Hey y'all! I haven't given you a paper to read in a while! It's just slipped my mind every time I sit down to write. I know you really want to read some of the stuff I've been writing for my literary criticism (ENG 488/588) class so here ya go. (real bog follows)
Mark and Baudelaire: Class and Genius
"The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first
directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, and the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behavior. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc., of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc._real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to the furthest forms."
--Karl Marx, The German Ideology (768)
In his philosophical break from his greatly influential predecessor Georg Hegel, Karl Marx declared that existence precedes consciousness, that our thoughts are a bi-product of our physical (material) existence. An individual's thoughts and values are determined by his/her socio-economic position within his/her society. This revelation, which became the basis for the dialectical materialism that provides hope for the disempowered and alienated working classes, helped to solidify Marx's sociology and has particular importance in the application of his theories to literary criticism.
Marx saw society as increasingly divided by the forces of capitalism into two separate and distinct classes (He also classified two other social strata_the petit bourgeoisie and the lumpenproletariat_but as these groups are eventually absorbed into the main classes, their existence is somewhat irrelevant to a discussion of Marxist literary theory.) The greed of the owner class, or bourgeoisie, dehumanizes and reduces the members of the proletariat, or working class, to mere laborers. In a web of psychic and physical reactions to capitalism, the laborer himself becomes a commodity, existing solely, and by his ability, to sell his labor to the owner class. This relationship between the worker and his work defines every level of existence for the worker as he daily slaves on the capitalists' assembly lines to produce more and more profit via product. The bourgeois greed for more profit further divides the labor process, specializing production to make it faster and cheaper. This leaves the worker no personal connection to, or creative control over, the process and the product. The worker has become alienated from the product of his labor, from the act of laboring itself, and from the human community of which he was once a part before he became a commodity. Most tragically, he has lost his sense of species being_the unique creative capacity for the human being to turn nature into culture.
In application to literary theory, this means that literature is not produced by the proletariat, a fact lamented by many writers of literature, including Virginia Woolf in A Room of One's Own, which reveals the far-reaching implications of powerlessness and poverty in the production of art. Literature is part of the superstructure, the bourgeois cultural world. The economic determinism described above explains that all canonized literature then becomes reflective of the views and values of he bourgeois, becoming a tool of bourgeois propaganda that keeps the worker willingly chained to the gears of capitalism.
Charles Baudelaire's literary theory is drastically different from Marx's, but as such, it lends itself well to Marxist criticism. Baudelaire divides beauty into two separate spheres: the universal/eternal and the interested or modern. In a way, his classification of these separate spheres fits well with Marxist theories of economic determinism. For Baudelaire, the "modern" aspect of beauty that corresponds with the physical and temporal is based on individual interest or pleasure in an object of beauty. Even what Baudelaire and many other literary theorists and critics call "universal" beauty becomes relative in Baudelaire's theory. "The ingredient of eternal beauty reveals itself only with the permission and under the discipline of the religion to which the artist belongs" (793). It can be concluded then that, according to Baudelaire's theory, class lends certain meaning or beauty to art and literature.
Where Baudelaire's theory becomes problematic in a Marxist reading is his assumption of class. Baudelaire identifies certain character types and traits as genius that are heavily limited and defined by socio-economic class factors. In Baudelaire's literary theory, no man or woman of the working class (indeed no woman of any class if one reads Virginia Woolf's interpretations of gender in class) is capable of producing literature of any real artistic merit.
The "man of the world" (794), the genius, the flaneur and dandy are Baudelaire's poets and heroes. These men, of whom Baudelaire was most decidedly one, spend their time accruing debts at fashionable shops and restaurants, socializing at the best parties, and entertaining and shocking their peers and contemporaries while maintaining a stoic and stylish front (798-799). While reveling in a romanticized notion of street life, the genius-artist does not know the actual physical and psychic strains of the life of the proletariat. This man is idle, child-like in his worldview, and enraptured with life. He "makes the whole world his family" (795). He is curious and follows his curiosity to the point of complete engrossment in the objects of his desires.
This man is clearly not of the working classes, who by their alienation, are hardly able to relate to their own humanity, let alone make the whole world their family. Those who are dependent on, and indeed defined by, the daily struggle to maintain even a physical existence are not interested in the temporary whims of curiosity. Baudelaire uses the word "prince" (795) to describe his worldly "man of the crowd" (794). The use of that word alone illustrates his clear class bias. He does not even entertain the idea of a creative mind among the working class, let alone a genius. Though he describes his "dandy" as a product of a particular economic and political context (799), he forgets the importance of the economic privilege of high social class that allows the genius to recover his childhood at will.
Good times.
My soldier bailed on me last night. He was supposed to come see me at work. Last call comes, and no sarge. I check my voicemail and there it is: an excuse. Punk ass. He promised to come see me at home tonight on his way home. It's around that time, too. If he doesn't show tonight, I'm not putting anymore effort into this.
Did I tell you that I finally got a pair of jeans that fit? It's exciting. They're way hot. :-)
We were dead at work this weekend. I made less than $200 all told. Around $180 maybe. Oh well.
So it's obviously been a while since I bleached my hair, but I haven't shown you yet. Except Afterbirth who might be the only person who reads this.
Anywho. I have some reading to do before the sarge gets here. Enough slacking. . .
Mark and Baudelaire: Class and Genius
"The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first
directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, and the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behavior. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc., of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc._real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to the furthest forms."
--Karl Marx, The German Ideology (768)
In his philosophical break from his greatly influential predecessor Georg Hegel, Karl Marx declared that existence precedes consciousness, that our thoughts are a bi-product of our physical (material) existence. An individual's thoughts and values are determined by his/her socio-economic position within his/her society. This revelation, which became the basis for the dialectical materialism that provides hope for the disempowered and alienated working classes, helped to solidify Marx's sociology and has particular importance in the application of his theories to literary criticism.
Marx saw society as increasingly divided by the forces of capitalism into two separate and distinct classes (He also classified two other social strata_the petit bourgeoisie and the lumpenproletariat_but as these groups are eventually absorbed into the main classes, their existence is somewhat irrelevant to a discussion of Marxist literary theory.) The greed of the owner class, or bourgeoisie, dehumanizes and reduces the members of the proletariat, or working class, to mere laborers. In a web of psychic and physical reactions to capitalism, the laborer himself becomes a commodity, existing solely, and by his ability, to sell his labor to the owner class. This relationship between the worker and his work defines every level of existence for the worker as he daily slaves on the capitalists' assembly lines to produce more and more profit via product. The bourgeois greed for more profit further divides the labor process, specializing production to make it faster and cheaper. This leaves the worker no personal connection to, or creative control over, the process and the product. The worker has become alienated from the product of his labor, from the act of laboring itself, and from the human community of which he was once a part before he became a commodity. Most tragically, he has lost his sense of species being_the unique creative capacity for the human being to turn nature into culture.
In application to literary theory, this means that literature is not produced by the proletariat, a fact lamented by many writers of literature, including Virginia Woolf in A Room of One's Own, which reveals the far-reaching implications of powerlessness and poverty in the production of art. Literature is part of the superstructure, the bourgeois cultural world. The economic determinism described above explains that all canonized literature then becomes reflective of the views and values of he bourgeois, becoming a tool of bourgeois propaganda that keeps the worker willingly chained to the gears of capitalism.
Charles Baudelaire's literary theory is drastically different from Marx's, but as such, it lends itself well to Marxist criticism. Baudelaire divides beauty into two separate spheres: the universal/eternal and the interested or modern. In a way, his classification of these separate spheres fits well with Marxist theories of economic determinism. For Baudelaire, the "modern" aspect of beauty that corresponds with the physical and temporal is based on individual interest or pleasure in an object of beauty. Even what Baudelaire and many other literary theorists and critics call "universal" beauty becomes relative in Baudelaire's theory. "The ingredient of eternal beauty reveals itself only with the permission and under the discipline of the religion to which the artist belongs" (793). It can be concluded then that, according to Baudelaire's theory, class lends certain meaning or beauty to art and literature.
Where Baudelaire's theory becomes problematic in a Marxist reading is his assumption of class. Baudelaire identifies certain character types and traits as genius that are heavily limited and defined by socio-economic class factors. In Baudelaire's literary theory, no man or woman of the working class (indeed no woman of any class if one reads Virginia Woolf's interpretations of gender in class) is capable of producing literature of any real artistic merit.
The "man of the world" (794), the genius, the flaneur and dandy are Baudelaire's poets and heroes. These men, of whom Baudelaire was most decidedly one, spend their time accruing debts at fashionable shops and restaurants, socializing at the best parties, and entertaining and shocking their peers and contemporaries while maintaining a stoic and stylish front (798-799). While reveling in a romanticized notion of street life, the genius-artist does not know the actual physical and psychic strains of the life of the proletariat. This man is idle, child-like in his worldview, and enraptured with life. He "makes the whole world his family" (795). He is curious and follows his curiosity to the point of complete engrossment in the objects of his desires.
This man is clearly not of the working classes, who by their alienation, are hardly able to relate to their own humanity, let alone make the whole world their family. Those who are dependent on, and indeed defined by, the daily struggle to maintain even a physical existence are not interested in the temporary whims of curiosity. Baudelaire uses the word "prince" (795) to describe his worldly "man of the crowd" (794). The use of that word alone illustrates his clear class bias. He does not even entertain the idea of a creative mind among the working class, let alone a genius. Though he describes his "dandy" as a product of a particular economic and political context (799), he forgets the importance of the economic privilege of high social class that allows the genius to recover his childhood at will.
Good times.
My soldier bailed on me last night. He was supposed to come see me at work. Last call comes, and no sarge. I check my voicemail and there it is: an excuse. Punk ass. He promised to come see me at home tonight on his way home. It's around that time, too. If he doesn't show tonight, I'm not putting anymore effort into this.
Did I tell you that I finally got a pair of jeans that fit? It's exciting. They're way hot. :-)
We were dead at work this weekend. I made less than $200 all told. Around $180 maybe. Oh well.
So it's obviously been a while since I bleached my hair, but I haven't shown you yet. Except Afterbirth who might be the only person who reads this.
Anywho. I have some reading to do before the sarge gets here. Enough slacking. . .
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
Marx was very concerned that a capitalist socio-economic system would alienate the working class from the product of their labour and from the means of production. Looking back, I have to wonder whether the working classes care about this provided they (or perhaps I should say "we", since I own neither the means of production nor the fruits of my labour and hence I am working class according to a Marxist definition) can pick up a pay packet and spend it on beer or DVDs.
That may seem a harsh judgement but suffrage was extended to the working class in the UK a long time ago and if the working class cared about the same things that Marx cared about, you would have thought that voting patterns would have reflected this and that Britain would have almost a century of Socialist governments. (Ok I am restricting this to a discussion of the UK as I myself am from the UK but ask yourself if my comments could equally well be applied to the USA).
In truth, in the UK, the Conservative Party has been elected just as often as Labour. The UK has not had a Socialist government since 1979 (for the sake of argument, I will class Callaghan's Labour government as Socialist). In 1979, the Conservative Party under Thatcher ousted the Labour Party. Thatcher held the reins of power for three terms of office. Her successor John Major then held power for one term of office.
The next Government, although it was formed by the Labour Party could hardly be regarded as Socialist on account of the fact that, Tony Blair had 'modernised' the party making it electable by, among other things, removing Clause 4 of the Labour Party's constitution (the commitment to the common ownership of the means of production). Hence, the Labour Party is basically a capitalist party just like the Conservative Party. Between them, Thatcher, Major and Blair have won 7 General Elections. That's 7 occasions on which the British public voted not to have a Socialist government. The last time there was a Socialist party in government in Britain, I was 5 years old and you had not yet been born.
In Marx's day most of the working classes were uneducated peasants eking out a subsistence living from the fruit so the soil. In the UK today, the working classes are provided with state education up until the age of 16 with many being able to continue in education until the age of 18 taking A-Levels or even continuing their studies at university level. The whole concept of being working class has changed. Yes, the workers are still alienated from the fruits of their labour but they now have a state education system, a state healthcare system, employment rights including an entitlement to paid annual leave etc
So what does this say about Marx. Does this mean that he is no longer relevant, that he doesn't reflect the priorities of the 21st Century working classes?
Ok I am not trying to discredit Socialism. Socialism point of view with which I have a great deal of sympathy and I often despair of the extent to which (right wing) Liberal ideas seem to have infected the minds of most people I speak to, be it Tory or Labour supporters (honestly, the way some of these people speak, you'd think they would like it if we lived in an anarcho-capitalist society). However, it is hard to get away from the fact that most working class people couldn't care less about Socialism and that Socialism is only really given serious consideration by academics or extremists.
PS I absolutely love your new hair!!