[lit-ideas] Re: Marxism and Political Correctness
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:43:42 -0500 (EST)
Some running commentary:
In a message dated 2/28/2012 3:39:28 P.M. UTC-02,
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
In 1946 Edmund Wilson published an essay entitled “Marxism and Literature.”
It appeared in the collection entitled The Triple Thinkers. It is worth
considering whether modern-American “Politically Correct” English
professors are prone to errors similar to the ones Wilson criticizes. He
writes, “
. . . Marxism by itself can tell us nothing whatever about the goodness or
badness of a work of art. A man may be an excellent Marxist, but if he
lacks imagination and taste he will be unable to make the choice between a
good and an inferior book both of which are ideologically unexceptionable.”"
Here I would distinguish, ironically, between
K. Marx,
G. Marx, etc.
Sticking with _K_ Marx, I would think that:
who or what
[is] "to tell us" something whatever, to use Wilson's phrase above, "about
the goodness or badness of a work of art"
is a _person _ himself?
What did K. Marx think of, say, "Das Kapital" as a work of art? But then,
what _is_ a work of art? ("Das Kapital" does not qualify, does it?). In
fact, one would think that it is
"Aesthetic", sans the 's', qua philosophical discipline, which should tell
us something whatever "about the goodness or badness" of a work of art.
But although P. Foot has written on the grammar of goodness (and 'good'
pervades axiology, aesthetics, and morality), I think most philosophers are
Meta-aestheticians, as it were: they don't write about the goodness or
badness of a work of art but they analyse the concepts by which we judge a
work
of art (or any other piece of work) as 'good'. J. O. Urmson's early papers
on appraisal come to mind -- also Sibley whom Robert Paul knew (the early
Strawson and Hampshire also have essays on this, Elton, "Aesthetics").
L. H. continues to quote
"Wilson hastens to add that it is good to throw light on the origins and
social significance of works of art. “The study of literature in its
relation to society is as old as Herder – even Vico. Coleridge had flashes of
insight into the connection between literary and social phenomena, as when he
saw the Greek state in the Greek sentence and the individualism of the
English in the short separate statements of Chaucer’s Prologue. . . But if
Marx and Engels and Lenin and Trotsky are worth listening to on the subject of
books, it is not merely because they created Marxism, but also because
they were capable of literary appreciation.”"
"Sesame and lillies", I think is the title of a book, a best-seller, by
Ruskin, 'on books'. The word 'book' is overrated, note. It's not qua book
that, say, Plato's "Republic" is a masterpiece (and then the Bible is
etymologically, "many books" -- some apocryphal, alas. In fact, Plato wrote it
on a
parchment, rather -- and Homer didn't (he was blind and just SANG the
things).
---- But I wouldn't know about Wilson.
I liked the point about seeing the Greek state (polis?) in a Greek
sentence. Which one? Coleridge. I think I have a book, "Coleridge in Italy".
How
much time did he spend in Greece? Mill used to say, similarly, that each
sentence is a _lesson_ in logic, but the political connotations (implicatures)
of Coleridge's dictum may lie elsewhere.
L. Helm continues:
"Wilson writes that “Marx and Engels, unlike their followers, never
attempted to furnish social-economic formulas by which the validity of works of
art might be tested. They had grown up in the sunset of Goethe before the
great age of German literature was over, and they had both set out in their
youth to be poets; they responded to imaginative work, first of all, on its
artistic merits.” Surely we should be doing the same thing today. We
should first of all strive to appreciate imaginative work on its artistic
merits. Secondarily we can study these imaginative works “in relation to
society.”"
"On its artistic merits" may require some analysis.
Cfr. on its 'aesthetic' merits.
Here I would distinguish between the 'hedonist', I think he is called,
'perceiver' of a 'work of art':
"I like it because I like it." "I like it".
Then there's the perceiver who goes to provide a reason, "I find it
enjoyable."
This, to Nowell-Smith, amounts to "I like it."
So we have to be careful. The analytic aesthetician starts by looking
what's behind or beyond an emotivist brand of aesthetics alla C. L. Stevenson
(whom Grice quotes in 1948, repr. WoW). And recall that for Kant, who
founded philosophical aesthetics, almost, there is something UNIVERSAL yet
subjective in the so-called, pretentiously, 'aesthetic judgement'.
Helm:
"Wilson warns, “. . . the man who tries to apply Marxist principles
without real understanding of literature is liable to go horribly wrong. For
one
thing, it is usually true in works of the highest order that the purport
is not a simple message, but a complex vision of things, which itself is not
explicit but implicit; and the reader who does not grasp them artistically,
but is merely looking for simple social morals, is certain to be
hopelessly confused. Especially will he be confused if the author does draw
an
explicit moral which is the opposite of or has nothing to do with his real
purport. Fredrich Engels, in the letter to Margaret Harkness . . . in warning
her that the more the novelist allows his political ideas to ‘remain
hidden, the better it is for the work of art,’ says that Balzac, with his
reactionary opinions, is worth a thousand of Zola, with all his democratic
ones.
. . When Proust, in his wonderful chapter on the death of the novelist
Bergotte, speaks of those moral obligations which impose themselves in spite of
everything and which seem to come through to humanity from some source
outside its wretched self (obligations ‘invisible only to fools . . .’), he
is describing a kind of duty which he felt only in connection with the
literary work which he performed in his dark and fetid room; yet he speaks for
every moral, esthetic, or intellectual passion which holds the expediencies
of the world in contempt.”"
This reminds me of Lamarque's essay in his own edited collection on
analytical philosophical aesthetics. Why are we moved by Anna Karenina's
tears?
Or something. The fact that we can draw inferences (let alone emotions) from
things like _art_ is interesting per se. I wouldn't know about _moral_
convictions, but even "empathy". Why is it that 'we are moved', this writer
asks, by 'Anna Karenina'? We are not moved by the tears of a _person_ -- just
a 'personage'. Mutatis mutandis, we have people drawing moral theories out
of characters.
I was recently reading a quote from "The melodramatic imagination". The
author was suggesting that it is not altogether proper to, say, provide a
'pyschological' analysis of an operatic character (Donna Elvira in Verdi's
"Ernani", as she tried to compare it with its source, "Donna Sol", in Victor
Hugo's "Hernani"), since they tend to be cliche or stereotypical --
archetypical is his word. Similarly for their moral views? But it may do to
expand
on each of the pieces that Wilson quotes.
Helm:
"Wilson writes, “The Leftist critic with no literary competence is always
trying to measure works of literature by tests which have no validity in
that field.”"
Wilson may have been influenced by Richards?
I. A. Richards is regarded, in the USA, as, more or less, the father of
lit. crit.
Interestingly, Richards started as an emotivist, in his joint work with
Ogden. (Richards's "Works", now repr. by Cambridge U. P., provide a passing
reference to the connections with Grice). Richards looked for the intrinsic
aspects of, say, a poem. I don't know whether he failed (or not). And so on.
So, Wilson's point can be taken generally. Not just as it applies to
marxism, but to any -ism. Hauser and others indeed have provided a 'social
history' of art, -- say, even of 'opera'. (There is a book, "the social history
of opera", about who held this or that box at Covent Garden, say -- to say
that this is 'extrinsic' and 'external' is simplistic. Surely there IS a
connection between, say, opera-goers and what is deemed appropriate for the
opera stage, and so on.. Wilson will realise that "Marxism", like Darwinism,
may be too broad a category. (What's its antonym?). And when it comes to
this or that critic -- say, 'emotivist' I. A. Richards or so on -- and even
within a subjectivist conception of aesthetics (focused on the so-called
intrinsic merits of this or that work) the issues are so complex -- but they
shouldn't hurt!
Thanks for your thoughts,
Cheers,
Speranza
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