Reification and existentialism.
George Lukács writes in his premier work History and Class Consciousness about reification; about what it does to the working class and the burgeoise. What it turns people into. Though Lukács has been assaulted by two as different figures as Louis Althusser and Jean-Paul Sartre for his humanism contra his Stalinism (the 'denounced' Lukács against the 'official' Lukács) I believe that there is much to take to heart in the manner of which he presents his philosophy.
Humanism might be a product of burgeoise thinking, and certainly something that will serve to dampen the revolutionary spirit in practice, if not in theory (consider the person who idolizes the 'Revolution' but shyes away from revolutionary praxis). However, I do not believe that what I am going to focus on here is actually humanism itself, but rather an existential-proletarian situation, to speak in Sartrean terms.
To restate in less pompous, and less burgeoise terms: the situation that every labourer faces.
Lukács then, in his writings on class consciousness and the individual worker focuses on reification. That is to say, the ideological process in which categories are 'frozen' in our minds and in the manner on which we view the world. This ranges from gender categories, to the manner in which society is formed economically (one-way neoliberal politics is an example) and further. The misunderstanding of the world as given, once and for all. Since reality, especially not social reality, is like this we find ideological crisis and problems. Marx writes that famous phrase about how all that is solid vanishes into the air in capitalism. And he is right. This is no contradiction, it is simply a dialectal struggle between the categories in which we try to interpret the world (or rather: the categories imposed on us by the upper classes production of ideology, which in itself is reificated, produced from the lofty peaks of society on which they see themselves as 'free').
So, what, then, does any of this have to do with individuals and existentialism? Simply this: liberty and free development is given from the class struggle, from the ideological and political struggles of the organized working classes. If someone does desire "life, liberty and happiness" then it is simply impossible for capitalism to truly provide that for any greater number of time, simply because the ideological system as a whole reaches periodical crisis of faith: questions that have no answers, situations which inspire dread and developments that seem to come from nowhere. To truly find any safety in all this, and any meaning, practical-critical activity is a necessity. Both to gain the sense of community and mutual dependance and interaction that humans so desperately need, but also to be able to grasp the world intellectually. That can never be provided by the burgeoise; their own intellectual traditions collapsing in postmodern confusion (read: alienation) and neoliberal perversions.
Humanism might be a product of burgeoise thinking, and certainly something that will serve to dampen the revolutionary spirit in practice, if not in theory (consider the person who idolizes the 'Revolution' but shyes away from revolutionary praxis). However, I do not believe that what I am going to focus on here is actually humanism itself, but rather an existential-proletarian situation, to speak in Sartrean terms.
To restate in less pompous, and less burgeoise terms: the situation that every labourer faces.
Lukács then, in his writings on class consciousness and the individual worker focuses on reification. That is to say, the ideological process in which categories are 'frozen' in our minds and in the manner on which we view the world. This ranges from gender categories, to the manner in which society is formed economically (one-way neoliberal politics is an example) and further. The misunderstanding of the world as given, once and for all. Since reality, especially not social reality, is like this we find ideological crisis and problems. Marx writes that famous phrase about how all that is solid vanishes into the air in capitalism. And he is right. This is no contradiction, it is simply a dialectal struggle between the categories in which we try to interpret the world (or rather: the categories imposed on us by the upper classes production of ideology, which in itself is reificated, produced from the lofty peaks of society on which they see themselves as 'free').
So, what, then, does any of this have to do with individuals and existentialism? Simply this: liberty and free development is given from the class struggle, from the ideological and political struggles of the organized working classes. If someone does desire "life, liberty and happiness" then it is simply impossible for capitalism to truly provide that for any greater number of time, simply because the ideological system as a whole reaches periodical crisis of faith: questions that have no answers, situations which inspire dread and developments that seem to come from nowhere. To truly find any safety in all this, and any meaning, practical-critical activity is a necessity. Both to gain the sense of community and mutual dependance and interaction that humans so desperately need, but also to be able to grasp the world intellectually. That can never be provided by the burgeoise; their own intellectual traditions collapsing in postmodern confusion (read: alienation) and neoliberal perversions.
Labels: class struggle., existentialism, Reification
posted by Björn at 2:42 PM
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