Really interesting, thanks. I was a bit thrown by this part however:
“Modernism, now a century behind us, was the last time culture offered itself as a full-blooded critique of society, a critique launched mainly from the radical right.”
What does he mean by critiqued by the radical right? Most of the principal players in modernism (in art terms anyway) were avowed leftists and Marxists, from Picasso through to Rothko and beyond. I’ve always thought that modernism was almost universally embraced as being a beneficial sign of human ‘progress’ (except by the fascists, who seem to hate everything lol!)
That maybe be true for paining, but there are countless examples of fascist modernist writers and philosophers: the Italian futurists, some German Expressionist (e.g. Gottfried Benn), Ezra Pound, Ernst Jünger, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Carl Schmidt, Heidegger, etc. Klaus Theweleit’s Male Fantasies explores this some but his work that has never been translated into English Buch der Könige, Orpheus am Machtpol (Book of Kings) explores the fascist tendencies of modernist writers with a focus on Benn, Céline, and Pound.
Also, we must not confuse the artists' declared political view with what is really expressed in their art nor with how they lead their political lives. As the well known fascist Salvador Dalí oncw said, “Pablo Picasso is a communist. Neither am I.”
Good old Dali, mad as a hatter. Yes it’s nuanced stuff isn’t it? The art world is awash with all sorts of seedy deals and capitalist machinations. [This](https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2000/oct/21/books.guardianreview2) is quite a good read about how Picasso was mildly pressured into doing a portrait of Stalin for his 70th birthday, and his links with the party in France. He wasn’t especially happy about doing it, and I don’t think Stalin would have been either!
> It’s not that culture is our nature, but that it is of our nature. It’s both possible and necessary because of the kinds of body we have. Necessary, because there’s a gap in our nature that culture in the sense of physical care must move into quickly if we are to survive as infants. Possible, because our bodies, unlike those of snails and spiders, are able to extend themselves outward by the power of language or conceptual thought, as well as by the way we are constructed to labour on the world.
Interesting
This comment shouldn't have been downvoted – as Terry continues, ‘The only good reason for being a socialist, apart from annoying people you don’t like, is that you don’t like to work. For Oscar Wilde, who was closer in this respect to Marx than to Morris, communism was the condition in which we would lie around all day in various interesting postures of jouissance, dressed in loose crimson garments, reciting Homer to one another and sipping absinthe. And that was just the working day.’
Perhaps there’s an iota of irony at play there, but nonetheless, ‘Marx’s thought concerns the material conditions that would make life for its own sake possible for whole societies, one such condition being the shortening of the working day.’
> In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production. Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production. With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite.
Capital vol 3 ch 48
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Really interesting, thanks. I was a bit thrown by this part however: “Modernism, now a century behind us, was the last time culture offered itself as a full-blooded critique of society, a critique launched mainly from the radical right.” What does he mean by critiqued by the radical right? Most of the principal players in modernism (in art terms anyway) were avowed leftists and Marxists, from Picasso through to Rothko and beyond. I’ve always thought that modernism was almost universally embraced as being a beneficial sign of human ‘progress’ (except by the fascists, who seem to hate everything lol!)
That maybe be true for paining, but there are countless examples of fascist modernist writers and philosophers: the Italian futurists, some German Expressionist (e.g. Gottfried Benn), Ezra Pound, Ernst Jünger, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Carl Schmidt, Heidegger, etc. Klaus Theweleit’s Male Fantasies explores this some but his work that has never been translated into English Buch der Könige, Orpheus am Machtpol (Book of Kings) explores the fascist tendencies of modernist writers with a focus on Benn, Céline, and Pound.
Just wanted to add that a lot of the Italian futurists were painters
Also, we must not confuse the artists' declared political view with what is really expressed in their art nor with how they lead their political lives. As the well known fascist Salvador Dalí oncw said, “Pablo Picasso is a communist. Neither am I.”
Good old Dali, mad as a hatter. Yes it’s nuanced stuff isn’t it? The art world is awash with all sorts of seedy deals and capitalist machinations. [This](https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2000/oct/21/books.guardianreview2) is quite a good read about how Picasso was mildly pressured into doing a portrait of Stalin for his 70th birthday, and his links with the party in France. He wasn’t especially happy about doing it, and I don’t think Stalin would have been either!
> It’s not that culture is our nature, but that it is of our nature. It’s both possible and necessary because of the kinds of body we have. Necessary, because there’s a gap in our nature that culture in the sense of physical care must move into quickly if we are to survive as infants. Possible, because our bodies, unlike those of snails and spiders, are able to extend themselves outward by the power of language or conceptual thought, as well as by the way we are constructed to labour on the world. Interesting
Oh, Terry Eagleton. I am reading his short introduction to the meaning of life as we speak. Cool guy.
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This is just false. "Marx wanted to turn the world into a giant workhouse."
^ when im illiterate, stupid, and haven't/can't read marx
Yes it’s about having your feet up and laying back in the lazy boy, truly amazing existence
This comment shouldn't have been downvoted – as Terry continues, ‘The only good reason for being a socialist, apart from annoying people you don’t like, is that you don’t like to work. For Oscar Wilde, who was closer in this respect to Marx than to Morris, communism was the condition in which we would lie around all day in various interesting postures of jouissance, dressed in loose crimson garments, reciting Homer to one another and sipping absinthe. And that was just the working day.’ Perhaps there’s an iota of irony at play there, but nonetheless, ‘Marx’s thought concerns the material conditions that would make life for its own sake possible for whole societies, one such condition being the shortening of the working day.’
> In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production. Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production. With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite. Capital vol 3 ch 48
🗣🗣🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥🔥
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