marx e beleza
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln
DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska -
James A. Rawley Graduate Conference in theHumanities
4-8-2006
Ugly and Monstrous: Marxist AestheChris RasmussenUniversity of Nebraska–Lincoln , [email protected]
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Ugly and Monstrous:Marxist Aesthetics
Chris Rasmussen
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Abstract
An analysis of Marxist conceptions of the good and the beautiful and theirrelationship to alienation, “Ugly and Monstrous” argues that Marxism was ulti-mately a set of aesthetic beliefs, one that paradoxically called for the temporarycessation of all attempts to create beautiful artwork. Marx understood beauty asKant had – that it is the result of the harmonization of the faculties that occurs
when a disinterested observer encounters a work of art. Capitalism gives to all works (art included) monetary value, and all observers become interested con-sumers, debasing art appreciation and killing the human desire (and need) toexperience the beautiful.
Te work of later Marxists, particularly Walter Benjamin and Herbert Mar-cuse, take the Marxist position to its logical conclusion, that any art in the ageof capitalist exploitation and worker alienation must, by its nature, be political.
Te best way to judge art, according to these twentieth century Marxist aesthe-ticians, is to measure the level of alienation the work contains. Te more alien-ated the artist and the work are , the more correct the political statement is. Te
work, which can never be pleasant and must always and ever agitate, is thus
judged good. It cannot, however, be beautiful because the work retains utility –it encourages political action on the behalf of the community and the individu-al and is not a whole in and of itself. Beautiful art, cannot exist until a commu-nism has been established. Tus Marxist (and neoMarxist) aesthetics mandatethe impoverishment of the senses and the death of beauty.
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15 Unlike Marx, Marcuse did not believe that the social revolution would au-tomatically result in an aesthetic utopia. Tis significant difference is due toMarcuse’s synthesis of Marxism with Freudianism. “Socialism does not and
cannot liberate Eros from Tanatos,” Herbert Marcuse. Te Aesthetic Di-mension: oward a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics, Boston: Beacon Press,1978, 72-73.
16 Herbert Marcuse. Te One Dimensional Man, Boston: Beacon Press, 1978,62.
17 Herbert Marcuse as quoted in Marxism and Art: Essays Classic and Contem- porary . ed. Maynard Soloman, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 522.
18 Ibid., 523.
19 Walter Benjamin. “Te rajectory of Art,” Marxism and Art: Essays Classicand Contemporary . ed. Maynard Soloman, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 557.
20 Robert ucker,Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx . London: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1972, 50.
21 Ibid., 53.
22 Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy . in Critical Te-ory Since Plato. ed. Hazard Adams, Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace JovanovichCollege Publishers, 1992, 378.