Abolish Art

I put a status on facebook saying:

"Would it be crazy if I said I wished to abolish art?"

And a lot of people said "elaborate" so I wrote this:

Well first we have to examine our fetishized reverance toward "Art" and ask what it really is? Is it "a random collection of objects" or an ideology. The word Art developed in the 17th century out of "artisan". The thing is artisans' often made things which were actually useful, not images of things which in of themselves had no use-value. Over time, industrialization, and the crafts made by "craftsmen" and "artisans" were made by the assembly line, and mass produced, removing the "Art" from them. What was left over was the act of making things aesthetically pleasing and ornate, putting a mural on a wall rather than just leaving it plain. But "Art" clearly, as it developed as both a concept and a word, had no real use, or value, other than the subjective value placed on it by its viewer.

In this context it is bourgeois, proletarians cannot spend too much time making things that have no value other than subjective value, and culturally "Art" is mostly done by bourgeois people, for bourgeois people. There is a clear class character to the concept, and the implication of the word. Something is not "Art" when it has become too crass and mass-produced, it is appealing when it is "new" and "unique" thereby making it elite, and an emblem for the bourgeois of their cultural superiority. We all are inclined towards creative expression, but only some are artists, the elite among us who's art is recognized popularly as somehow having value. In the meantime, industrial design aside, modern, industrial, commodified, life doesn't have much creative expression, whereas all the houses in pompeii apparently had murals on the wall, handmade (for obvious reasons) and therefore ornate goods (pottery, dishes, jewelry, handmade clothes, etc.) because there were no machines to mass produce something.

Now we work in a factory and perform the same labor over and over to produce an artless thing for someone other than ourselves, totally alienated from our labor and its fruits. Or better yet in America we spend all our time in the "service industry" which is based on Americans selling each other things, mass produced by machines which obviously cannot be described as "artistic" operated by alienated proletarians who know nothing, and care nothing, about you. We then take this money to pay the rent to live in our drab mass produced dwelling we didn't build filled with mass produced things we didn't make, and unless we make a conscious effort to "artify" our home it will look pretty similiar to the neighbor's, and in fact it does look the same because we both display our "art" (that we didn't actually create but bought, necessarily fetishizing the art by totally arbitrarily assigning a monetary value which has no relation to production cost) in frames on the wall.

What about Da Vinci? And Michaelangelo? Weren't they the greatest artists ever? Well no.... we call them artists, but seeing as the word did not exist, they would not of considered themselves "artists" having no familiarity with the concept, but artisans and craftsmen among other nouns. We only retroactively label them artists as part of the creation of this category of activities represented by the word art. And lets really examine what they actually did, besides create beautiful pictures. They painted religious scenes for the church or imagery for the richest lords, which glorified the rule of their class. They were employed to be propagandists, in a reductionist sense. Surely you cannot deny cavemen painted on the cave walls? Yes, but was that (or those) cavemen artist(s)? I would propose no, they were cavemen who also hunted, collected firewood, skinned animals for their clothes, etc.

Furthermore, given the depiction of activities the cavemen actually engaged in, is it not reasonable to believe these graphic depictions could in fact of had a utilitarian purpose as perhaps a training tool for a young scrap before he goes hunting, to give him a visual representation of the activity rather than just an explanation. There were no specialized artists, when tools were made, designs were etched in, perhaps different cavemen wore their animal pelts differently, it is natural for humans to be creative, so it seems completely reasonable that natural creativity was expressed in every endeavor. Eventually agriculture and empires developed, and pyramids and statues were erected, as best we can tell to glorify the ruling class, and tell religious stories which obviously supported the ruling class.

What we are now taught to categorize as "art" developed to glorify, and provide justification, for the ruling class. The development of "art" as we understand it, was reflective of the end of the actually productive role of the artisan, whose purely creative abilities could not be replaced by machines and industrialization, but who productively were rendered obsolete by the aforementioned. The aristocracy, socially under assault from the bourgeoisie, employed these unemployed artisans as propagandists to glorify their class, turning from the typical portrayal of religious and mythological scenes, to the aristocracy itself, portrayed originally in the same way, but over time developing as art does. In time the bourgeois supplanted the aristocracy, for the same reasons that resulted in the invention of art, and "reified" it into their own class, to hold the same role as aristocratic art, to glorify their class rule.

I propose that art, as it exists, is representative of the alienation and separation of "creative expression" from the typical sphere of human life. Very little in life do we get a chance to creatively express ourselves, at work, or in our other responsibilities/ social functions, because of the conditions of life imposed by capitalism. If not oppressed by this inhuman system, why would we not all creatively express our self as we please? Incorporating "art" into every aspect of our life? To destroy it would be to remove the artificial separation the concept holds from our everyday lives and human experience, if creativity becomes typical and intertwined with all human experience then we are all "artists", or more realistically art is abolished, and reunified with the typical realm of human experience. As far as "professional artists" go, is it not realistic to look at them as bourgeois parasites?

Producing nothing of value, they glorify the concept of a ruling class by receiving great accolades for producing nothing. Paris Hilton with a brush in her hand. When I say "I wish to abolish art" I say I wish us all to be artists, and for us remove this word from our lexicon thereby ending the alienation of humans from their creativity, and ending this propaganda tool and emblem of bourgeois rule. They spend millions upon millions for paint on a canvas while millions starve and die from easily preventible diseases. Art, as an industry and culture, mocks human existence. To smash this idea is necessary for the emancipation of our species. A famous painting, which is but paint on a canvas, or a Rolls Royce, one is art the other is not, but wait, certainly a Rolls Royce is more "artsy" than a Toyota Camry.

In this analysis "artsy" becomes a code word for bourgeois. The debate over what is or is not art is an argument about the hegemonic force of the bourgeois over the realm of human creativity, what is declared art is reflective of their values and tastes. Commodification is silly in general but selling "art" seems to be a particularly gross example of commodification, commodifying human creativity itself, placing a monetary value on someone's creativity that can be compared to the value of an industrial object which actually had production costs of raw materials and labor. It mocks human labor by claiming to sometimes be far more valuable than it, although the typical artist starves, hoping someday the bourgeois will fetishize his creativity.

Break the chains of their control over creativity! Free us and yourselves from the rule of the bourgeois and their conceptualized separation of creativity from life and allow us to live as natural human beings. We will all be artists in communism so the word and category will cease to exist, but it begins with the overthrow of the concepts in your own mind which support their rule. Deny art.

etymonline.com

philosophynow.org

stewarthomesociety.org

rolls-roycemotorcars.com

toyota.com

radford.edu

^I like this site for the four pictures at the top which show the development from religious/mythological to aristocratic, to bourgeois.

So I was wondering what you thought?

Forum: 

The word fetish has a literal meaning. "any object, idea, etc., eliciting unquestioning reverence, respect, or devotion: to make a fetish of high grades." this is the way art is regarded. The art itself is fetishized because they are objects to be regarded with awe. Furthermore I used the term in the Marxist sense of commodity fetishism. I think the posthumous recognition of art mocks the artist, and very much has to do with its elitest tendencies, after all, once dead an artist produces no more art, so the art he has produced begins to take on a definite value, because we know he will not produce anymore, so the commodity fetishism is easier because there is a reference of price in relation to the other art produced by that artist. The uncertainty of acquiring art from a living artist makes the investment uncertain, most living artists are not well known because their art hasn't been around long, and there is no reference of price to the other commodities produced, or to be produced, by that artist. Art is after all a commodity as well as a source of capitalist speculation where profit is produced from nothing, imitating the stock market. Its existence cannot be taken out of the context of commodification.

Artists obviously do get to see the "fruits of their labor", it is the art they produce. Often they don't get rich, but someone else does. Therein lies my point. The artist, to survive under capitalism, must commodify their creativity, and thereby fetishize their art, turning it into more than just an expression of their creativity. Like the fetishized pieces of paper in financial markets, capitalists then speculate on their fetishized creativity, hoping that someone is willing to ascribe an arbitrary value higher then what they paid for it. Art, as it functions in modern times, neccesarily proletarianizes the artist, but really they are almost lumpenproletarian, as they do not contribute to useful production.They create items to be speculated upon by the bourgeois, a new idolatry. Lastly, the snobby tendency of art to dismiss some entertainment as not being art because it is too crass, "mass-media" oriented, or unrefined. Art exists so that we can not all have it. Only a select elite few bourgeois tastemakers have the true art, but what is popularly consumed by "the multitude" is not art. This is the bourgeois essence of art.

I like this blog very much Sandman, with it's sizzling ideas. Incidentally Fred has referenced it sympathetically on the ICC forum on the Bauhaus thread.

Hey what blog are you talking about? And what is the Bauhaus thread? I don't know what you're talking about?

The very argument over what is or is not art is reflective of its elitist nature. Taking a shit and brushing your teeth is not art, one cant be creative in these things? This piece was written fully embracing all music as being considered art. But the fact that a debate remains over the topic is I think very supporting of my point, art is a realm dominated by an elite of tastemakers, who are bourgeois, from fancy shmancy gallery art, to crass mass media art. Would you say the tables in your house are art? But the pictures on the wall are? It is a category for a range of activities, which are creative, and mostly unproductive from the perspective of what items are socially necessary or useful, but plenty of creativity is not art, a lot of which goes into the creation of more utilitarian products.

If we abolish it we will reunify the creative with the "normal" in human experience. Realistically this can only fully happen after the social realities have changed, and there is a different medium of social relations. Art reflects modern reality, it does not create it. In the meantime attacking its perceived unassailability in the eyes of the general mass, and pointing out its deep intertwinement with capitalism, commodification, and class rule, is important for communist revolution. To do away with bourgeois rule we must do away with the ideologies that support and enforce their rule: art, science, modern organized education, work, prison/law, we cannot deny the bourgeois nature of these things and they must be radically changed if not abolished. The abolition of class will bring about a totally new understanding and experience of life, in the meantime we must smash their false ideological idols and recognize the historicity of the ideologies which are attendant to capitalism, together, hand in hand, they enforce the rule of the bourgeois.

I called what you wrote a "blog" because I thought that was the right word. I'm sorry if I'm wrong. On the ICC's forum there are different "threads". There is currently one about the Bauhaus art/furniture movement in Germany just after the 1st.World War and after all the revolutionary ferment there - and disasterous revolutionary defeat. It seems there's an exhibition of Bauhaus stuff in London now. Posters ( not bloggers!) have been discussing whether the bourgeoisie can produce effective "art" or not in the decadence of capitalism , as they did during it's ascendant period, on this ICC forum/thread. A poster, Fred, has taken up your point that art is a bourgeois invention, and gone on about fetishism of art-as-commodities. I thought you would be interested to hear about this, that's all. For myself, I like yourvpost above, very much, but wouldn't go along exactly with every word. I have to think about it. It's complicated. It would be nice too, to know what Jock, or an ICTer thinks. If they believe it is an issue of any consequence. Perhaps they don't!

,

Thanks a lot, I looked up what you're talking about on the ICC forum, I feel validated! I just didn't understand what you were talking about. I myself have moved away from some of the positions in this essay, specifically the label of "bourgeois parasite". Artists and art seem very hard to me to analyze from a marxist economic perspective, because the labor theory of value doesn't really seem like it applies to art. I believe the proper marxist analysis of class is based on relation to capital more than anything else, so therefore artists are lumpenproletarians, they do not have control over the means of production, and do no participate in the realm of useful productions. But they do sell the products of their labor, mainly to the bourgeois or certainly through the bourgeois, so therefore they are proletarian. If I were to rewrite the essay I would edit this part and talk more about their class position/relation. Its funny you say blog because I've heard multiple people in the last few days tell me I should start a blog so I guess this is kind of more encouragement. Thank you for the feedback.

Interesting discussion Charlie which I could not participate in since I was away. Perhaps we should start from the question of the output of art as a commodity. In this sense it is strange because its value is totally divorced from the labour time needed on average to produce it (although the first sale of a painting might reflect that at least from the painter's perspective). A lot of art gets produced by workers in their spare time who then get "discovered" by some bourgeois who then promotes it turning the product of someone' own thoughts into a ridiculously overvalued commodity. I once read that the US painter Jackson Pollock deliberately tried to create work which would deteriorate after his death in response to this phenomenon but I have to admit having only a nodding acquaintance with the issue. Perhaps Sandman you would like to submit a longer piece which we could not only publish but print?

Glad to have you back Cleish, I missed you. Good idea to egg Sandman on.

Beginning in the 1950s in France, the Letterist International and after the Situationist International developed a dialectical viewpoint, seeing their task as superseding art, abolishing the notion of art as a separate, specialized activity and transforming it so it became part of the fabric of everyday life. From the Situationist's viewpoint, art is revolutionary or it is nothing. In this way, the Situationists saw their efforts as completing the work of both Dada and surrealism while abolishing both.[52][53] The situationists renounced the making of art entirely.[4]

The Situationist International was probably the most radical,[4][54] politicized,[4] well organized and theoretically productive anti-art movement, reaching its apex with the student protests and general strike of May 1968 in France.

Wikipedia

anarchistmedia.wordpress.com

Is it art?

Does the word really have a definite meaning?

It's interesting this subject has sparked debates in both the ICC and ICT recently. In addition to the Bauhaus thread mentioned here there is also one on the ICC site about art in decadent capitalism which was the subject of a recent day of discussion, along with a text:

en.internationalism.org

This is obviously an area where there isn't a clearly defined 'class line' like on Russia or the trade unions, etc., although Trotsky wrote a lot about the proletariat and culture and in particular about the effects of capitalist decadence on art.

I don't disagree with a lot of the fundamental points being made here about how art is an alienated activity of 'specialists' in class society, that inevitably reflects the ruling ideology, and will be 'abolished' in a future communist society. But, surely as marxists, we need to base our view on the fact that the proletariat, as a revolutionary class which cannot develop its own culture within capitalism, must begin its task of creating a communist society by appropriating the best of all past cultures - and the art of the Renaissance, the art of Leonardo and Michelangelo, is surely part of the heritage of humanity, one of its highest artistic expressions so far, which cannot be reduced to religious propaganda? The best art transcends the limits of the class society it is created in - the best art belongs to humanity not the bourgeoisie!

I agree, in fact I have changed some positions I take in this piece since writing it.

Honestly a lot of the idea was not to establish a fixed position or dogma, but to spur thought.

The art of Leonardo or Michelangelo may be the "heritage" of humanity but as most of this has been turned into a commodity which is currently in the possession of rich collectors it will only really become the ehritage of humanity when it is owned by humanity in general. I understood Sandman to have nuanced his earlier "iconoclasm" so did not comment earlier.

I understand Sandman has changed some of his views as well, and it would certainly be good to read a clarification of his position in the light of the comments made here. His original position was perfectly valid: it was similar to the stance of the Dadaists who wanted to demolish bourgeois culture and abolish art. I think that veered too close to anarchism but it certainly expressed a genuine proletarian reaction to war and decadence and was obviously a crucial point of reference for all subsequent art movements, including the Situationists, whose positions quoted in the wikipedia entry are still very relevant today as a starting point for debate.

The art of Leonardo or Michelangelo may be the "heritage" of humanity but as most of this has been turned into a commodity which is currently in the possession of rich collectors it will only really become the ehritage of humanity when it is owned by humanity in general.

Well, yes, and I think the interesting thing about this discussion is that it seems to show an interest in working out a more developed marxist orientation towards art, and modern art in particular, which would potentially inform the role of revolutionaries today. Granted this is not the most vital political issue in front of us today, but it is very relevant to our understanding of decadence, and of what is at stake for the proletarian struggle given the gravity of capitalism's crisis, which potentially threatens the survival of all human culture, either through war, economic convulsions or ecological degradation.

Granted this is not the most vital political issue in front of us today, but it is very relevant to our understanding of decadence, and of what is at stake for the proletarian struggle given the gravity of capitalism's crisis, which potentially threatens the survival of all human culture, either through war, economic convulsions or ecological degradation.

Agree with first half of first sentence but after that "the understanding of decadence" is a quasi-religious concept. Decadence does nothing. Human beings do.

"the understanding of decadence" is a quasi-religious concept. Decadence does nothing. Human beings do.

Excuse me....are you serious? Is this the forum of a marxist left communist organisation or have I wandered into libcom by mistake? Seriously, didn't Marx say something about men (sic) making their own history but not in circumstances of their choosing?

I would have thought, to say the very least, that it's impossible to understand the evolution of art since the start of the 20th century without using the marxist concept of decadence, which is precisely why most bourgeois art history is completely mystified and mystifying on the subject ('decline of the west', 'crisis of civilization', moral collapse, etc).

This is the difference between us and the ICC. Decadence is a heuristic device to explain where we are in the history of capitalism i.e. the monopolistic state capitalist imperialist phase. It is thus in decay because its own contradictions have forced it to develop in this way. But how long this decay (which is not linear) of the capitalist mode of production will go on we cannot say since no such dynamic system has previously existed. Even the current crisis is something new. Never before has a crisis been "managed" like the current one so that the cycle of accumulation that began with the post war boom still has not ended after 40 years. The system is crying out for a massive devaluation but our rulers are caught between this and the recognition that the social consequences could be catastrophic. For them the old certainties have gone to the point where we have reached the current stagnation of the system (an apparent stagnation since the dynamics of the system are still moving us towards a still greater catastrophe further down the historical road).

Decadence though does not per se explain anything. All the phenomenon which we see as related to capitalism's decadence have to be explained in and of themselves in the light of the materialist conception of history and the laws of motion of capital. As to art you can speculate as much as you like about it and decadence (some considered the impressionists decadent and if decadence is about romatic nostalgia for a past that never was then you can have the pre-raphaelites but then this argument can lead anywhere). As you said not the most vital issue facing internationalists today so why then try to tack it on to the issues which are vital?

Decadence is a heuristic device to explain where we are in the history of capitalism i.e. the monopolistic state capitalist imperialist phase.

Well "heuristic device" is an advance on "quasi-religious concept" I suppose. In fact there is nothing in your first paragraph that I (or, I suspect, the ICC) would disagree with, as far as it goes. You agree that capitalism is in decay, I agree that this is because of its own contradictions.

I also agree that decadence per se doesn't explain everything. Trying to explain every phenomenon, especially in the sphere of art, with reference to the falling rate of profit or the saturation of markets would be nothing but vulgar materialism, wouldn't it? You know that Marx was always very clear that the economic factor is the decisive one only in the final analysis. So if you don't agree with the concept of decadence, fine, go ahead and analyse the development of art on the basis of "the materialist conception of history and the laws of motion of capital", and let's see how different your analysis is. It would be really interesting.

As you said not the most vital issue facing internationalists today so why then try to tack it on to the issues which are vital?

The nature of art is clearly not the most vital issue facing revolutionaries today - excuse me for pitching in and trying to relate it to some broader issues like the historic crisis of capitalism. If you don't think this is important enough to discuss on this forum, just say so.

For us decadence is a heuristic device but for the ICC, and those influenced by it, it has attained quasi-religious significance as almost an actor in history. I can remember several meetings where somone or other has stated that "decadence caused this or that " (I cannot be bothered to check my notes) This is what we have always criticised as an abuse of the concept.

Discussing the historic crisis of capitalism is one thing speculating about its cultural manifestations is another. In this discussion you or anyone else can speculate all you like but I am equally free to say that it is just an intellectual exercise, entertaining perhaps, but ultimately not a great contribution to the liberation of humanity.

For us decadence is a heuristic device but for the ICC, and those influenced by it, it has attained quasi-religious significance as almost an actor in history. I can remember several meetings where somone or other has stated that "decadence caused this or that " (I cannot be bothered to check my notes) This is what we have always criticised as an abuse of the concept.

Honestly I agree, every damn ICC article mentions "decomposition" and it just seems reductionist and obscurantist. Like all these different trends and movements within capitalism are lumped into a new ideological "superstructure" which obscures the real, far more complex picture. I find their articles annoying for this reason, but given the fact they have taken a positive interest in my work I will post the next thing I right in ther forum.

In this discussion you or anyone else can speculate all you like but I am equally free to say that it is just an intellectual exercise, entertaining perhaps, but ultimately not a great contribution to the liberation of humanity.

Is "this discussion" in regards to my writing or the debate about "decomposition", which has now hijacked this post.

  • the next thing I WRITE in their forum

I'd urge Sandman to contribute to all left communist forums on this and any other topics. This isn't a contest and we should be encouraging the widest possible discussion within the revolutionary movement today on all issues.

^Agreed. Honestly left communism is pretty obscure so its hard to even find all the groups.

I'm not sure all the old art objects will merit much attention in the future, even if they are the property of society in general.

I think the point is that the world the classless humanity of the future will build will not be divided between a horrible profit making 'real world' and a separate art sector.

Its all speculation but one thing is for sure, the break with class society won't be instant and old habits die hard.

One form of artistic expressin that could pssibly serve well as a vehicle for revolutionary ideas is music. I suppose poetry is closely related but it is relatively marginalised.

Depite its many contradictory strands, punk had deep roots in the Situationist International, in its turn deeply influenced by Marx.

This may well be a good verdict on the art question;

The Situationist International rejected all art that separated itself from politics, the concept of 20th-century art that is separated from topical political events.The SI believed that the notion of artistic expression being separated from politics and current events is one proliferated by reactionary considerations to render artwork that expresses comprehensive critiques of society impotent. They recognized there was a precise mechanism followed by reactionaries to defuse the role of subversive artists and intellectuals, that is, to reframe them as separated from the most topical events, and divert from them the taste for the new that may dangerously appeal the masses; after such separation, such artworks are sterilized, banalized, degraded, and can be safely integrated into the official culture and the public discourse, where they can add new flavors to old dominant ideas and play the role of a gear wheel in the mechanism of the society of the spectacle.According to this theory, artists and intellectuals that accept such compromises are rewarded by the art dealers and praised by the dominant culture.The SI received many offers to sponsor “creations” that would just have a "situationist" label but a diluted political content, that would have brought things back to order and the SI back into the old fold of artistic praxis. The majority of SI continued to refuse such offers and any involvement on the conventional avant-garde artistic plane.This principle was affirmed since the founding of the SI in 1957, but the qualitative step of resolving all the contradictions of having situationists that make concessions to the cultural market, was made with the exclusion of Gruppe SPUR in 1962.The SI noted how reactionary forces forbid subversive ideas from artists and intellectuals to reach the public discourse, and how they attack the artworks that express comprehensive critique of society, by saying that art should not involve itself into politics

This reminds me of my first class in community (when I first wrote that word I accidentally typed "communist", lol) college. It was a songwriting class and we were watching a TED Talks by the author of "Eat, Pray Love". The whole talk was about how she thinks that her "best"/most popular work is behind her, and how it makes her feel so depressed, how this is indicative of how we treat artists in our culture, etc.; her main idea was that in ancient societies like the Ancient Greeks they used to think of "artists" as not responsible for their work (she goes into the etymology and evolution of the word "genius" and how it demonstrates this) and that it was great that artists should not be held to a particular standard or even associated with being the originator of the work, and that we should do that now, for the sake of the artists, even if we understand it is completely bullshit. I had a hard time not laughing throughout the lecture (If anyone is interested I might try to find a link, the whole thing was hilariously pathetic). After the video, during the class discussion afterwards, I commented that the idea was great and all (I was trying to let them down softly) except one teeeensy little thing that might be just a little bit of a factor in the popular culture of those societies expressing a more fluid boundary between mental and physical labor and a tolerance for unproductive labor:

They all had f*ing slaves.

The class looked like such a hilarious mixture between confused and horrified, I was given so many faces filled with nothing but shock. It was awesome to see the horror on the faces of all the capitalist pig-dogs.

Anyway, back to the discussion at hand:

I agree that Sandman should post on as many leftcom forums as he can find, maybe even non-leftcom forums that are rather, errrrr, unsavory, such as RevLeft, just for a wider audience (there are a couple leftcoms there though, myself included [although rarely]).

But of the wider issue of decadence "theory", and I am aware of Sandman's annoyance at the thread being derailed to it, I really do think it is important to the entire discussion. I think Sandman's formulation faces a real danger of losing at least some of its value and insight if forced into a framework of "decadence theory" (not sure where I want the scare quotes, I'll play around 'till it feels right), and at worst, total distortion. I think the fact that references to the concept of "decadence" showed up so early in the comments section shows this danger.

Art exists so that we can not all have it.

Beautifully concise. I'd almost call it art.

Aww, my formatting didn't go through like it showed in the preview.

I had the: "It was awesome to see the horror on the faces of all the capitalist pig-dogs". And the: "I'd almost call it art." in strikethrough.

Qirequiam

Just to let you know that in trying to delete your first post on the other thread on the US elections I accidentally deleted the original article and whole thread on The US elections. My apologies to you and the comrades who contributed. I hope you kept a copy but I might still have one (I have to check our email system). I will restore as much as I can today. I take your suggestion for an edit button for contributors (I will ask the admin as I am only responsible for the English speaking pages and not the technical issues of the whole site). It would save me work too as I generally correct typos etc in posts (but no-one makes more than me!)

That's alright: I actually feel as though it might be for the best. I just couldn't stop cringing when looking at (like what 4? 5? possibly even 6) posts in a row by the same user: me. I felt like I was such an annoyance (and then all my posts beginning with the word "sorry", there is nothing more aggravating in the world [possibly with the exception of Kautsky] than people who continue doing the same damn thing but just put the word "sorry" in front of it). I try and write everything in a word/openoffice document first (for spellcheck [f* me, I can't believe I didn't save a copy while doing this {I actually probably did, I think, maybe, somewhere, on my 500 GB laptop, or 2 TB external hard drive, under a filename that was relevant, or possibly-justkiddingdefinitely a filename composed of random letters and numbers I smacked on the keyboard as fast as possible so I could quickly go back to writing}]), but sometimes copy/pasting the text into the "Add new comment" textbox generates weird bugs and such.

Good to know I'm not the only one who has to make a lot of posts correcting too!

Most of all: Thanks for letting me know (and for even addressing my request in the first place). And while I search my laptop for the document: if you do find a copy of the thread, or at least the one of the versions (preferably the second, final-ish, version) of the main post, please let me know!

P.S.

you and the comrades who contributed

Maybe it was all worth it for no other reason than my shit self-esteem went up a little bit at the idea that my first written attempt at anything resembling political analysis was at least coherent enough to prompt the idea in someone's head that it might have had more than one person writing it. Or, that at least it was so terrible the writer must have had at least one accomplice in creating something so miserably empty of meaningful content.

pyrrhoWinsLottery.jpg

P.P.S. Seriously though: thanks Cleishbotham for letting me know!P.P.P.S. Anyway, time to rerail this thread. I seriously do think a reading of Sandman's post with a "decadence theory" framework can really cause a major misreading.

Taking up the point raised by Qirequiam with reference to the author of "Eat, pray, love" who said something like 'great artists don't always feel responsible for what they produce' I would make the following comments.

D.H. Lawrence, regarded in some quarters as a major novelist along with George Eliot and Henry James, said a number of times in his letters that there were moments when he was so immersed in his writing that afterwards, reading it through, he didn't feel as if he had written it at all, merely transmitted it so to speak from some other unidentified source. In his autobiography Trotsky says something similar about some of his writings: that something had so to speak "taken over" and he had merely written it down. So I am prepared to give Greek playwrights such as Sophocles and Aeschylus the benefit of the doubt abut their feelings with regard to "authorship", especially as they were immersed in their very original experimental dramas in deep psychological territory. But in any case I assume we only have the word of the author of Eat Pray Love for how the Greek writers felt, and her very personal commitment to bourgeois obsessions and life style could leave her a bit suspect!

In the case of Trotsky perhaps it was the working class which "took over". After all, revolutionaries are the direct product of the class are they not, and what they know about proletarian politics they learn from the class. Didn't Marx learn from the class in its experience and practices in the Paris Commune that the class cannot just seize bourgeois instruments of rule unthinkingly and use them for new revolutionary working class purposes? Didn't Lenin learn from the class that the Soviets were the new discovered form of proletarian democracy replacing worn out bourgeois parliaments?

I am not going to get hot and bothered over art - does it exist, who owns it etc! I know the Sistine Chapel ceiling was produced by Michelangelo and that it's amazing with all those nudes. If it has a religious underpinning it also more dramatically has a passionate homosexual basis too! But this is served up under the disguise of religiosity, for the ceiling is dominated by Michelangelo's vision of the all powerful, all dominating, ancient, hirsute and patriarchal figure of God the Father, so fantastically robed and tweeting life into the finger of a languid Adam, reaching out lazily. Michelangelo was a very gifted man but of his time. Surely the artist, like the politician, cannot be otherwise?

Music is the same. Beethoven's 3rd. symphony, the Eroica, embodies Beethoven's feelings about the exciting possibilities for life released by the French Revolution, in an explosion of organised sound such as had never been heard on this planet before. Feudalism is blown away. Emotional freedom of expression, bourgeois style, is unleashed. Wordsworth felt the same. "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive," he writes. But both he and Beethoven were to realise soon enough that the emancipation they had anticipated from the French Revolution was not provided for in the limited one dished up "democratically" by the triumphant bourgeoisie in their Dictatorship which followed on.

I don't really know what I am doing here in this post! I am trying to respond to Qirequiam and his expressions of regret and sorrow at his own confusions and muddles, and being all excited at attempting a prelimnary kind of political statement, to do with art, and speaking from a proletarian point of view. But I am easily confused and muddled myself and can only apologise as Qirequiam has done, if I've made things worse! But at least I believe we're both trying to say something, and clarify something. Like Sandman who started all this. Perhaps Qirequam will reply?

I don't necessarily have any problems with your point, which, if I understand you correctly, seems to be that many of what (at least what current society judges to be) great artists are considered as such because they implemented emotions and concepts that were more "in tune" with their sociohistorical contexts. And that this may, in some way, be comparable with a particular phenomenon where, in some revolutionaries, as they learn through experience they may become conscious of the interplay of some set of relationships seemingly abruptly and that this may create a feeling of "I didn't come up with that". Is this what you were getting at? If so, cool. If, not, then I hope I at least might've provided you with a "negative space" where I misunderstood you, and formulating your ideas against this, my misunderstanding might possibly be of some use to you in getting a sense of what you were trying to say.

I regret though, I must let you down, comrade, regarding your interpretation of my anecdote as anything more profound than it immediately appears to be. I really was just trying to communicate what I though to be a humorous instance of bourgeois utopianism and idealism which involved some of the concepts in Sandman's blog/post/analysis. I wasn't trying to make a point. Or, if I was, it wasn't anything more than: Hey, look at the bourgeois asshole giving a TED Talks spouting the most idealistic and egotistical garbage, and my class was totally horrified when I gave it even the first inkling of an economic context, it was hilarious and it is a good demonstration of some of the concepts that the thread involves!

It's almost 1 in the morning here, I didn't sleep at all last night either, I'm tired as heck but can't sleep for some reason. I have been workin' on a reply to your message since I got the email at around 11:30 [thanks windows 10]. So let me know if that last sentence of the first paragraph, which right now I think makes sense but seems sketchy, turns out to be incomprehensible gibberish.

I think like Marx we want to "negate the negation" but I not sure that being provided with "a negative space" helps all that much here.

I don't think revolutionaries " learn from experience" which is the standard model for bourgeois citizens to follow. I think rather they learn from the working class itself, as it struggles and developes its consciousness. Class consciousness is something quite different from the concept of the individualised, privately possessed bourgeois "intelligence", and a profound advance on it. For essentially it is plain straightforward thinking uncluttered by deceitful ideology, and has the future interests of humanity and the planet at heart as opposed to the bourgeoisie's interest in the production and amassing of profit and money and sod everything else.

But regarding your anecdote. Is it possible that your anecdote was better than you thought and that the author of Eat, pray, love, was onto something more significant than she knew? And that serious artists - not I think that Leonardo, or even Mozart necessarily regarded themselves as "artists" in the way in which bourgeois society uses that word now - through a massive commitment to what they are doing are capable of losing themselves and their commoditised persona in the process and thus produce works that transcend normal constraints?

I am sorry you didn't sleep last night. Don't feel you have to reply to posts immediately like I'm doing now! This isn't Facebook or Twitter after all. But I must finally confess that I don't actually understand the final sentence of your paragraph one at all. Maybe it doesn't matter?

Class consciousness, understood as the awareness of the need to replace capitalism with a global communist society and the means to do so is constantly evolving and this is in part due to capitalism's evolution, the evolution of the class response and the reflectiom of revolutionaries on these phenomena.

The importance of the role of revolutionaries in this process cannot be underestimated. No matter the extent and intensity of struggle, workers will not come to revolutionary consciousness in isolation. This is not to say that such consciousness is the property of non-workers. It is to say that such a consciousness is the result of a historic process which at one point did require the input of those outside of the constraints of wage labour.

An array of experiences can motivate workers to consider and accept the revolutionary perspective. Such workers can go on to disseminate and elaborate class consciousness. But to create it ex nihilo? No.

The above could be polished and elaborated, it is a broad sketch, but its essence remains; the necessity of revolutionary theory and organisation and the limits of spontaneity.

Perhaps to return to the original theme, the media by which this consciousnees is generalised is subject to change. At one point the book, the pamphlet and the printed newspaper played the starring roles. Today we have the power of the internet which we are only beginning to harness. This allows for the dissemination of a vast array of informative material, not only the written word, which may well always retain primacy.

When I said negative space, I was referring to its usage in art, not like a dialectical categorical opposite... probably... I think I was just trying to say that maybe my misunderstanding could be used as like a - you know what, you're right. Who cares? Not me! Next point:

Maybe I should have been more specific, when I said "learn from experience" I didn't mean like: Bob sticks a fork in the electrical socket. Bob gets electrocuted. Fortunately, it was AC instead of DC, so Bob had a chance to get away when the current switches. Bob remembers pain of electrocution. Bob no longer stick fork in electrical socket.

I meant instances where a revolutionary, because they are driven by class consciousness, can recognizes the pros and cons of any particular class action, including possibly (in fact, necessarily) ones they themselves happened to be involved in directly, and can differentiate between actions which will aid and actions which will damage the revolutionary movement. This is the entire point of being a revolutionary.

Class struggle is what leads to class consciousness. However, I don't see what is wrong with stating that, although what class consciousness "is" is determined by the relations surreounding the entirety of the class, some members of the class attain class consciousness sooner than other. I don't see the contradiction between understanding the process of developing class consciousness as the process of the proletariat developing towards being a class in itself, for itself, and having individual members of the class developing a more clear, or more quickly developing, class concsciousness.

Class struggle is what leads to class consciousness.

Yes but it is not direct. Workers in struggle are not going to become revolutionary communists simply due to a particular strugle but the experience may allow revolutionary theory, however presented, to penetrate.

Of course in a broader sense if there were no classes, no class struggle obviously the subject would not arise and so there has to be a set of material circumatances which provoke reflection.

i don;t really have an argument with the rest of your ultimate paragraph, but I would say class consciousness is not limited to a totality of what exists but also of the future aim of the communist movement; a global society without classes or borders.

I doubt you have an issue with that, but it's worth mentioning.

Yes but it is not direct. Workers in struggle are not going to become revolutionary communists simply due to a particular strugle but the experience may allow revolutionary theory, however presented, to penetrate."I agree, I hadn't meant it in a direct, mechanical-determinist way. Otherwise, when I first moved away from "liberal socialism", I would have probably gone in an accelerationist direction (petit-bourgeois tendencies for impatience asserting themselves and not kept in check by a surrounding revolutionary movement), and would have never found my way to real revolutionary politics (at least not any time near when I did). Indeed I meant it in the sense that class struggle historically precedes any revolutionary theory and praxis and that the masses (usually) will not be particularly motivated by revolutionary work or theory if they aren't already involved in some kind of overt struggle. On an unrelated note (but still related to the overall thread): I started reading Dauvé's "Eclipse and Re-Emergence of the Communist Movement", and I came across this:"This is only possible through the positive analysis and development of the communist programme: abolition of the market economy; creation of new social relations where labour does not rule the whole of life, but is integrated into it; destruction of economics as such, of politics as such, of art as such, etc.

Damnit, formatting.

Here's what my last post should look like:

Yes but it is not direct. Workers in struggle are not going to become revolutionary communists simply due to a particular strugle but the experience may allow revolutionary theory, however presented, to penetrate.

I agree, I hadn't meant it in a direct, mechanical-determinist way. Otherwise, when I first moved away from "liberal socialism", I would have probably gone in an accelerationist direction (petit-bourgeois tendencies for impatience asserting themselves and not kept in check by a surrounding revolutionary movement), and would have never found my way to real revolutionary politics (at least not any time near when I did). Indeed I meant it in the sense that class struggle historically precedes any revolutionary theory and praxis and that the masses (usually) will not be particularly motivated by revolutionary work or theory if they aren't already involved in some kind of overt struggle.

On an unrelated note (but still related to the overall thread): I started reading Dauvé's Eclipse and Re-Emergence of the Communist Movement, and I came across this:

This is only possible through the positive analysis and development of the communist programme: abolition of the market economy; creation of new social relations where labour does not rule the whole of life, but is integrated into it; destruction of economics as such, of politics as such, of art as such, etc.