Routledge Revivals

Marxist Aesthetics

Originally published in 1984, this study deals with a number of influential figures in the European tradition of Marxist theories of aesthetics, ranging from Lukács to Benjamin, through the Frankfurt School, to Brecht and the Althusserians. Pauline Johnson shows that, despite the great diversity in these theories about art, they all formulate a common problem, and she argues that an adequate response to this problem must be based on an account of the practical foundations within the recipient's own experience for a changed consciousness.

Pauline Johnson is Associate Professor of Sociology at Macquarie University, Sydney

Marxist Aesthetics The foundations within everyday life for an emancipated consciousness

Pauline Johnson

Reprint 2020 First published in 1984 by Routledge & Kegan Paul This edition first published in 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © Pauline Johnson 1984 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact. A Library of Congress record exists under LC Control Number: 83019102

ISBN 9781138565548

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Marxist aesthetics The foundations within everyday life for an emancipated consciousness Pauline Johnson

Routledge & Kegan Paul London, Boston, Melbourne and Henley

First published in 1984 by Routledge & Kegan Paul plc 39 Store Street, London WC1E 7DD, England 9 Park Street, Boston, Mass. 02108, USA 464 St Kilda Road, Melbourne, Victoria 3004, Australia, and Broadway House, Newtown Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG91EN, England Set in 10/11 pt IBM Press Roman by Academic Typesetting, Gerrards Cross, Bucks and printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press, Suffolk © Pauline Johnson 1984 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Johnson, Pauline, 1953Marxist aesthetics. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Communist aesthetics. BH41.J63 1984

I. Title.

British Library CIP available ISBN 0-7100-9927-4

700'.1

83-19102

To my mother, Betty Johnson

Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction Part one 1 2 3

4 5 6 7

9 22 34

The role of art in modem capitalism

Benjamin Brecht Adorno Marcuse

Part three

8 9

Lukacs: reification and its overcoming

History and Class Consciousness Lukacs's theory of realism Die Eigenart des Aesthetischen (The Specificity of the Aesthetic)

Part two

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49

68

83

96

Althusserian Marxism and the problem of ideological struggle

Althusser on ideology Macherey and Eagleton

Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

115 127 143 149 163 167

vii

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments I would like to thank a number of people for their assistance and support. Bob Connell and Tim Rowse offered useful comments and advice on several versions of this work. I was very fortunate to have the help of George Markus, and I wish to thank him for his time and for his penetrating criticisms of my drafts. Jan Bruck translated some segments of Lukacs's Die Eigenart des Aesthetischen. I am also indebted to Jan for his useful editorial comments. I would like to thank my sister Lesley, who was invaluable both as editor and friend throughout the whole process. To John GrurnIey, a good friend and a thoughtful critic, I give my warmest thanks. My aesthetics reading group was a useful source of stimulation, and I am particularly grateful to Ewan Maidment for a number of interesting discussions on issues connected with my work. My thanks also to Kalpana Ram for her support and encouragement. Finally, I would like to thank my friend Cathy Phillips, who typed the manuscript.

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Introduction

At first sight the field of Marxist theories of aesthetics consists of a disparate collection of theories with very little in common. If we consider these theories solely from the viewpoint of their individual contents they appear quite incommensurable. We are, for example , confronted with the marked contrast between the Lukicsian conception of the emancipatory potential of the great realist tradition and Adorno's account of the conceptual accuracy of some avant-garde works. Nevertheless, despite the very real differences between their specific contents, the main stream of Marxist theories of aesthetics do share a common problematic. Marxist theories of aesthetics give an enlightening capacity to art: they all attempt to determine the basis of the emancipatory impact of the work of art. We can, therefore, attempt to assess the relative merits of the individual theories by considering their adequacy with respect to the general problem they formulate. What internal criterion can we use to assess the adequacy of a specific aesthetic theory's attempt to establish the enlightening effect of the art work? And what significance can be attached to Marxist aesthetics as a tradition which focuses on the problem of the foundations for a change in the consciousness of the individual? These are the particular issues which the following work attempts to address. The problematic of Marxist theories of aesthetics The form of the aesthetic problem is, in the first place, characterised by the constitution of a particular relationship between the truth of the art work and the falsity of everyday thinking. The process of enlightenment cannot be explained merely in terms of a cognitive distinction between art and everyday life. The work of art presents not merely an alternative standpoint but specifically acts to effect a change in the recipient's consciousness. It seems that, in order to account for the emancipatory impact of the art work, an aesthetic theory is required to establish the basis upon which the recipient is able to recognise

Introduction that the art work provides a better and a more convincing representation of reality than the perspective he/she has acquired from daily life. In so far as Marxist theories of aesthetics attempt to explain the emancipatory impact of the work of art upon the recipient, they need to specify the practical basis within immediate experience for a changed consciousness. An account of the enlightening potential of the art work must attempt to find the foundations within the recipient's everyday consciousness for a new, emancipated way of thinking. It seems, then, that the central theoretical problem addressed by Marxist theories of aesthetics necessitates an attempt to formulate a specifically democratic account of the process of ideological change. A successful aesthetic theory needs to establish that the process of enlightenment does not merely involve the substitution of a correct consciousness, but crucially concerns the appropriateness of the response of the art work to the recipient's own dissatisfaction with his/her alienated consciousness. Of course, the field of Marxist aesthetics does not constitute a theoretical tradition which consistently provides various accounts of the practical basis within immediate experience for emancipated thinking. In fact, more often than not, these theories are unable to offer a satisfactory explanation for the emancipatory capacity of the work of art. This characteristic lack of success does not, however, fundamentally affect the thesis advanced here, for the broader significance of this theoretical tradition does not depend merely on the ability of the various theories to identify the basis within an alienated present for ideological struggle. Important, rather, as we shall see shortly, is that Marxist theories of aesthetics have played a key part in the preservation of the problem itself. An aesthetic theory may prove unable to account for the emancipatory ability of the art work for either of two very general reasons. The theory may, in the first place, analyse the character of everyday thinking in a way which logically precludes an attempt to identify the foundations for enlightened thinking within immediate experience. If, for example, the theory maintains that everyday thinking in capitalist society is simply a conceptually false representation of social life designed specifically to further ruling-class interests, then, clearly, it is not possible to identify the basis within daily life for emancipated thinking. In this case, the true perspective of the art work can only be contrasted with the falsity of immediate consciousness. It is this dynamic which, as we shall see, governs both Brechtian and Althusserian aesthetics. Rather than suggesting that the mystified character of immediate experience is a structural consequence of the relationship between 2

Introduction

appearance and ruling-class interests, some of the more sophisticated aesthetic theories considered below maintain that it is the specific sociological characteristics of our times which have undermined the foundations within immediacy for ideological change. As is well known, this is the distinctive standpoint of the Frankfurt School. For the Frankfurt School, the possibility for establishing an emancipatory capacity for the work of art is essentially dependent on the restoration of a progressive need for an enlightened consciousness: a need which, according to them, has been lost to the modern one dimensional society. The significance of the tradition In his influential work entitled Considerations on Western Marxism Anderson rightly points out that, after the early 1920s, Western Marxism turned its attention to a study of aesthetics and to the analysis of 'cultural superstructures in the broader sense.'! The turn to aesthetics, he maintains, must be looked upon as the response of a tradition of alienated intellectuals to the failure of the proletarian revolutions after the First World War. The increased interest in the analysis of the place of art in society indicated the 'pessimistic retreat' of leftist intellectuals thereby underlining their essential remoteness from the terrible political realities of working-class struggle. Anderson's suggestion that the preoccupation of Western Marxism with aesthetics arose in response to the disappearance of the revolutionary climate of the early 1920s is an important insight. After this time it no longer seemed feasible to attempt, as Lukacs had done in History and Class Consciousness (1919-22), to locate the practical foundations for a revolutionary class consciousness within an analysis of the unique character of the proletariat's life experience. The underlying confidence of the early Marxist Lukacs that the dynamics peculiar to the proletariat's class situation could generate a revolutionary consciousness was quite inappropriate to the later generations of Marxist intellectuals. Nevertheless, Anderson's response towards the subsequent turn of Western Marxism to aesthetics is, in my view, quite inadequate. It may, of course, even be true that the new concern with aesthetics was, in part, subjectively motivated by the desire of a despairing leftist intellectual elite for a safe retreat from harsh political realities. Even so, this consideration offers no real index to the significance of the tradition itself. After all, it was, in the main, this theoretical domain which was responsible for the preservation and exploration of the vital issue of the practical possibility for ideological struggle. In the context of the 3

Introduction rise of fascism and the virtual collapse of the workers' movement, the subsequent accommodation of the working class in a revived capitalism and disclosures about the character of Stalinism, clearly the retention of an unreserved confidence in an immanent dialectic within economic life was out of the question for modern Marxism. The emphasis which the Western Marxists placed on questions of culture and ideology was precisely a response and an attempt to grapple with this changed situation. 2 The tradition of Marxist theories of aesthetics has, moreover, a significant part to play in the articulation of the goals of a socialist society. Although Marxist aesthetics is by no means an invariably humanistic tendency within Marxist philosophy, the study of the art work and its emancipatory impact does provide a particularly suitable forum for a humanistic critique of an alienated life experience. The humanistic standpoint, adopted most notably in the aesthetic theories of Lukacs and Marcuse, stands as a reminder that the ultimate goal of socialism must be conceived not only in economic and political terms but, centrally, as a matter of the emancipation of the alienated personality as well. Finally, as our discussion of the structure of the aesthetic problem suggests, an adequate account of the emancipatory impact of the work of art cannot be conducted in terms of a substitutionalist conception of the process of ideological change. To explain the enlightening impact of the art work it is naturally not sufficient to attempt to establish the correspondence between its true perspective and the objectively specified interests of the proletariat. What is necessary, rather, is the attempt to show the appropriateness of the artistic perspective to the recipient's already existing needs for a new, emancipated consciousness. We can, therefore, look upon the field of Marxian theories of aesthetics as a theoretical tradition in which a specifically democratic approach to the problem of the process of ideological change is an internal conceptual requirement. The specificity of the problem characteristically formulated by aesthetic theories may become more apparent if we briefly introduce a rather marked contrast. In recent years Althusser's interpretation of Marx has largely dominated discussions in the English-speaking world on a Marxian theory of everyday thinking. Increasingly, however, this brand of Marxism has lost ground as its elitist and idealist tendency came to be more generally recognised. As is well known, for Althusser, a Marxist theory of ideology attempts to determine how a mode of consciousness appropriate to the maintenance of given productive 4

Introduction relations is produced. Because he suggests that the social practices of everyday life generate a consciousness specifically appropriate to the perpetuation of given productive relations. Althusser can only locate the foundation for enlightened thinking outside daily life. Althusser's Marxism maintains that the foundations of knowledge lie not within the dynamics of social life but only in the relative autonomy of scientific theory. Marxist theories of aesthetics ask a question with a very different loading. In so far as they attempt to give an account of the ability of the art work to change the recipient's thinking, these theories need to show that the practical basis for an emancipated consciousness exists within our immediate experience itself. Whereas the problematic of Althusser's theory of ideology generates an elitist perspective on the question of the source of an enlightened consciousness, the problematic within which Marxist theories of aesthetics operate opens up a democratic standpoint. We can be more specific about the character of a democratic perspective on the process of enlightenment. Heller's theory of 'radical needs', developed in her The Theory of Need in Marx (first published 1974)3 and elsewhere, provides the starting point here. This theory, which will be discussed in some detail in the body of the work, strives to identify the foundations for an emancipated consciousness within the dynamics of immediate experience in capitalist society. Heller's theory suggests that daily life in capitalism generates certain needs whose satisfaction requires the overcoming of an alienated social life. An aesthetic theory which successfully explains the emancipatory impact of the work of art is necessarily founded upon a convincing account of the radical needs produced by modern social life. A successful account of the enlightening capacity of the work of art needs to establish the specifically dissatisfied character of an alienated consciousness and the appropriateness of the response of the true perspective of the work of art. Heller emphasises that the mere existence of radical needs is obviously no guarantee but is only the motive for the realisation of a revolutionary consciousness. A successful account of the emancipatory role of the work of art suggests that the enlightenment of the receptive experience is a consequence of the specific appropriateness of the standpoint of the works of art to the recipient's own felt dissatisfactions.

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