NOTES on:
Anderson, P. (1984) 'Modernity and
Revolution'. New Left Review 144:
96-113
Dave Harris
[Defends Marxism against theories of modernity
like the once-fashionable M Berman]
This is a review of Berman's All That is
Solid... Berman says that modernity is
a mode of vital experience, exciting and
dangerous, a maelstrom, offering a paradoxical
unity. It is generated by social upheavals
all of which are traceable to the capitalist world
market. Modernization yielded a variety of
visions and ideas, including modernism. The
two are linked by the notion of modernity as a
development, both economic and a matter of
individual self development [which leads to a hint
of the notion of simultaneous liberation and
eclipse as in Horkheimer]. The phases include
accounts of contradictions, like those found in
Marx and Goethe. Contradictions emerge only
where the public is aware of premodernity.
Instead, these days we typically we get a
segmentation of publics, leading to polarisation,
such as that between pessimism and optimism,
rather than contradiction. We can see some
of these themes of the old contradictory modernism
in the present. Contradictory themes is the
subtext in the criticisms of Marx on communism
[communism is also likely to melt, leading either
to repression to stop intellectual development or
a new communist nihilism]
However, for Anderson, it is classes that
periodise the development of capitalism.
Berman omits these, largely, in favour of a stress
on economic and psychological groups. For
Marx, there is also a necessary decline of the
bourgeoisie. Modernism arises very unevenly
geographically, for example it barely touched
England. As a social and cultural
development, the concept stresses one
characteristic, and assumes that culture is
already polarized rather than contradictory.
Berman also wants to say that thought has
declined, although modernist art seems to be able
to constantly renew itself.
Another input is provided by Lukacs: the
bourgeoisie was a progressive force until 1848,
then it became reactionary and artistically
decadent. We can identify different epochs,
and within each one a certain synchrony,
permitting generalizations [I think this is being
seen as a flaw]. A better alternative, for
Anderson, is to use the concept of conjuncture, to
see modernism as a conjuncture rather than an
underlying trend. This can be defended by
referring to: (A) the development of academicism
in visual and other arts in societies still
dominated by the aristocracy (104); (B) the
emergence of new technologies and inventions; (C)
the emergence of a proxy of social revolution,
since bourgeois rule was not consolidated.
The new values in (A) emerged as a framework, from
new movements of resistance who are able to unify
themselves and draw sources for further resistance
against the market (105). For (B),
technologies provide new techniques, but in an
ambiguous way, partially abstracted from
capitalism. When discussing (C), the proxy
revolution provided an 'apocalyptic light' for the
social developments, making modernism seem
semi-aristocratic, semi-bourgeois, and even a
semi-labour movement. Modernism was able to
last until after world war one, and its products
included Brechtian theatre and surrealism.
World war two breaks this consensus, and
introduces fordism much more widely, installing it
as a specifically capitalist technology.
Jamieson discusses the implications of surrealism,
seeing its use of objects as a powerful critique,
when they were still recognizable as human labour,
still subjective and expressive. Such
objects have now gone, and have been replaced by
depthless ones. Hope for the revolution
failed too. We now have a bureaucratic
economy of universal commodity production, and no
new critical artistic movements after surrealism,
now a mere 'gallery system, necessitating regular
output of new styles as materials for seasonal
commercial display' (108).
At the end of these processes, emerges an
ideology, a cult of modernism, celebrating the
collapse of oppositions between art and
capitalism. Godard is an exception, drawing
on all the three elements earlier, including semi
aristocratic culture, and remaining equivocal
about technology. May 1968 was
'validating'(108), followed by a Debray comment:
May 1968 was 'the voyage to China which—like that
of Columbus—discovered only America: more
especially landing in California'.
Permissive consumerism was the only result, but
there was still a certain openness in cultural
terms. Now there is a new closure of
horizons towards the past and the future.
The third world may be an exception, where the
three factors of modernist dynamism still
interact.
For Berman, modernity is the subjective experience
of self development rather than moral or
institutional stabilization. This pursues a
theme based on earlier work, in Rousseau, and
displays his paradoxes of self development and
moral regulation. For Rousseau, the self
develops first then society, [but the reverse in
Marx]. Human nature limits 'infinite
ontological plasticity', in contrast to Marx in
the Grundrisse talking of sets of primary
needs, powers and dispositions. Freedom for
both Rousseau and Marx meant freedom for each and
the freedom of all rather than formless
desires. By contrast, Berman comes close to
the 'culture of narcissism'[as in Jencks?]
Capitalism is in permanent revolution for Burman,
an embodiment of mobility and renewal, heightened
as a response to socialism. But change is a
matter of dilution rather than the overthrow of
earlier states, indistinguishable from reform or
mere metaphor, to mean psychological or moral
conversion. There would be a socialist revolution
if the new state really was a 'transition or
towards the practicable limits of its own self
dissolution'.
Modernism is especially dubious as a label because
it is 'vacant and vitiated'. Postmodernism
is 'one void chasing another' a proper revolution
would end modernism as the insatiable search for a
new and open new possibilities for aesthetic
style, beyond what is just new. 'The calendar
would cease to tyrannize, or organize the
consciousness of art' (113)
Notes on: Berman, M. (1984) The Signs in the
Street: A Response to Perry Anderson'. New
Left Review 144: 114 - 23
Dave Harris
Are Anderson's three conditions for creativity the
only ones? Is social closure
permanent? We must make ourselves at home in
modernism. Discussion of the 'scenes from
everyday life' are necessary to show the
possibility. Street art and performance art
are places where 'politics invade the most
intimate spaces of the self', [with C Schneeman as
the example] although 'Alas the public doesn't
seem to want to see what she has to show: this
show has so far attracted no reviews and made no
sales' (120). [We then get lots of Berman's
views and thoughts on walking around the
Bronx—massive talk up, my notes suggest].
The intention is to show 'the heroism of modern
life', like the poets in Baudelaire. Such
activities do refer to social contexts because the
public spaces and environments help us understand
modern life—'the street and the demonstration [can
be seen] as primary symbols of modern life'
(123). Anderson by contrast is too remote,
and seems to be seeking perfection. Instead
he should embrace 'messy actuality'.
Intellectuals rapidly lose touch but it is
particularly important that they do not do so,
especially if they are on the left. They
should be able to 'see beneath surfaces' [but
there is nothing beneath the surface of
modernism?], make comparisons, grasp the
hidden patterns of forces and connections 'in
order to show people… that they have more in
common than they think' (123). 'Reading Capital
won't help us if we don't also know how to read
the signs in the street'.
'We can contribute visions and ideas that will
give people a shock of recognition, recognition of
themselves and each other that will bring their
lives together'[an apocalyptic and revolutionary
note after all, but also rather apologetic and
silly about the revolutionary possibilities of
art: mass audiences for Eastenders are more likely
to 'bring people together'. In some ways not
populist enough—apparently the academy can bring
people together, but who reads the books?]
more social theory
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