(no subject)
p. 89
“Man thus subjects himself..”
from Marx's alienation
happiness incompatible with the social order. Knowledge
99
bourg art painted the ideal in the luminous colors of the world - that is, of the real. Bourg prog. Idealism opposed “playing officiously with the mind” as if the ideal had nothing to do with reality. Taking the ideal seriously, painting with all the richness of the real world. Though a poor comppensation for material degradation, it also created an ideal realm that was as vivid as the real world, narrowing the gap between them and suggesting the poss of leaping from this world into a new one. Utopian. “another world is possible”
vs. postivism, which in destroying the metaphysical form of idealism, also destroys this valuable content. The material world is cutoff from access to other realms, which despite their ideal nature, can serve as models for transforming this one.
102
critical and revolutionary force of the ideal, which in tis very inteality keeps alive the best desires of men samidst a bad reality...
the soul is the one realm in affirmative culture that is set apart from social realities. Recourse to it allows the individual to experience unity, univeral empathy, beauty... as the only realm of affirmative culture that is set apart from social reality it is infinitely expandable amid even the worst misery and poverty, and can withstand all misfortune, for in its eternal and unchanging nature, it is unaffected by it.
By locating the essence of the individual in a realm entirely detached from the corporeal world, and even from the particulars of human personality, affirmative culture asserts a fundamental equality and brotherhood of man that cuts across every kind of wordly violence, oppression and inequality.
125 high above factual antitheses lay therealm of cultural solidarity.”
distinction is made between earlier form of affirmative culture and later forms. The former still displays some progressive aspects.
Mind vs soul 126
mind goes poorly with authoritarianism. It is rational demaneding, neaer to reality. Difficult to silence
Quote herder: empathize with everything...
but the soul is important as the only realm in which hman's unexpressed longings can be imagined, if only in ideal form. These desires are too dangerous to be acted upon in the material world, but bourg culture permits them to be expressed in the realm art, the only realm in which it will tolerate its own ideals. But here it is loses its relevance to the social world by being presented as magic.
In beauty men can experience happiness. Human response to beauty is a threat to the order of things because it is sensous, and leads inevitably to thoughts of sensual happiness. Beauty, i is inherently dangerous to bourg culture because in contrast to other ideals like goodness or god etc, it is tied to corporeal sensuality - its overlap into the corporeal world is a conduit for mankind's utopian urges to spill out into the world.
So spiritual beauty is tolerated, as long as it remains locked up in the soul and in art. But in its plainly physical manifestations it is condemned as an immoral pollution of the human body.
Beauty's power is twofold: it extends unbroken from the heights of detached spirit to the lowest, most basely sexual corporeality. It is a reminder that the corporeal world holds an unrealized promise of the deepest pleasures, and that human fulfillment, in the deepest sense, is not the sole province of the ideal world.
Link that to the “painted in the colors of...”: bourg art's rendering of the ideal as sensual, tactile and concretized sets up a symmetry between the ideal and the corporeal in which the two realms begin to resemble and mirror one another; nurturing the hope that the ideal might enter directly into the world to effect our true material and social fulfillment.
120
there is an element of earthly delight..
121
(in art) reality appears to us as what it is beneath the commodity form...
by exhibiting the beautiful as present, ar tpacifies rebellious desire.
122
inner plenitude alongside external poverty
beauty is fundamentally shameless. It cannot be contained by morality.
In marcuses's view, the various forms that comprise the realm of the ideal differ in their relations to the real.
118
“True” theory is incompatible with a bad present, because it recognizes the misery of reality as presently organized.
It show the way to change, but offers no consolation, no refuge.
Art consoles us with moments of beauty amid our unhappiness, but because of the individual's isolation, these moments cannot be preserved outside of our minds.
This ephemerality anticipaates death.
“Man thus subjects himself..”
from Marx's alienation
happiness incompatible with the social order. Knowledge
99
bourg art painted the ideal in the luminous colors of the world - that is, of the real. Bourg prog. Idealism opposed “playing officiously with the mind” as if the ideal had nothing to do with reality. Taking the ideal seriously, painting with all the richness of the real world. Though a poor comppensation for material degradation, it also created an ideal realm that was as vivid as the real world, narrowing the gap between them and suggesting the poss of leaping from this world into a new one. Utopian. “another world is possible”
vs. postivism, which in destroying the metaphysical form of idealism, also destroys this valuable content. The material world is cutoff from access to other realms, which despite their ideal nature, can serve as models for transforming this one.
102
critical and revolutionary force of the ideal, which in tis very inteality keeps alive the best desires of men samidst a bad reality...
the soul is the one realm in affirmative culture that is set apart from social realities. Recourse to it allows the individual to experience unity, univeral empathy, beauty... as the only realm of affirmative culture that is set apart from social reality it is infinitely expandable amid even the worst misery and poverty, and can withstand all misfortune, for in its eternal and unchanging nature, it is unaffected by it.
By locating the essence of the individual in a realm entirely detached from the corporeal world, and even from the particulars of human personality, affirmative culture asserts a fundamental equality and brotherhood of man that cuts across every kind of wordly violence, oppression and inequality.
125 high above factual antitheses lay therealm of cultural solidarity.”
distinction is made between earlier form of affirmative culture and later forms. The former still displays some progressive aspects.
Mind vs soul 126
mind goes poorly with authoritarianism. It is rational demaneding, neaer to reality. Difficult to silence
Quote herder: empathize with everything...
but the soul is important as the only realm in which hman's unexpressed longings can be imagined, if only in ideal form. These desires are too dangerous to be acted upon in the material world, but bourg culture permits them to be expressed in the realm art, the only realm in which it will tolerate its own ideals. But here it is loses its relevance to the social world by being presented as magic.
In beauty men can experience happiness. Human response to beauty is a threat to the order of things because it is sensous, and leads inevitably to thoughts of sensual happiness. Beauty, i is inherently dangerous to bourg culture because in contrast to other ideals like goodness or god etc, it is tied to corporeal sensuality - its overlap into the corporeal world is a conduit for mankind's utopian urges to spill out into the world.
So spiritual beauty is tolerated, as long as it remains locked up in the soul and in art. But in its plainly physical manifestations it is condemned as an immoral pollution of the human body.
Beauty's power is twofold: it extends unbroken from the heights of detached spirit to the lowest, most basely sexual corporeality. It is a reminder that the corporeal world holds an unrealized promise of the deepest pleasures, and that human fulfillment, in the deepest sense, is not the sole province of the ideal world.
Link that to the “painted in the colors of...”: bourg art's rendering of the ideal as sensual, tactile and concretized sets up a symmetry between the ideal and the corporeal in which the two realms begin to resemble and mirror one another; nurturing the hope that the ideal might enter directly into the world to effect our true material and social fulfillment.
120
there is an element of earthly delight..
121
(in art) reality appears to us as what it is beneath the commodity form...
by exhibiting the beautiful as present, ar tpacifies rebellious desire.
122
inner plenitude alongside external poverty
beauty is fundamentally shameless. It cannot be contained by morality.
In marcuses's view, the various forms that comprise the realm of the ideal differ in their relations to the real.
118
“True” theory is incompatible with a bad present, because it recognizes the misery of reality as presently organized.
It show the way to change, but offers no consolation, no refuge.
Art consoles us with moments of beauty amid our unhappiness, but because of the individual's isolation, these moments cannot be preserved outside of our minds.
This ephemerality anticipaates death.