marx.pdf

[CollectivRed]

Artistic and architectural styles don't have much to do with Marxism, I don't think. Aesthetics from the past have historical value/significance, and do not need to be held in low regard because of the fact that they are from a different era of human economic/societal development.

[Creative Destruction]

It is simplistic to reduce the matter to a movement of resolution back into the ruling order, otherwise one could say the same with leftist and workers movements.

well, you can say that and it would be exactly right. do we not say it simply because it's inconvenient for us?

[Turinbaar]

well, you can say that and it would be exactly right. do we not say it simply because it's inconvenient for us?

The current irrelevance of the left make it tempting to make a sort of fukuyama conclusion on historical development in politics (and art), but I don't think it is entirely historically grounded, rather that is a position of fatalism on our part. Because of structural contradictions in capitalism, revolutions are forced out of the same determining order that ever-seeks to re-appropriate it.

[Hermes]

In the case of the arts, it is well known that certain periods of their flowering are out of all proportion to the general development of society, hence also to the material foundation, the skeletal structure as it were, of its organization. For example, the Greeks compared to the moderns or also Shakespeare. It is even recognized that certain forms of art, e.g. the epic, can no longer be produced in their world epoch-making, classical stature as soon as the production of art, as such, begins; that is, that certain significant forms within the realm of the arts are possible only at an undeveloped stage of artistic development. If this is the case with the relation between different kinds of art within the realm of the arts, it is already less puzzling that it is the case in the relation of the entire realm to the general development of society. The difficulty consists only in the general formulation of these contradictions. As soon as they have been specified, they are already clarified.

Let us take e.g. the relation of Greek art and then of Shakespeare to the present time. It is well known that Greek mythology is not only the arsenal of Greek art but also its foundation. Is the view of nature and of social relations on which the Greek imagination and hence Greek [mythology] is based possible with self-acting mule spindles and railways and locomotives and electrical telegraphs? What chance has Vulcan against Roberts and Co., Jupiter against the lightning-rod and Hermes against the Credit Mobilier? All mythology overcomes and dominates and shapes the forces of nature in the imagination and by the imagination; it therefore vanishes with the advent of real mastery over them. What becomes of Fama alongside Printing House Square? Greek art presupposes Greek mythology, i.e. nature and the social forms already reworked in an unconsciously artistic way by the popular imagination. This is its material. Not any mythology whatever, i.e. not an arbitrarily chosen unconsciously artistic reworking of nature (here meaning everything objective, hence including society). Egyptian mythology could never have been the foundation or the womb of Greek art. But, in any case, a mythology. Hence, in no way a social development which excludes all mythological, all mythologizing relations to nature; which therefore demands of the artist an imagination not dependent on mythology.


From another side: is Achilles possible with powder and lead? Or the Iliad with the printing press, not to mention the printing machine? Do not the song and the saga and the muse necessarily come to an end with the printer’s bar, hence do not the necessary conditions of epic poetry vanish?
But the difficulty lies not in understanding that the Greek arts and epic are bound up with certain forms of social development. The difficulty is that they still afford us artistic pleasure and that in a certain respect they count as a norm and as an unattainable model.


A man cannot become a child again, or he becomes childish. But does he not find joy in the child’s naïvité, and must he himself not strive to reproduce its truth at a higher stage? Does not the true character of each epoch come alive in the nature of its children? Why should not the historic childhood of humanity, its most beautiful unfolding, as a stage never to return, exercise an eternal charm? There are unruly children and precocious children. Many of the old peoples belong in this category. The Greeks were normal children. The charm of their art for us is not in contradiction to the undeveloped stage of society on which it grew. [It] is its result, rather, and is inextricably bound up, rather, with the fact that the unripe social conditions under which it arose, and could alone arise, can never return.


https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch01.htm

We used this selection from the Grundrisse in my Literary Criticism course, and I thought it was pretty interesting. I've never read the entire work, though, so it's possible that this is in some sort of context that changes its meaning.

[Redistribute the Rep]

I don't think one should say that Materialists would regard movements like the Gothic movement "negatively" per say. Marxists view things in terms of their historical context, in particular their relation to class dynamics. Romanticism and irrationalism arose as reaction of the petty bourgeois class to the social change brought about by industrialization for example, as they saw their small production replaced. I'm not sure if I would say we view it "negatively", it's understandable given the class context, but of course we are unsympathetic to it as it is ultimately reactionary and does not relate to or further proletarian conciousness

EDIT: found this, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lein/works/1897/econroman/ii8ii.htm, after a quick search if you want to know more about Romanticism.

[Creative Destruction]

The current irrelevance of the left make it tempting to make a sort of fukuyama conclusion on historical development in politics (and art), but I don't think it is entirely historically grounded, rather that is a position of fatalism on our part. Because of structural contradictions in capitalism, revolutions are forced out of the same determining order that ever-seeks to re-appropriate it.

it's not that at all. i never drew that conclusion and that's not where my argument leads to, either. you're either misreading what i said or are projecting your own conclusions onto it. the only way you could draw this conclusion is if you viewed aesthetics as the main driver in social development, rather than a reaction or complement to the current society. to say that the ruling class rolls countercultural movements into itself isn't controversial in the least, nor does it signal any support for fukuyamian end-of-history discourse. i'm frankly baffled as to how you drew that from what i said.

[Aurorus Ruber]

I'm not sure if I would say we view it "negatively", it's understandable given the class context, but of course we are unsympathetic to it as it is ultimately reactionary and does not relate to or further proletarian conciousness


So what artistic movements or aesthetic styles would you say further proletarian consciousness versus those that do not?

[Turinbaar]

it's not that at all. i never drew that conclusion and that's not where my argument leads to, either. you're either misreading what i said or are projecting your own conclusions onto it. the only way you could draw this conclusion is if you viewed aesthetics as the main driver in social development, rather than a reaction or complement to the current society. to say that the ruling class rolls countercultural movements into itself isn't controversial in the least, nor does it signal any support for fukuyamian end-of-history discourse. i'm frankly baffled as to how you drew that from what i said.

It's not controversial in that its a common trope, but what you seemed to suggest was that countercultural movements in politics and art can only resolve back into a determinism, which does sound vaguely of fukuyama (not support for, but implicit concession to). If this isn't what you're saying then I misread you.

I don't believe that aesthetics is the driver of history, but at the same time it is not merely a reaction or compliment to the order (it can certainly be those things); it is a means of nurturing consciousness of the true conditions in oneself and others. According to the link I posted earlier, marx called it "spiritual production." This is why Trotsky and Luxemburg learned oil painting and studied poetry and literature, and why Marx litters his works with references to Shakespeare and Goethe.

[Creative Destruction]

It's not controversial in that its a common trope, but what you seemed to suggest was that countercultural movements in politics and art can only resolve back into a determinism, which does sound vaguely of fukuyama (not support for, but implicit concession to). If this isn't what you're saying then I misread you.

It's not Fukuyama, it's Marx and Debord. Aesthetics, just like anything else related to ideology, cannot supercede the social structure itself. "Counterculture," as a movement, usually dies out in two ways: it becomes irrelevant or it is absorbed into the system that it is setting itself against. Everything happens in relation to capitalism itself. We exist as communists because of our relationship with capitalism. If communism ever comes, there will no longer be any communists, for example. But, getting back to aesthetics; what part of the counterculture aesthetic has not been absorbed into the system? Punk and DIY have been absorbed, hippie culture has been absorbed, even "communist" aesthetic (if there ever was something like this) has been absorbed into the system itself.

I don't know, but I think the underlying objection to this is that people take it to mean that these things have been delegitimized because they have been recuperated by the system, which isn't the case. I don't stop going against the system or having my beliefs and ideas simply because they have been commodified by the system elsewhere, like, say, through the commodification of the music of Rage Against The Machine or dead prez or the Coup. On a similar note, I don't stop enjoying Arts & Crafts aesthetic, even as explicitly based in (utopian) socialist ideals it is, simply because it's become a standard architectural style for petite-bourgeois homeowners. It doesn't render the criticism of the system or the need to transcend it any less compelling.

So, no, I'm not saying -- as Fukuyama said -- that liberal capitalism is the apex of human development. I'm saying something else entirely different, and it's based on a Marxist conception of the system and it's structure.


I don't believe that aesthetics is the driver of history, but at the same time it is not merely a reaction or compliment to the order (it can certainly be those things); it is a means of nurturing consciousness of the true conditions in oneself and others.

And how do the "true conditions" of oneself and others exist? Not in a vacuum. They exist in reaction to or in harmony with something. And, like it or not, all of our social interactions are defined by how we move in or against society and with society's laws.

[Turinbaar]

It's not Fukuyama, it's Marx and Debord. Aesthetics, just like anything else related to ideology, cannot supercede the social structure itself. "Counterculture," as a movement, usually dies out in two ways: it becomes irrelevant or it is absorbed into the system that it is setting itself against. Everything happens in relation to capitalism itself. We exist as communists because of our relationship with capitalism. If communism ever comes, there will no longer be any communists, for example. But, getting back to aesthetics; what part of the counterculture aesthetic has not been absorbed into the system? Punk and DIY have been absorbed, hippie culture has been absorbed, even "communist" aesthetic (if there ever was something like this) has been absorbed into the system itself.

I don't know, but I think the underlying objection to this is that people take it to mean that these things have been delegitimized because they have been recuperated by the system, which isn't the case. I don't stop going against the system or having my beliefs and ideas simply because they have been commodified by the system elsewhere, like, say, through the commodification of the music of Rage Against The Machine or dead prez or the Coup. On a similar note, I don't stop enjoying Arts & Crafts aesthetic, even as explicitly based in (utopian) socialist ideals it is, simply because it's become a standard architectural style for petite-bourgeois homeowners. It doesn't render the criticism of the system or the need to transcend it any less compelling.

So, no, I'm not saying -- as Fukuyama said -- that liberal capitalism is the apex of human development. I'm saying something else entirely different, and it's based on a Marxist conception of the system and it's structure.



And how do the "true conditions" of oneself and others exist? Not in a vacuum. They exist in reaction to or in harmony with something. And, like it or not, all of our social interactions are defined by how we move in or against society and with society's laws.

Forgive me if I still don't quite understand, but if you are saying that all counterculture/revolution related to ruling ideology cannot supersede it, then necessarily socialism cannot supersede capitalism because it dies out in one or the other way you described. That would make liberal capitalism the insuperable apex, and your enjoyment of leftist arts, and your political opinions mere sentimentality, wouldn't it?

Of course the true conditions and consciousness of them necessarily exist in harmony to reality (I never said they didn't), but the movement of critique is not merely reaction, just like not all socialism is merely utopian. I'm not saying we should write the music of the future, but when Marx used the term "spiritual production" he did so to express the transcending role of art in the positive advancement of the new society.

[Creative Destruction]

Forgive me if I still don't quite understand, but if you are saying that all counterculture/revolution related to ruling ideology cannot supersede it, then necessarily socialism cannot supersede capitalism because it dies out in one or the other way you described. That would make liberal capitalism the insuperable apex, and your enjoyment of leftist arts, and your political opinions mere sentimentality, wouldn't it?

Of course a socialist revolution supersedes capitalism; by the very definition it does. But a revolution only takes place when there is a forceful removal of the system itself. When there is no such movement to do that, all else underneath it -- relating to ideology, like countercultural things (which were mainly concerned with aesthetics and changing culture rather than changing the system), is subordinate to the system itself. Until such a time when there is a genuine revolutionary movement that undertakes the task of tearing the system down, the system will take from these movements and absorb it into the system, especially where it regards aesthetics. Again, a completely and fundamentally different thesis than Fukuyama's.

[Turinbaar]

Of course a socialist revolution supersedes capitalism; by the very definition it does.But a revolution only takes place when there is a forceful removal of the system itself. When there is no such movement to do that, all else underneath it -- relating to ideology, like countercultural things (which were mainly concerned with aesthetics and changing culture rather than changing the system), is subordinate to the system itself. Until such a time when there is a genuine revolutionary movement that undertakes the task of tearing the system down, the system will take from these movements and absorb it into the system, especially where it regards aesthetics. Again, a completely and fundamentally different thesis than Fukuyama's.

But you said that all things relating to ideology, such as aesthetics "cannot supersede the social structure itself." Socialism is related to the ruling ideology as its critique, so therefor wouldn't that prevent its supersession? If you don't concede anything to fukuyama, then what is your thesis on how a genuine revolutionary movement will emerge?

Suppose we got the revolution - This forceful removal must also must also include a replacement of the ruling ideology's aesthetic (for tearing down the system mean tearing down its self-image as dominant too) with one developed out its critique, and this won't just happen as an afterthought so there's no need to separate aesthetics and socialism, especially considering how many socialists were artists. They were just as committed to changing the system as they were to culture and saw them as integral. A new aesthetic is in part what will make a new socialist movement truly genuine. I'm not saying art is sufficient in itself to advance revolution (socialist realism didn't do anything for socialism, and Hitler was a painter too), but it is necessary.

[Creative Destruction]

But you said that all things relating to ideology, such as aesthetics "cannot supersede the social structure itself."

Right.


Socialism is related to the ruling ideology as its critique, so therefor wouldn't that prevent its supersession?

The statement "cannot supersede the social structure itself" is not a comment on whether the structure itself can or can't be overthrown. It doesn't discount the possibility of that happening. Rather, what it's saying that any attempt to supercede the system on its own terms cannot happen.

Take it this way: revolutionary socialism is about the removal of the capitalist system, and building socialism in its place. At this point, socialism exists outside the system, because the ruling capitalist ideologies are no longer in place. But, as long as you have capitalism, you cannot have socialism, which was the error of the utopian socialists. If you attempt to "build" socialism within capitalism, it will simply be absorbed back into the system, because the logic of the system overrides any attempt to build a socialist system. This is why you see "communist" and "socialist" parties moving and shifting their programs to placate the capitalist system, i.e., curry votes in a capitalist system.


If you don't concede anything to fukuyama, then what is your thesis on how a genuine revolutionary movement will emerge?

By confronting the contradictions of capitalism, but this can't happen within the capitalist system. It must transcend capitalism; which is, of course, the (short) definition of a socialist revolution.

[Redistribute the Rep]

So what artistic movements or aesthetic styles would you say further proletarian consciousness versus those that do not?

There's plenty of socialist realist movements for example, although I wouldn't say it necessarily has to be realism. Anyway, I think it furthers proletarian conciousness if it reflects a view of history as a constantly changing process. The petty bourgeoise tend to universalize their view of reality, instead of seeing their existence as part of the historical process, this is seen in their art. The proletarian conciousness can be promoted by rejecting this view of the current system being universal and unchanging, they must understand it as a system that will be overthrown

[Fakeblock]

The statement "cannot supersede the social structure itself" is not a comment on whether the structure itself can or can't be overthrown. It doesn't discount the possibility of that happening. Rather, what it's saying that any attempt to supercede the system on its own terms cannot happen.

Take it this way: revolutionary socialism is about the removal of the capitalist system, and building socialism in its place. At this point, socialism exists outside the system, because the ruling capitalist ideologies are no longer in place. But, as long as you have capitalism, you cannot have socialism, which was the error of the utopian socialists. If you attempt to "build" socialism within capitalism, it will simply be absorbed back into the system, because the logic of the system overrides any attempt to build a socialist system. This is why you see "communist" and "socialist" parties moving and shifting their programs to placate the capitalist system, i.e., curry votes in a capitalist system.


The social conditions for Communism exist within the capitalist structure itself. You say that aesthetics and ideology can't move beyond the system, but you forget that the system itself is inherently contradictory, that the system produces its own opposite. The error of the utopian socialists wasn't that they thought you could have socialism and capitalism at the same time. It was precisely that they saw socialism as something to be imposed from the outside. It is not that socialism now exists outside the system, but that socialism doesn't exist at all and that, if it is to exist, it must develop in the system, from the movement of the masses.

[Creative Destruction]

The social conditions for Communism exist within the capitalist structure itself.

What the hell? No, absolutely not. This isn't even close to being true. The "social conditions for communism" is the abolition of class and property, the exact opposite of what the social conditions are within the capitalist structure, which is predicated on class and property.

[Redistribute the Rep]

What the hell? No, absolutely not. This isn't even close to being true. The "social conditions for communism" is the abolition of class and property, the exact opposite of what the social conditions are within the capitalist structure, which is predicated on class and property.

...but the movement to abolish class and property arises in a system predicated on class and property. The social conditions for this movement must come into existence in the capitalist structure. Where else would they come from? They can't come after capitalism is abolished. How is capitalism abolished if the conditions for the movement to abolish capitalism don't come about until after capitalism is abolished? its anachronistic.

Socialism is not simply what exists after capitalism. It is the movement to end capitalism and bring about this social epoch. The proletarians can gain class conciousness due to their relationship to capital in the current system, and thus the social conditions for the socialist movement emerge in capitalism

[Creative Destruction]

...but the movement to abolish class and property arises in a system predicated on class and property. The social conditions for this movement must come into existence in the capitalist structure. Where else would they come from? They can't come after capitalism is abolished. How is capitalism abolished if the conditions for the movement to abolish capitalism don't come about until after capitalism is abolished? its anachronistic.

Socialism is not simply what exists after capitalism. It is the movement to end capitalism and bring about this social epoch. The proletarians can gain class conciousness due to their relationship to capital in the current system, and thus the social conditions for the socialist movement emerge in capitalism

There is a socialist movement and then there is socialism. The movement in favor of the system has its basis in the capitalist system, but socialism does not. Socialism is, simply, what comes after. It's the result of the movement.

[Aurorus Ruber]

Well, putting this question in more practical times, imagine I were working on some kind of artistic project like a painting or mural. What styles or general aesthetics would Marxists typically consider the most appropriate and which would they consider to have reactionary connotations?

[Creative Destruction]

Well, putting this question in more practical times, imagine I were working on some kind of artistic project like a painting or mural. What styles or general aesthetics would Marxists typically consider the most appropriate and which would they consider to have reactionary connotations?

i mean, unless you're painting swastikas or a fasces all over the thing, i don't think there's an "appropriate" Marxist style.

[Creative Destruction]

i just realized how close "fasces" and "feces" are to each other.

[Turinbaar]

The statement "cannot supersede the social structure itself" is not a comment on whether the structure itself can or can't be overthrown. It doesn't discount the possibility of that happening. Rather, what it's saying that any attempt to supercede the system on its own terms cannot happen.

Take it this way: revolutionary socialism is about the removal of the capitalist system, and building socialism in its place. At this point, socialism exists outside the system, because the ruling capitalist ideologies are no longer in place. But, as long as you have capitalism, you cannot have socialism, which was the error of the utopian socialists. If you attempt to "build" socialism within capitalism, it will simply be absorbed back into the system, because the logic of the system overrides any attempt to build a socialist system. This is why you see "communist" and "socialist" parties moving and shifting their programs to placate the capitalist system, i.e., curry votes in a capitalist system.

If a socialist movement can only transcend from outside the system, wouldn't this mean a socialist aesthetic would necessarily be similar? Can art only engage with the system in its own terms? If a genuine socialist political movement doesn't, then neither will socialist art.


By confronting the contradictions of capitalism, but this can't happen within the capitalist system. It must transcend capitalism; which is, of course, the (short) definition of a socialist revolution.

That doesn't quite answer the question. Confront them how? Transcend it how? Socialism is outside the system, and working within is historically condemned as social democratic compromise, so how do we transcend from the position of the outsider (a position of irrelevance)? Dry propaganda gets us nowhere, leftist engagement with establishment democracy seems hopeless, and armed revolt is a joke, so I see no other way than the advancement of a new aesthetic as the way of reclaiming our relevance, and the necessary element of a new movement.

[Rafiq]

Neither socialism as a movement, nor aesthetics, can transcend, or exist outside the conditions from which it was derived. But it is precisely this fact which makes socialism real: it is a fact true for changes in all social epochs. Communism does not derive from thin air. Capitalism is not a conspiracy. It is a process which involves the active lives of both the exploiters and the exploited. Something is not rotten just because it derives from our society. We are not reactionaries. Communism is a part of capitalism, but we Marxists understand totalities not as harmonious processes but contradictory conditions. If "counter-culture" becomes absorbed by the system all this manifests is

1. The failure of a revolutionary movement

2. The strength of the movement being too great (that it already made a tear in the ideological reality) to destroy as it already entered the domain of the real - capital must integrate it.

A good example is Russia and Belarus today and their retrospective relationship to the October revolution. 20th century Communism, in all its complexity and ideological strength, could not simply be dismissed, so it was incorporated into national chauvinist aesthetics.

There therefore can be no Marxist aesthetics. There can be Communist aesthetics, though. The early Soviet Union both in fields of cinema and painting were examples of this - though it is ironic that organic expressions of revolutionary fervor like cubism and Russian futurism were suppressed by the degenerating state.

[Hit The North]

There is a healthy tradition of applying Marxist analysis to culture and aesthetics in the critical theorists of the Frankfurt School (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm), such as Walter Benjamin (https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm), and in the cultural Marxism of the Birmingham School (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_for_Contemporary_Cultural_Studies), as well as Raymond Williams (http://www.raymondwilliamsfoundation.org.uk/).

[Fakeblock]

What the hell? No, absolutely not. This isn't even close to being true. The "social conditions for communism" is the abolition of class and property, the exact opposite of what the social conditions are within the capitalist structure, which is predicated on class and property.

Without capitalism and a Communist movement that grows from the class struggle under capitalism, we would not even be able to conceptualise socialism as a hypothetical mode of production. Communism isn't something that exists outside "the system", which is then imposed on it, but something which grows from the class struggle inherent in the capitalist mode of production. All of our practices (economic, political, aesthetic, etc.) are forms of existence of this class struggle. It is obvious that socialism does not come into existence out of thin air.

I'm saying this to counter the view that there is 'good' culture that exists outside an ever-expanding, 'bad' capitalist culture. What are the ideological implications of this argument? Of course, it is true that capitalism, and consequently bourgeois culture, is ever-expanding and totalitarian, because it increasingly polarises the class struggle as one between bourgeoisie and proletariat, and extends the class struggle to where there was none before. But for whom is this a negative? Not for the proletariat, which sees, in ever-expanding capitalist production, the possibility of social ownership and Communist democracy. No, it is only a negative for the reactionary classes, today exemplified by the petty bourgeoisie, which sees its own individual rights, its own individual culture, its own individual property being destroyed by capitalist monopoly. As such, I think the logic behind the ideology of cultural imposition that is being advanced here is entirely petty bourgeois. This does not mean, however, that there can be no proletarian, ie. Communist, culture or art, but that this art cannot form a sphere that is not subordinate to the 'system', since it is a product of that system itself: the capitalist mode of production with all its contradictions.

[Creative Destruction]

Without capitalism and a Communist movement that grows from the class struggle under capitalism, we would not even be able to conceptualise socialism as a hypothetical mode of production.

This still does not mean that socialism is of capitalism or that it can exist inside the structure (just because something happens in response to another, does not mean it is of that thing; which implies a terminal relationship, where one thing cannot exist without the other. Obviously, since socialism is the overthrow of the system, it can (must, in fact) exist without capitalism), as opposed to outside of it -- after it is gone. Again, as I said to TFAR, there is a socialist movement and then there is socialism. They are two different things. If socialism, as a social phenomenon, was possible from within the capitalist structure, we would've had it already. All those utopian communities would have been smashing successes; before that, movements like the Diggers in England would've been able to establish their agrarian communism just fine (itself actually a response to feudalism, rather than capitalism), without it being eventually destroyed.


Communism isn't something that exists outside "the system", which is then imposed on it,

Which isn't something I ever said nor do my arguments lead to this conclusion. This is a strawman.


but something which grows from the class struggle inherent in the capitalist mode of production. All of our practices (economic, political, aesthetic, etc.) are forms of existence of this class struggle. It is obvious that socialism does not come into existence out of thin air.

Obviously. But all those forms of class struggle are not socialism. There is no class struggle in socialism, because there are no classes. It represents an attempt to have a movement toward socialism. That's what's possible in capitalism. Once the movement gains enough steam to overthrow the existing system itself is when socialism can be made into a reality, after (and consequently, outside) the strictures of capitalist logic. The hitch in having the movement is that if it doesn't gain enough revolutionary steam, then it will be absorbed into the system (if you can't match the power of the system itself, this will always happen, or the movement will be rendered irrelevant.)

[ckaihatsu]

Instead of attempting to round-up a list of purportedly proletarian *styles* we might look to find a 'proletarian aesthetic' based on the kinds of *people* who are behind any given aesthetic:

Artists from working-class backgrounds, active working-class laborers, 'street' / precarious-income people, and/or anyone from any background who uses working-class subject matter in their artwork. (In this way one's contribution to proletarian society in an *artistic* way happens to mirror the criteria for one's participation in revolutionary *politics*.)


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In the case of the arts, it is well known that certain periods of their flowering are out of all proportion to the general development of society, hence also to the material foundation, the skeletal structure as it were, of its organization. For example, the Greeks compared to the moderns or also Shakespeare. It is even recognized that certain forms of art, e.g. the epic, can no longer be produced in their world epoch-making, classical stature as soon as the production of art, as such, begins; that is, that certain significant forms within the realm of the arts are possible only at an undeveloped stage of artistic development. If this is the case with the relation between different kinds of art within the realm of the arts, it is already less puzzling that it is the case in the relation of the entire realm to the general development of society. The difficulty consists only in the general formulation of these contradictions. As soon as they have been specified, they are already clarified.

Let us take e.g. the relation of Greek art and then of Shakespeare to the present time. It is well known that Greek mythology is not only the arsenal of Greek art but also its foundation. Is the view of nature and of social relations on which the Greek imagination and hence Greek [mythology] is based possible with self-acting mule spindles and railways and locomotives and electrical telegraphs? What chance has Vulcan against Roberts and Co., Jupiter against the lightning-rod and Hermes against the Credit Mobilier? All mythology overcomes and dominates and shapes the forces of nature in the imagination and by the imagination; it therefore vanishes with the advent of real mastery over them. What becomes of Fama alongside Printing House Square? Greek art presupposes Greek mythology, i.e. nature and the social forms already reworked in an unconsciously artistic way by the popular imagination. This is its material. Not any mythology whatever, i.e. not an arbitrarily chosen unconsciously artistic reworking of nature (here meaning everything objective, hence including society). Egyptian mythology could never have been the foundation or the womb of Greek art. But, in any case, a mythology. Hence, in no way a social development which excludes all mythological, all mythologizing relations to nature; which therefore demands of the artist an imagination not dependent on mythology.


From another side: is Achilles possible with powder and lead? Or the Iliad with the printing press, not to mention the printing machine? Do not the song and the saga and the muse necessarily come to an end with the printer’s bar, hence do not the necessary conditions of epic poetry vanish?
But the difficulty lies not in understanding that the Greek arts and epic are bound up with certain forms of social development. The difficulty is that they still afford us artistic pleasure and that in a certain respect they count as a norm and as an unattainable model.


A man cannot become a child again, or he becomes childish. But does he not find joy in the child’s naïvité, and must he himself not strive to reproduce its truth at a higher stage? Does not the true character of each epoch come alive in the nature of its children? Why should not the historic childhood of humanity, its most beautiful unfolding, as a stage never to return, exercise an eternal charm? There are unruly children and precocious children. Many of the old peoples belong in this category. The Greeks were normal children. The charm of their art for us is not in contradiction to the undeveloped stage of society on which it grew. [It] is its result, rather, and is inextricably bound up, rather, with the fact that the unripe social conditions under which it arose, and could alone arise, can never return.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch01.htm


Although this may seem a bit convoluted at first I think it will make some sense if the reader allows some leeway for its consideration and indulges me upfront....


First, consider 'Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs', wherein one's life-time may increasingly be directed towards more-*qualitative* activities, as one reaches maturity and gains a measure of stability in life, in the world. This may be called 'self-actualization', at the upper part of a quantitative-to-qualitative metaphorical pyramid:


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/MaslowsHierarchyOfNeeds.svg/450px-MaslowsHierarchyOfNeeds.svg.png


I've used this developmental construct in one of my frameworks:


History, Macro-Micro -- Political (Cognitive) Dissonance

http://s6.postimg.org/5blfrdn1t/2006400620046342459_Kej_CCu_fs.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/vjwkgr759/full/)


So, based on this, consider the thesis from the excerpt above:





It is even recognized that certain forms of art, e.g. the epic, can no longer be produced in their world epoch-making, classical stature as soon as the production of art, as such, begins; that is, that certain significant forms within the realm of the arts are possible only at an undeveloped stage of artistic development.


If one's 'self-actualization' can be equated to an individual, self-motivated artistic expression of whatever kind, then this creative moment could be seen as the *epicenter(s)* of a period of historical artistic development. It / they would be the epicenters that then *ripple outward*, evolving into better-recognized and standardized cultural expressions, even into abstracted encompassing cultural and scientific paradigms, as seen in this diagrammatic illustration:


Humanities - Technology Chart 3.0

http://s6.postimg.org/3vpb4bhip/120830_Humanities_Technology_Chart_3_0.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/6psghrjot/full/)


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...but the movement to abolish class and property arises in a system predicated on class and property. The social conditions for this movement must come into existence in the capitalist structure. Where else would they come from? They can't come after capitalism is abolished. How is capitalism abolished if the conditions for the movement to abolish capitalism don't come about until after capitalism is abolished?




its anachronistic.


(It's a 'Catch-22'.)

[Fakeblock]

This still does not mean that socialism is of capitalism or that it can exist inside the structure (just because something happens in response to another, does not mean it is of that thing; which implies a terminal relationship, where one thing cannot exist without the other. Obviously, since socialism is the overthrow of the system, it can (must, in fact) exist without capitalism), as opposed to outside of it -- after it is gone. Again, as I said to TFAR, there is a socialist movement and then there is socialism. They are two different things. If socialism, as a social phenomenon, was possible from within the capitalist structure, we would've had it already. All those utopian communities would have been smashing successes; before that, movements like the Diggers in England would've been able to establish their agrarian communism just fine (itself actually a response to feudalism, rather than capitalism), without it being eventually destroyed.


Which isn't something I ever said nor do my arguments lead to this conclusion. This is a strawman.



Obviously. But all those forms of class struggle are not socialism. There is no class struggle in socialism, because there are no classes. It represents an attempt to have a movement toward socialism. That's what's possible in capitalism. Once the movement gains enough steam to overthrow the existing system itself is when socialism can be made into a reality, after (and consequently, outside) the strictures of capitalist logic. The hitch in having the movement is that if it doesn't gain enough revolutionary steam, then it will be absorbed into the system (if you can't match the power of the system itself, this will always happen, or the movement will be rendered irrelevant.)

What does it mean that socialism is the overthrow of 'the system'? What is 'the system'? It is not very clear. Is it the system of bourgeois production? The system of bourgeois ideological domination? The system of bourgeois political domination? Society as a whole?

Modes of production do constitute systems, but they are systems that exist within a social formation, as elements, levels of that formation. Socialism takes as its point of departure the same social formation as capitalism. However, it does not overthrow the social formation (which would mean overthrowing social life), but reconstitutes it on a different basis, on the basis of a new mode of production. Thus the question is not one of a replacement of a capitalist system (as a totality) with a socialist system (as a totality), but one of transition from the capitalist system of production, in the narrow sense, to the socialist system of production - the whole question of whether socialism can exist within capitalism becomes nonsensical.

Likewise with artistic and cultural production. For, just as the mode of production constitutes one level of the social formation, thus one site of class struggle, art constitutes another. Hence the rejection of the idea of art inside and outside the system. There is bourgeois art and proletarian art, both existing on the same level of the social formation, but in contradiction with one another. The class struggle that is rooted in the mode of production replicates itself across the entire social formation. It is not a question of competing systems, but of contradictory practices competing for dominance within the same system.