WEBVTT 00:01.670 --> 00:05.140 Prof: As we get into social perspectives on 00:05.141 --> 00:10.001 literature and art, you may ask yourself out of 00:09.995 --> 00:14.265 idle curiosity, or perhaps even peevishly, 00:14.267 --> 00:15.617 "Why Marx? 00:15.620 --> 00:17.500 Why so much Marx? 00:17.500 --> 00:22.640 Why is it Marx who seems to stand behind the idea that the 00:22.641 --> 00:27.961 social criticism of art is the best and most relevant way to 00:27.962 --> 00:31.482 approach this subject matter?" 00:31.480 --> 00:37.340 Well, it's because whatever the outcome of Marxist thought may 00:37.342 --> 00:43.562 have proven to be historically, it's nevertheless the case to 00:43.559 --> 00:49.049 this day that the most devastating critique of existing 00:49.050 --> 00:53.830 ideas about things, of states of affairs that, 00:53.830 --> 00:56.980 as it were, meander along without too much 00:56.979 --> 01:00.119 self-consciousness, remains the Marxist one, 01:00.121 --> 01:03.111 together perhaps with the Freudian one. 01:03.109 --> 01:06.169 When we turn to Jameson next time, 01:06.170 --> 01:08.830 we'll see that in both cases--and we'll be working a 01:08.832 --> 01:11.882 little bit with this today, too, when we turn to 01:11.878 --> 01:16.538 Benjamin--we'll see that in both cases it has to do with the way 01:16.537 --> 01:21.117 in which we are brought up short by the kind of criticism which 01:21.122 --> 01:25.562 argues that somehow standing behind our conception of reality 01:25.558 --> 01:29.698 and our understanding of our place in the world, 01:29.700 --> 01:35.330 there is one form or another of the "unconscious." 01:35.330 --> 01:39.420 We have, arguably, in this course in literary 01:39.419 --> 01:45.089 theory first taken up notions of a linguistic unconscious, 01:45.090 --> 01:48.260 or in any case linguistic preconditioning, 01:48.260 --> 01:53.680 then taken up notions of a psychoanalytic unconscious; 01:53.680 --> 01:58.050 and now, in the very title of Jameson's book from which we'll 01:58.045 --> 02:01.605 be considering an excerpt in the next lecture, 02:01.608 --> 02:06.668 we have the notion of the political unconscious. 02:06.670 --> 02:12.120 There are other ways of effecting a social criticism of 02:12.122 --> 02:14.002 literature and art. 02:14.000 --> 02:17.870 From the right, there is an extraordinary book 02:17.866 --> 02:22.316 by Leo Strauss on Aristophanes, together with his great 02:22.318 --> 02:26.238 readings of the traditional texts of political philosophy. 02:26.240 --> 02:29.600 There is, of course, a very strong liberal 02:29.603 --> 02:33.043 tradition of criticism, particularly in the public 02:33.036 --> 02:36.606 sphere, in the journalism of the public sphere. 02:36.610 --> 02:41.190 Perhaps the most notable proponent of a liberal criticism 02:41.191 --> 02:45.771 of art undertaken from a social point of view is the work 02:45.772 --> 02:50.442 collected in Lionel Trilling's The Literal- The Liberal 02:50.437 --> 02:51.907 Imagination. 02:51.910 --> 02:57.080 So there are options, but by far the most pervasive 02:57.075 --> 03:02.045 mode of social critique in literary theory and in the 03:02.050 --> 03:07.980 modern history of thinking about literature remains the Marxist 03:07.983 --> 03:08.943 one. 03:08.938 --> 03:14.428 As much as we can be in working through these materials, 03:14.430 --> 03:19.020 our concern is of course primarily with Marxist 03:19.021 --> 03:20.521 aesthetics. 03:20.520 --> 03:28.310 What are the options for a Marxist critic in aesthetic 03:28.312 --> 03:29.492 terms? 03:29.490 --> 03:34.320 That's, of course, what we're going to be taking 03:34.318 --> 03:40.168 up in a moment and also when we turn to Fredric Jameson on 03:40.174 --> 03:41.514 Thursday. 03:41.508 --> 03:44.598 In the meantime, what about Marx? 03:44.598 --> 03:48.928 I think I can take it for granted in a course of this kind 03:48.925 --> 03:53.245 that most of you have some familiarity with the history of 03:53.252 --> 03:55.912 ideas and with Western culture. 03:55.910 --> 04:00.730 I think I can take it for granted that most of you have 04:00.725 --> 04:05.445 some notion, just as you have some notion about Freud, 04:05.454 --> 04:08.134 of what Marx is all about. 04:08.128 --> 04:12.938 Of particular importance for the kinds of criticism we 04:12.942 --> 04:17.392 undertake to read in this moment of the course is, 04:17.391 --> 04:20.661 of course, the idea of ideology. 04:20.660 --> 04:24.310 Now ideology in the writings of both Marx and Engels, 04:24.310 --> 04:29.820 and in all the complex history of the writings that have 04:29.817 --> 04:33.417 succeeded them-- they were "founders of 04:33.420 --> 04:36.690 discursivity" and there has been great debate 04:36.690 --> 04:40.270 within the Marxist tradition!-- "ideology" 04:40.274 --> 04:43.824 is a term about which there has never been wholehearted 04:43.824 --> 04:44.684 agreement. 04:44.680 --> 04:49.700 Primarily, the disagreement concerning ideology in this 04:49.702 --> 04:55.472 tradition has to do with whether or not ideology ought properly 04:55.470 --> 05:00.310 to be ascribed to conscious as well as to unconscious 05:00.307 --> 05:03.747 preconceptions about the world. 05:03.750 --> 05:07.190 In other words, if I know really to the core 05:07.194 --> 05:11.684 perfectly well that the moon is made of green cheese-- 05:11.680 --> 05:15.380 I can prove it, I have no doubt about it, 05:15.379 --> 05:19.739 and it's not something that I'm unaware that I think-- 05:19.740 --> 05:24.010 but if at the same time, if my opinion, 05:24.009 --> 05:28.409 my belief, my expression of fact to the effect that the moon 05:28.406 --> 05:33.686 is made of green cheese, can be demystified as ideology, 05:33.694 --> 05:36.234 the question is: well, 05:36.230 --> 05:38.550 is it still ideology if I'm quite conscious 05:38.552 --> 05:39.882 > 05:39.879 --> 05:43.409 of knowing that the moon is made of green cheese and 05:43.413 --> 05:45.843 prepared to defend my position?-- 05:45.839 --> 05:49.719 just as a kind of belated aristocrat, 05:49.720 --> 05:55.620 prepared to defend the idea that hierarchy and privilege is 05:55.622 --> 06:00.102 appropriate in society, is perfectly conscious that 06:00.103 --> 06:04.183 this is an unpopular idea but nevertheless fully committed to 06:04.177 --> 06:06.347 it and prepared to defend it? 06:06.350 --> 06:11.500 The question sometimes in Marxism is, "Is this still 06:11.497 --> 06:13.057 ideology?" 06:13.060 --> 06:16.810 Particularly in the writings of Engels, perhaps more than in the 06:16.814 --> 06:19.444 writings of Marx, the answer by and large is, 06:19.437 --> 06:20.747 "It is." 06:20.750 --> 06:26.960 Ideology is essentially the belief that perspective is 06:26.961 --> 06:27.901 truth. 06:27.899 --> 06:31.949 That is to say, that the way in which things 06:31.949 --> 06:37.599 appear from the material and economically grounded standpoint 06:37.600 --> 06:43.910 of my own consciousness is not just the way they appear to me, 06:43.910 --> 06:47.210 but the way they actually are. 06:47.209 --> 06:52.019 Now this is a mode of belief which in various historical 06:52.016 --> 06:57.086 periods, according to Marx, has characterized each dominant 06:57.086 --> 06:58.656 class in turn. 06:58.660 --> 07:03.480 With the rise of capitalism, the evolution of capitalism 07:03.478 --> 07:06.808 into what's called late capitalism, 07:06.810 --> 07:10.780 of course this ideology is primarily what's called 07:10.781 --> 07:13.781 "the bourgeois ideology." 07:13.778 --> 07:17.978 In other words, the idea that the various 07:17.976 --> 07:22.096 premises on which bourgeois, middle class, 07:22.098 --> 07:25.638 existence is based--the premises that have allowed for 07:25.637 --> 07:29.577 the rise and appropriation of power of the middle class; 07:29.579 --> 07:32.819 the idea, for example, of the work ethic; 07:32.819 --> 07:37.799 the idea of family; the idea of certain forms of 07:37.798 --> 07:41.078 moral behavior-- all of this is 07:41.079 --> 07:46.249 "ideological" insofar as it is supposed to be 07:46.252 --> 07:52.092 valid and equally the case for all in all circumstances at all 07:52.093 --> 07:55.833 historical times: in other words, 07:55.829 --> 08:02.939 the belief that what I see the world to be is just universally 08:02.939 --> 08:05.619 the way the world is. 08:05.620 --> 08:11.030 That is the general characterization of ideology. 08:11.029 --> 08:13.029 Now we've seen this, of course. 08:13.028 --> 08:16.318 We began the course with the quotation from Marx, 08:16.317 --> 08:20.427 from Marx's Kapital, on commodity fetishism. 08:20.430 --> 08:25.680 We've seen this in the way in which it is just spontaneously 08:25.675 --> 08:29.355 supposed reflexively, without reflection, 08:29.362 --> 08:34.022 that the labor properties of something that's produced-- 08:34.019 --> 08:37.689 that is to say the value that can accrue to it because of the 08:37.692 --> 08:40.082 amount of labor that's gone into it-- 08:40.080 --> 08:45.790 is actually something that inheres in the product itself of 08:45.792 --> 08:46.582 labor. 08:46.580 --> 08:49.280 This, of course, applies as well to art, 08:49.279 --> 08:52.699 and it's something that Benjamin is fully aware of 08:52.695 --> 08:56.525 alluding to when he talks about "the aura." 08:56.529 --> 09:01.109 If I forget that art is produced-- 09:01.110 --> 09:04.380 that a certain quantum of labor, in other words, 09:04.379 --> 09:10.109 has gone into the emergence of the work of art-- 09:10.110 --> 09:13.900 and if I simply, in rapt contemplative 09:13.898 --> 09:17.748 attention, address myself to the work of 09:17.746 --> 09:22.346 art itself as though it had objective value apart from 09:22.349 --> 09:26.659 having been produced, in a mode of production, 09:26.660 --> 09:30.760 then what I'm doing is "commodifying" 09:30.764 --> 09:32.464 the work of art. 09:32.460 --> 09:34.770 From Benjamin's point of view, in other words, 09:34.769 --> 09:39.689 to be seduced by the aura of the work of art is, 09:39.690 --> 09:44.060 in a certain sense, to experience the work of art 09:44.057 --> 09:46.877 ideologically as a commodity. 09:46.879 --> 09:47.869 All right. 09:47.870 --> 09:53.690 Now returning then to the whole question of the aesthetic 09:53.686 --> 09:59.496 objectives of Marxist criticism, there are basically four 09:59.503 --> 10:00.753 options. 10:00.750 --> 10:04.160 In other words, Marxist criticism has not 10:04.164 --> 10:09.474 consistently agreed-- particularly in its more 10:09.470 --> 10:15.270 sophisticated versions-- about what the aesthetic of art 10:15.272 --> 10:16.922 ought actually to be. 10:16.918 --> 10:21.368 In other words, how should art reflect society? 10:21.370 --> 10:24.960 How should it constitute a critique of society? 10:24.960 --> 10:31.700 How should it predict an ideal, emergent, utopian society? 10:31.700 --> 10:36.040 All of these questions are questions of aesthetics, 10:36.042 --> 10:40.732 because the way in which art does express the social is 10:40.730 --> 10:42.990 necessarily aesthetic. 10:42.990 --> 10:44.660 It's done through form. 10:44.659 --> 10:46.359 It's done through genre. 10:46.360 --> 10:48.900 It's done as a matter of style. 10:48.899 --> 10:52.959 It's done ultimately, as the Marxists would say, 10:52.956 --> 10:56.146 in this or that mode of production. 10:56.149 --> 11:01.209 All of these mediations of what you might call the expression of 11:01.206 --> 11:04.746 society, then, are understood as the 11:04.745 --> 11:10.845 aesthetic in Marxist thought and need to be understood in terms 11:10.846 --> 11:13.106 of possible options. 11:13.110 --> 11:17.750 The aesthetic of Marx and Engels themselves was realist, 11:17.745 --> 11:21.955 but it was a kind of realism that was really rather 11:21.961 --> 11:23.481 sophisticated. 11:23.480 --> 11:27.170 When aspiring writers, already with the idea that they 11:27.171 --> 11:31.491 ought to be writing for the advancement of the proletariat, 11:31.490 --> 11:35.390 would write Engels--I'm thinking of Ferdinand Lassalle, 11:35.389 --> 11:38.869 Mina Kautsky, other people--would send Engels 11:38.874 --> 11:43.394 manuscripts of their sort of "socialist realist" 11:43.389 --> 11:45.739 novels, Engels hated them. 11:45.740 --> 11:47.120 He > 11:47.123 --> 11:49.503 just couldn't stand that kind of literature, 11:49.500 --> 11:51.770 and he said in effect, No, no, no, no. 11:51.769 --> 11:56.649 You don't have to glorify the proletariat. 11:56.649 --> 12:01.439 You don't have to project a future in this way. 12:01.440 --> 12:07.320 What you want to do is see, in a way that exposes it, 12:07.317 --> 12:11.157 the social dynamic as it exists. 12:11.158 --> 12:14.848 What you want to do is understand the world 12:14.847 --> 12:19.327 realistically but not tendentiously--that is to say, 12:19.326 --> 12:22.396 not from an open point of view. 12:22.399 --> 12:27.439 Engels' literary hero was Balzac, who was a royalist 12:27.441 --> 12:31.001 reactionary but who nevertheless, 12:31.000 --> 12:35.400 in Engels' view, was so brilliant in evoking 12:35.404 --> 12:40.224 society in all of its manifold complexities, 12:40.220 --> 12:44.030 particularly in the complexity of its class structure, 12:44.029 --> 12:50.269 that this was the appropriate model for people hoping to 12:50.268 --> 12:55.258 engage in the business of realist writing. 12:55.259 --> 12:58.799 Now this was a mode of thought that prevailed largely in 12:58.796 --> 13:01.686 Marxism through its early energetic years, 13:01.690 --> 13:06.380 including the early energetic years of the Revolution itself. 13:06.379 --> 13:11.389 In 1927, the literary philosopher Georg Lukacs, 13:11.389 --> 13:15.439 L-u-k-a-c-s, who had been a kind of Hegelian 13:15.440 --> 13:19.800 theorist of literature-- he'd written a very brilliant 13:19.796 --> 13:23.796 book called The Theory of the Novel before he turned to 13:23.804 --> 13:26.154 Marxist thought-- in 1927 still, 13:26.150 --> 13:30.500 and notice that this is the same year in which Eichenbaum is 13:30.500 --> 13:35.000 writing his "Theory of the Formal Method" and 13:34.996 --> 13:38.826 the same year in which Benjamin visits Moscow-- 13:38.830 --> 13:42.550 in other words, a period of real continued 13:42.551 --> 13:48.181 social and intellectual ferment within the framework of Marxist 13:48.177 --> 13:51.867 government-- in 1927 he wrote a book called 13:51.865 --> 13:56.125 The Historical Novel. This book reads as though it 13:56.128 --> 13:58.518 were taken from Engels' letters. 13:58.519 --> 14:03.979 It's partly an attack on what Lukacs took to be the sort of 14:03.984 --> 14:09.644 narcissistic inwardness of High Modernism, particularly Joyce 14:09.635 --> 14:11.045 and Proust. 14:11.048 --> 14:14.948 It's a tendentious attack and certainly subject to criticism 14:14.950 --> 14:16.670 on all sorts of grounds. 14:16.668 --> 14:19.948 It's partly that, but it's also argued just in 14:19.950 --> 14:23.960 the way that Engels championed Balzac in his letters. 14:23.960 --> 14:28.460 It's a book that champions the novels of Sir Walter Scott. 14:28.460 --> 14:32.180 Scott, too, was a political reactionary, 14:32.178 --> 14:37.138 a Tory, but one whose great dialectical balances in his 14:37.144 --> 14:40.734 novels between highland and lowland, 14:40.730 --> 14:44.630 feudal and mercantile, Scotland and England-- 14:44.629 --> 14:50.269 whose balances of an old social order with an emerging social 14:50.269 --> 14:55.439 order Lukacs took to be perfect exemplifications of what 14:55.437 --> 14:59.947 realism, of seeing class relations as 14:59.946 --> 15:02.876 they really are, can do. 15:02.879 --> 15:09.289 So this is the tradition of realist aesthetics in Marxist 15:09.291 --> 15:15.111 criticism, but then as--really dating from 15:15.110 --> 15:18.510 1927, precisely with the rise of 15:18.513 --> 15:23.693 Stalin--things began to change, at least in the Soviet sphere, 15:23.690 --> 15:27.750 the original ideas of all these people who used to write to 15:27.750 --> 15:29.540 Engels-- Mina Kautsky, 15:29.535 --> 15:32.895 Ferdinand Lassalle, writers of that kind-- 15:32.899 --> 15:36.229 began to prevail in Soviet thought. 15:36.230 --> 15:42.670 There was a literary critic named Zhnadov who articulated a 15:42.673 --> 15:46.233 doctrine of socialist realism. 15:46.230 --> 15:51.230 Even Marxist critics themselves in those days devised a sort of 15:51.226 --> 15:55.736 joke about the sort of novel that Zhnadov had in mind. 15:55.740 --> 15:59.240 You probably know the joke: Boy meets tractor, 15:59.240 --> 16:03.330 boy loses tractor, boy goes to the city to find 16:03.331 --> 16:05.451 tractor, finds tractor, 16:05.447 --> 16:09.267 continues to be in love, takes tractor back to the 16:09.268 --> 16:12.138 countryside and lives happily ever after. 16:12.139 --> 16:15.519 This fundamental plot, obviously a variant on the 16:15.523 --> 16:18.913 marriage plot that very much engaged also in what 16:18.907 --> 16:20.737 > 16:20.740 --> 16:23.020 Benjamin would call "the mechanical aspect of 16:23.020 --> 16:25.210 reproduction"-- > 16:25.210 --> 16:28.610 > 16:28.610 --> 16:33.710 this sort of plot as the characteristic plot of socialist 16:33.712 --> 16:37.452 realism began to take hold officially, 16:37.450 --> 16:42.170 so that in 1934 the Soviet culture minister, 16:42.168 --> 16:46.848 Bukharin, convened an International Soviet Writers 16:46.846 --> 16:52.376 Conference in which it was simply decreed from on high that 16:52.384 --> 16:58.594 henceforth literary practice would consist in the promotion, 16:58.590 --> 17:02.690 of an exemplification of, socialist realism. 17:02.690 --> 17:06.300 This continued really right up until the fall of the Iron 17:06.303 --> 17:10.193 Curtain in 1989, since until then there really 17:10.192 --> 17:15.522 was a form of censorship abroad in Soviet and Soviet sphere 17:15.520 --> 17:20.390 societies to the effect that literature was subject to 17:20.390 --> 17:24.470 challenge, possibly to suppression, 17:24.472 --> 17:29.812 if it didn't adhere to socialist realist tenets. 17:29.808 --> 17:33.998 So those are the forms of realism that I think are most 17:33.997 --> 17:38.957 often identified with Marxist criticism and its possibilities; 17:38.960 --> 17:42.730 but as a matter of fact, probably the most dynamic 17:42.734 --> 17:47.444 criticism since Lukacs of the twentieth century has recognized 17:47.435 --> 17:51.775 that realism is something that, after all, from a Marxist 17:51.779 --> 17:55.739 perspective can easily be shown to have been commandeered by the 17:55.737 --> 17:56.677 bourgeoisie. 17:56.680 --> 17:58.930 Who else "tells it like it is"? 17:58.930 --> 18:04.370 Who else insists that reality is just one drink below par? 18:04.368 --> 18:09.428 Who else insists that he or she is a realist?-- 18:09.430 --> 18:14.310 other than the characteristic sort of middle class person who 18:14.309 --> 18:17.319 tells you that they've been there, 18:17.318 --> 18:20.838 done that and know everything that there is to know? 18:20.838 --> 18:24.318 The middle class in other words, from the standpoint of 18:24.317 --> 18:26.697 much Marxist thought since Lukacs, 18:26.700 --> 18:30.270 has commandeered for itself--just as it commandeers 18:30.268 --> 18:34.918 everything else for itself-- has commandeered for itself the 18:34.922 --> 18:38.572 idea of realism which has therefore become, 18:38.568 --> 18:42.838 in these views, outmoded aesthetically. 18:42.838 --> 18:47.298 Now Benjamin is himself acutely conscious of this problem, 18:47.298 --> 18:54.488 and he insists that realism in a variety of ways is a kind of 18:54.493 --> 19:00.253 late capitalist form of commodifying the aura. 19:00.250 --> 19:05.930 It is the last gasp of bourgeois art in a variety of 19:05.932 --> 19:08.832 ways, he says hopefully. 19:08.828 --> 19:13.078 It needs to be counteracted with what he takes to be a 19:13.083 --> 19:18.223 participatory aesthetic: an aesthetic of the fragment, 19:18.220 --> 19:25.190 an aesthetic of intermittent attention of participation, 19:25.190 --> 19:28.150 which does not, nevertheless, 19:28.146 --> 19:34.476 in any way involve a sense of persistently contemplating that 19:34.482 --> 19:39.312 which is real, but emphasizes rather the idea 19:39.306 --> 19:44.566 that one is oneself in a communal spirit engaged with the 19:44.565 --> 19:49.815 very mode of production of the work of art and somehow or 19:49.823 --> 19:52.643 another involved in that. 19:52.640 --> 19:56.350 That's what we'll come back to when we turn to Benjamin's 19:56.348 --> 19:58.468 "Work of Art" essay. 19:58.470 --> 20:03.020 Perhaps the most unusual aesthetic move for a Marxist 20:03.020 --> 20:07.310 critic is the one that you will find in Adorno. 20:07.308 --> 20:12.698 Adorno was devoted to precisely what Lukacs had attacked in 20:12.701 --> 20:17.631 The Historical Novel, namely the High Modernist 20:17.627 --> 20:18.927 aesthetic. 20:18.930 --> 20:21.670 He admired Beckett in literature. 20:21.670 --> 20:25.660 He admired Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern in music. 20:25.660 --> 20:29.180 Adorno was by training a musicologist, 20:29.178 --> 20:34.218 and he devoted much of his writing career to producing 20:34.219 --> 20:39.829 essays and treatises on music and the history of music. 20:39.828 --> 20:44.148 These were heroes in Adorno's pantheon, 20:44.150 --> 20:46.310 and of course, the question arises: 20:46.313 --> 20:50.263 how can these people who have nothing to say about society, 20:50.259 --> 20:53.339 who are totally preoccupied with form, 20:53.338 --> 20:56.768 and who seem to be indifferent to the whole course of history-- 20:56.769 --> 21:01.809 how can these people be the aesthetic heroes of a Marxist 21:01.808 --> 21:02.618 critic? 21:02.618 --> 21:07.238 This is something you see much more clearly in the "Fetish 21:07.237 --> 21:09.097 Character" essay, 21:09.098 --> 21:12.528 from which I've given you the two excerpts which I hope you 21:12.526 --> 21:12.936 have. 21:12.940 --> 21:17.870 I want to pause over them because I think Adorno's essay-- 21:17.868 --> 21:21.578 while perhaps a little quixotic, because after all, 21:21.578 --> 21:26.108 who ever could profit from a concept of this kind?-- 21:26.108 --> 21:31.478 Adorno's essay is nevertheless rather brilliant in its 21:31.480 --> 21:35.130 distinction between the totality, 21:35.130 --> 21:38.890 or wholeness, that's offered to you by 21:38.888 --> 21:44.678 artistic form and the mere totalization or totalitarianism 21:44.681 --> 21:51.491 that's offered to you by modern hegemonic forms of government-- 21:51.490 --> 21:57.130 whether truly totalitarian or insidiously totalitarian like, 21:57.130 --> 21:59.030 for example, the "culture 21:59.025 --> 22:01.835 industry" to which he devotes the essay 22:01.836 --> 22:03.206 that you've read. 22:03.210 --> 22:06.590 So this is what Adorno says in these two passages. 22:06.588 --> 22:11.858 He's talking about the way in which people in the culture 22:11.859 --> 22:17.599 industry who appreciate music are completely victimized by the 22:17.599 --> 22:22.479 coloratura local effect, what you might call--this is a 22:22.483 --> 22:26.543 conductor whom Adorno hated-- the Toscanini effect: 22:26.539 --> 22:31.609 that flourishing of a particular moment in a concerto, 22:31.608 --> 22:36.318 the riding it into the ground at the expense of the whole, 22:36.318 --> 22:41.528 and everything that has what Adorno elsewhere calls 22:41.525 --> 22:45.165 "lip-smacking euphony"; 22:45.170 --> 22:48.660 in other words, a kind of cultivation of 22:48.660 --> 22:53.580 perfection of local sound, as opposed to an awareness of 22:53.583 --> 22:55.913 the total composition. 22:55.910 --> 22:57.710 So he says in the first passage: 23:02.391 --> 23:06.761 excuse for absolving the listener from the thought of the 23:06.760 --> 23:10.120 whole, whose claim is comprised in 23:10.122 --> 23:11.792 proper listening. 23:11.788 --> 23:17.568 The listener is converted along his line of least resistance 23:17.567 --> 23:22.457 [because after all, it's so beautiful to listen to] 23:22.461 --> 23:25.891 into the acquiescent purchaser. 23:25.890 --> 23:29.920 No longer do the partial moments serve as a critique of 23:29.923 --> 23:33.363 the whole as they sometimes do in Modernism. 23:33.358 --> 23:35.418 [Dissonance, in other words, 23:35.421 --> 23:40.151 is in and of itself a critique of that overarching harmony with 23:40.154 --> 23:43.214 which we associate wholeness, right? 23:43.210 --> 23:46.280 So there's a real sense in which the parts can be 23:46.280 --> 23:50.060 understood as a critique of the whole without challenging or 23:50.056 --> 23:53.186 breaking down the whole.] No longer do the partial 23:53.192 --> 23:56.202 moments serve as a critique of the whole. 23:56.200 --> 24:02.110 Instead they suspend the critique which the successful 24:02.107 --> 24:07.677 aesthetic totality exerts against the flawed one of 24:07.682 --> 24:09.022 society. 24:09.019 --> 24:13.839 In other words, nothing can criticize the 24:13.844 --> 24:20.724 inauthenticity of the bad totalities of society except the 24:20.719 --> 24:27.469 authenticity of a genuine achieved wholeness in a work of 24:27.472 --> 24:28.682 art. 24:28.680 --> 24:34.080 The difference between these senses of the whole is precisely 24:34.078 --> 24:38.848 the zone of critique which in Adorno's view might-- 24:38.848 --> 24:46.078 just might--awaken the victim of the culture industry from the 24:46.079 --> 24:51.769 slumbers of happy conformism and acquiescence. 24:51.769 --> 24:56.179 Now in the second passage, just to reinforce this: 24:56.180 --> 24:58.350 Great Modernist composers like Berg, 24:58.348 --> 25:01.638 Schoenberg and Webern are called individualists by other 25:01.643 --> 25:06.753 Marxist critics [in other words, by people like Lukacs who don't 25:06.749 --> 25:11.509 like what Lukacs would call "fetishization of 25:11.505 --> 25:16.835 form," reification of form at the expense of social 25:16.843 --> 25:21.953 reference and expression], and yet their work is nothing 25:21.945 --> 25:25.315 but a single dialogue with the powers that destroy 25:25.319 --> 25:28.739 individuality, powers whose formless shadows 25:28.740 --> 25:31.300 fall gigantically on their music. 25:31.298 --> 25:34.478 In music, too, collective powers are 25:34.480 --> 25:38.480 liquidating an individuality past saving, 25:38.480 --> 25:42.880 but against them only individuals are capable of 25:42.884 --> 25:47.764 consciously representing the aims of collectivity. 25:47.759 --> 25:52.309 In other words, the totality--the achieved, 25:52.308 --> 25:56.578 successful, authentic totality--of the work of art 25:56.575 --> 26:01.185 models the totality of a collective state in ways that 26:01.188 --> 26:06.588 none of the false totalities of current hegemonies can possibly 26:06.585 --> 26:09.105 do or even approximate. 26:09.108 --> 26:12.288 In other words, there is an implicit 26:12.294 --> 26:16.574 politics--in Adorno's argument--in pure form. 26:16.568 --> 26:22.808 The achievement of pure form, which is after all a collection 26:22.805 --> 26:27.475 of parts, is an implicit politics modeling the 26:27.481 --> 26:31.641 achievement of a collective society. 26:31.640 --> 26:34.410 So that is the argument of Adorno. 26:34.410 --> 26:35.530 It's a fascinating one. 26:35.529 --> 26:40.139 As I say, it's perhaps somewhat quixotic because it's kind of 26:40.141 --> 26:44.601 hard to imagine anyone actually listening to Schoenberg and 26:44.598 --> 26:46.288 saying, "Gee. 26:46.288 --> 26:47.898 Maybe I should be a communist." 26:47.900 --> 26:51.040 > 26:51.038 --> 26:54.198 Actually putting this to work, in other words, 26:54.200 --> 26:57.590 entails a certain amount of difficulty, 26:57.588 --> 27:00.458 but at the same time, intellectually, 27:00.460 --> 27:04.010 it seems to me to be a fascinating turn of thought and 27:04.008 --> 27:06.818 one that certainly does give one pause, 27:06.818 --> 27:11.788 if only because Marxist criticism is so often engaged in 27:11.788 --> 27:17.208 a critique of what it takes to be the mainstream aesthetic of 27:17.210 --> 27:20.990 Western civilization, which is a kind of 27:20.988 --> 27:23.208 fetishization of wholeness. 27:23.210 --> 27:27.520 Think of the New Criticism, the unity of the poem, 27:27.522 --> 27:32.192 the discrete ontological object as a unified whole. 27:32.190 --> 27:36.460 This is, of course, commonplace in being attacked 27:36.455 --> 27:40.375 by Marxist criticism, and it's very interesting to 27:40.375 --> 27:44.445 see a figure like Adorno, a champion of this very 27:44.451 --> 27:49.771 wholeness, who sees it as a model not of narcissistic 27:49.769 --> 27:54.149 individuality, but rather of collectivity. 27:54.150 --> 27:54.800 All right. 27:54.798 --> 27:58.288 Finally--and I won't pause much over this because it's going to 27:58.288 --> 28:00.538 be the subject of Thursday's lecture-- 28:00.538 --> 28:07.188 the last aesthetic option for Marxism is a surprising one. 28:07.190 --> 28:12.090 It actually goes back to a book by Ernst Bloch called The 28:12.092 --> 28:17.242 Principle of Hope, in which Bloch essentially argues 28:17.244 --> 28:20.324 that in the world as we have it-- 28:20.318 --> 28:24.168 in other words, the grinding down of hope, 28:24.170 --> 28:29.180 the grinding down of possibility for all in late 28:29.184 --> 28:33.464 capitalism-- there is no longer any hope 28:33.464 --> 28:34.604 available. 28:34.598 --> 28:40.178 This is a kind of gloomy prognosis with which Bloch 28:40.180 --> 28:45.650 counters the idea that especially in folk art, 28:45.650 --> 28:51.240 folkways, oral culture and in popular culture-- 28:51.240 --> 28:55.090 in other words, in the expressions of longing 28:55.093 --> 29:00.613 one finds in the work of the dispossessed and the oppressed-- 29:00.608 --> 29:05.378 there is a kind of utopianism, a romance, 29:05.380 --> 29:09.540 and a sense not so much of wishing for something past, 29:09.538 --> 29:13.548 even though it seems to take the form of nostalgia, 29:13.548 --> 29:18.048 but rather a projection of a possibility on the future which 29:18.048 --> 29:21.248 is simply unavailable in the real world. 29:21.250 --> 29:25.020 Of course, the best example I can think of is "The Big 29:25.019 --> 29:26.839 Rock Candy Mountain." 29:26.838 --> 29:31.298 This is a song sung by people on chain gangs about liquor 29:31.296 --> 29:35.276 running down the sides of mountains in rivulets and 29:35.275 --> 29:38.135 everything just as it should be. 29:38.140 --> 29:39.660 "The Big Rock Candy Mountain," 29:39.664 --> 29:43.214 in other words, is a perfect example of the 29:43.211 --> 29:49.631 "principle of hope" as Ernst Bloch understands it. 29:49.630 --> 29:53.060 This is something that's picked up and taken very seriously by 29:53.060 --> 29:56.550 Fredric Jameson, not so much in the excerpt from 29:56.553 --> 30:01.093 The Political Unconscious that you'll be reading for 30:01.086 --> 30:05.306 the lecture but in an earlier part of that introductory 30:05.307 --> 30:09.677 chapter in which he talks about the importance of romance 30:09.684 --> 30:13.754 replacing the bankrupt aesthetic of realism-- 30:13.750 --> 30:17.410 the aesthetic of realism that has been appropriated by the 30:17.406 --> 30:20.806 bourgeoisie-- and as expressing in a 30:20.806 --> 30:27.226 seemingly hopeless world the hopes of the oppressed and the 30:27.228 --> 30:28.998 dispossessed. 30:29.000 --> 30:32.670 So this too, the idea of romance, 30:32.672 --> 30:39.882 the idea of utopian evocation, is a last, viable aesthetic for 30:39.883 --> 30:45.083 a certain turn of Marxist thought which has been 30:45.075 --> 30:51.145 interesting and productive in the twentieth century. 30:51.150 --> 30:51.810 All right. 30:51.808 --> 30:56.078 So today we take our numbers two and three, 30:56.082 --> 31:01.782 the participatory aesthetic of Benjamin and the Modernist 31:01.779 --> 31:04.119 totality of Adorno. 31:04.118 --> 31:10.158 We see the way in which they conflict with each other. 31:10.160 --> 31:13.640 Now in some ways I wish we were still reading the "Fetish 31:13.644 --> 31:16.274 Character" essay because it has more to do 31:16.273 --> 31:19.873 with aesthetics than the excerpt you have in your book by Adorno 31:19.874 --> 31:23.364 and Horkheimer called "The Culture Industry"; 31:23.358 --> 31:25.698 but "The Culture Industry," 31:25.703 --> 31:26.993 too, is a response, 31:26.994 --> 31:29.804 as was the "Fetish Character in Music" 31:29.798 --> 31:33.658 which was published 1938, to Benjamin's "Work of Art 31:33.663 --> 31:36.763 in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." 31:36.759 --> 31:41.079 Adorno was a close friend of Benjamin's and exchanged letters 31:41.080 --> 31:45.330 about Benjamin's "Work of Art" essay with him-- 31:45.328 --> 31:48.338 letters, by the way, which were republished in 31:48.338 --> 31:50.878 The New Left Review of 1973, 31:50.880 --> 31:52.740 for those of you who are interested in looking at them, 31:52.740 --> 31:57.740 because this is another source of ways of seeing how Benjamin 31:57.740 --> 32:01.660 and Adorno were in conflict over this matter. 32:01.660 --> 32:06.320 Adorno and Benjamin, as I say, were very close 32:06.323 --> 32:07.363 friends. 32:07.358 --> 32:14.168 Benjamin was only for a relatively brief period in the 32:14.174 --> 32:17.394 1930s a Marxist critic. 32:17.390 --> 32:22.270 He had hitherto been much more interested in cabalistic 32:22.273 --> 32:27.523 literature and in the Hegelian tradition of philosophy, 32:27.519 --> 32:32.789 and even in the 1930s he was famously torn between two 32:32.788 --> 32:34.378 possibilities. 32:34.380 --> 32:38.330 He had visited Moscow in 1926, '27. 32:38.328 --> 32:42.078 He had become interested in what was still, 32:42.077 --> 32:46.987 after all, as I've said, a vibrant culture in the Soviet 32:46.987 --> 32:47.877 world. 32:47.880 --> 32:50.950 At the same time, he had become very close 32:50.949 --> 32:54.919 friends with the Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht and 32:54.915 --> 32:58.655 had fallen also very much under his influence. 32:58.660 --> 33:02.870 But another very close friend, a friend equally influential, 33:02.868 --> 33:06.828 was the Jewish theologian Gershom Scholem, 33:06.828 --> 33:12.288 who had emigrated to Jerusalem, who was a Zionist, 33:12.288 --> 33:18.808 and who wanted Benjamin to join him studying the Torah in 33:18.808 --> 33:24.978 Jerusalem and to engage himself in that community, 33:24.980 --> 33:29.980 as opposed to the sort of international Marxist community 33:29.982 --> 33:34.452 toward which Benjamin was perhaps more leaning, 33:34.450 --> 33:38.400 especially owing to his friendship with Brecht. 33:38.400 --> 33:41.340 So even in the 1930s, even in the period when 33:41.337 --> 33:45.207 Benjamin wrote his "Work of Art" essay and also a 33:45.211 --> 33:48.371 shorter, even more tendentious essay 33:48.365 --> 33:51.835 called "The Author as Producer," 33:51.836 --> 33:54.466 1936, an essay in which he actually 33:54.470 --> 33:58.530 takes up at length something he mentions in passing in "The 33:58.534 --> 34:00.344 Work of Art" essay-- 34:00.338 --> 34:03.098 that is to say, the way in which in Russia 34:03.098 --> 34:07.268 everybody is judged not just for being able to do a job but for 34:07.271 --> 34:10.101 being able to talk about doing a job, 34:10.099 --> 34:12.489 to be able to write it up, to describe it, 34:12.489 --> 34:16.349 to write a brochure about it, to write a letter to the paper 34:16.353 --> 34:18.813 about it, and in other words to 34:18.806 --> 34:23.726 participate, to be engaged not just in the labor force but also 34:23.728 --> 34:28.328 in reflections on the labor force in a way that really does 34:28.331 --> 34:32.621 mean that everyone can be an author and also that every 34:32.617 --> 34:35.677 author is a producer-- that is to say, 34:35.679 --> 34:39.749 engaged in writing, which is part and parcel of the 34:39.751 --> 34:44.221 productions of labor, all of this was a focus of 34:44.219 --> 34:47.059 Benjamin's-- at the same time, 34:47.056 --> 34:51.586 even within this focus, part of him is being torn in 34:51.594 --> 34:53.094 another direction. 34:53.090 --> 34:57.100 No one can for a minute, in reading the "Work of 34:57.103 --> 35:00.723 Art" essay, fail to notice that Benjamin 35:00.724 --> 35:04.964 evinces tremendous nostalgia for the "aura." 35:04.960 --> 35:10.010 It's not an easy thing for Benjamin to say we have to tear 35:10.005 --> 35:14.955 down the aura and replace it with a kind of participatory 35:14.963 --> 35:19.483 mode that engages with and is involved in mechanical 35:19.478 --> 35:21.158 reproduction. 35:21.159 --> 35:25.049 I don't know: when I was a student I worked 35:25.052 --> 35:28.692 on and off-- I did this for years--in an art 35:28.690 --> 35:33.070 supply and picture framing store on the Berkeley campus, 35:33.070 --> 35:37.020 and of course, every student needed a picture 35:37.016 --> 35:41.136 to put in his room; so we had huge stacks of Van 35:41.141 --> 35:45.631 Gogh's Sunflowers and Matisse's Dancers and 35:45.626 --> 35:48.536 certain other paintings, all of them 35:48.541 --> 35:50.771 eighteen-by-twenty-four, which we called 35:50.768 --> 35:52.128 "brushstroke prints." 35:52.130 --> 35:54.740 They were mounted on cardboard, and a huge-- 35:54.739 --> 35:58.429 whhhhoooom!--cookie-cutter of some kind would come down on top 35:58.425 --> 36:01.385 of them, actually laminating into the 36:01.393 --> 36:04.523 print the appearance of brushstrokes. 36:04.518 --> 36:07.068 These things, if you squinted at the 36:07.068 --> 36:11.798 beginning of a semester you saw the stack going down like this. 36:11.800 --> 36:14.460 [Gestures.] Then before you knew it, 36:14.460 --> 36:17.440 the stacks were gone, and so you knew for a fact, 36:17.440 --> 36:20.070 because you knew how many prints were in that stack, 36:20.070 --> 36:25.070 that 240 students' rooms were festooned with Van Gogh's 36:25.067 --> 36:29.507 Sunflowers and > 36:29.510 --> 36:30.580 > 36:30.579 --> 36:32.209 Matisse's Dancers. 36:32.210 --> 36:35.270 You said to yourself, This is the fruit of mechanical 36:35.266 --> 36:36.146 reproduction? 36:36.150 --> 36:42.300 You asked yourself, again, Just what is the value 36:42.304 --> 36:45.644 of this as an aesthetic? 36:45.639 --> 36:47.519 Yeah, it takes it out of the museum. 36:47.518 --> 36:51.858 Yeah, it means that nobody has to pay fifty bucks in order to 36:51.858 --> 36:55.908 wait in a long line in order to get a peep at the Mona 36:55.909 --> 36:56.849 Lisa. 36:56.849 --> 37:00.069 Yeah, it really does bring it home to the people, 37:00.070 --> 37:04.950 but how and in what way and at the expense of what genuine 37:04.951 --> 37:09.211 knowledge of art history, and even of Van Gogh and 37:09.206 --> 37:11.836 Matisse, does the fetishization-- 37:11.840 --> 37:12.680 because it is, after all, 37:12.684 --> 37:13.534 > 37:13.530 --> 37:17.050 fetishization--of these little mechanically reproduced 37:17.050 --> 37:19.110 brushstroke prints amount to? 37:19.110 --> 37:21.540 Obviously, this introduces complications, 37:21.539 --> 37:24.379 and they're complications--the whole point of my anecdote-- 37:24.380 --> 37:28.220 they're complications of which Benjamin is far from being 37:28.222 --> 37:28.912 unaware. 37:28.909 --> 37:34.449 He knows extremely well that, after all, the greatest threat 37:34.449 --> 37:39.799 to an aesthetic of the kind he propounds is that it can be 37:39.800 --> 37:42.430 commandeered by capital. 37:42.429 --> 37:44.319 Of course, I'm getting ahead of myself, 37:44.320 --> 37:48.890 because that's precisely what Adorno says in opposition to 37:48.887 --> 37:51.657 him, but in the meantime that was 37:51.661 --> 37:54.821 the situation of Benjamin in the 1930s. 37:54.820 --> 37:58.110 Adorno, in the meantime, had gone to the United States. 37:58.110 --> 38:01.240 Benjamin was living in Paris ever since 1933. 38:01.239 --> 38:05.609 Adorno had gone to the United States, which he hated. 38:05.610 --> 38:11.660 The gloom of Adorno's view of the world is not so much the 38:11.657 --> 38:18.127 result of his experience of the weak forms of democracy in the 38:18.130 --> 38:22.270 Weimar Republic, sort of ominous as those 38:22.268 --> 38:25.658 experiences were; not even perhaps so much the 38:25.655 --> 38:28.655 rise of Nazism, because like Benjamin he was 38:28.661 --> 38:30.131 able to flee that. 38:30.130 --> 38:34.330 The gloom that he felt and the gloom that pervades his writing, 38:34.329 --> 38:38.289 which after all starts in the mid 1940s, 38:38.289 --> 38:42.419 is the result of his exposure to American culture. 38:42.420 --> 38:46.810 He simply could not stand us or our culture. 38:46.809 --> 38:48.819 He couldn't stand "jazz." 38:48.820 --> 38:51.670 Remember this was not yet the age of bebop, 38:51.672 --> 38:55.612 and I've always felt that maybe if Adorno had hung around a 38:55.610 --> 38:58.870 little longer he could have been reconciled. 38:58.869 --> 39:03.859 It was no longer the jazz of the aptly named conductor Paul 39:03.860 --> 39:05.410 Whiteman. 39:05.409 --> 39:12.029 It was jazz that was somewhat more serious. 39:12.030 --> 39:13.840 He couldn't stand the movies. 39:13.840 --> 39:17.460 I have just been, for purposes I won't go into, 39:17.460 --> 39:21.280 watching a film called "Broadway Melody of 39:21.275 --> 39:26.415 1940" with Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell tap dancing. 39:26.420 --> 39:30.450 Fred Astaire and his sidekick, George Murphy, 39:30.447 --> 39:35.387 are grabbed out of obscurity in order to be the leading 39:35.389 --> 39:38.319 gentlemen of Eleanor Powell. 39:38.320 --> 39:41.570 It's a perfect sort of Samuel Smiles success story, 39:41.570 --> 39:45.530 replete with the necessity of occasional self-sacrifice on the 39:45.534 --> 39:47.164 part of both of them. 39:47.159 --> 39:51.739 It is made for the wrath of Adorno, this film. 39:51.739 --> 39:54.089 > 39:54.090 --> 39:58.470 It's nevertheless, in ways that Adorno could not 39:58.467 --> 40:02.657 possibly ever come to feel, quite charming. 40:02.659 --> 40:07.409 But Adorno wanted no part of American culture. 40:07.409 --> 40:12.399 He was in anticipation of that whole trend of American 40:12.398 --> 40:17.948 sociology obsessed with the way in which American society is 40:17.954 --> 40:20.594 dominated by conformism. 40:20.590 --> 40:23.260 He takes this to be the effect, the result, 40:23.260 --> 40:28.400 of the pervasive, oppressive thumb of the culture 40:28.396 --> 40:30.986 industry, so that our very 40:30.985 --> 40:34.325 eccentricities, our very quirks and little 40:34.331 --> 40:37.391 originalities, all of them are assessed 40:37.393 --> 40:39.723 carefully by the culture industry. 40:39.719 --> 40:43.499 A niche is found for them, and the next thing you know, 40:43.500 --> 40:46.440 we're suborned just like everybody else. 40:46.440 --> 40:52.140 There is for Adorno no sideways escape from the monolithic, 40:52.143 --> 40:57.163 ubiquitous surveillance and dominance of the culture 40:57.161 --> 40:58.441 industry. 40:58.440 --> 41:00.130 41:00.130 --> 41:01.810 All right. 41:01.809 --> 41:06.099 Now the "Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical 41:06.097 --> 41:10.297 Reproduction" is influenced obviously by the 41:10.297 --> 41:15.277 promise of Russian art before 1934: the films of Vertov in 41:15.284 --> 41:19.354 particular, and other ways in which it's 41:19.353 --> 41:24.703 possible for Benjamin to say that the spectator really can be 41:24.695 --> 41:26.205 a participant. 41:26.210 --> 41:32.890 It's possible for Benjamin to say that in such contexts it's a 41:32.894 --> 41:39.694 good thing that the pedastaled aura of the work of art has been 41:39.690 --> 41:44.970 successfully torn down, that we no longer stand in 41:44.965 --> 41:49.625 rapturous attention and in contemplative postures before 41:49.634 --> 41:54.734 works of art but that we reach out to them and they reach out 41:54.726 --> 41:55.656 to us. 41:55.659 --> 41:58.599 We meet halfway and we become engaged with them; 41:58.599 --> 42:00.369 we become part of them. 42:00.369 --> 42:02.999 Now how does this work in this essay? 42:03.000 --> 42:09.990 Primarily through the insertion of the labor function of the 42:09.987 --> 42:14.367 apparatus in the represented field. 42:14.369 --> 42:19.389 Now this is a complicated idea that Benjamin develops in 42:19.389 --> 42:20.759 various ways. 42:20.760 --> 42:25.760 What he means by this is that the spectator sees the object, 42:25.760 --> 42:29.080 sees whatever the field in question is, 42:29.079 --> 42:32.819 from the perspective of the mode of production-- 42:32.820 --> 42:37.160 that is to say, the spectator participates by 42:37.164 --> 42:41.414 joining the process of production. 42:41.409 --> 42:46.129 Most obviously this means that when I watch a film, 42:46.130 --> 42:49.620 I see the film, necessarily of course, 42:49.623 --> 42:53.593 from the standpoint of the camera eye; 42:53.590 --> 42:58.430 my eye, in other words, joins that of the camera. 42:58.429 --> 43:01.269 Very interesting that in Berlin in the 1930s, 43:01.268 --> 43:05.318 Christopher Isherwood in his Berlin Stories wrote one 43:05.324 --> 43:09.174 story called "I Am a Camera" that took place in 43:09.172 --> 43:09.932 Berlin. 43:09.929 --> 43:13.359 I have often thought there's some sort of symbiosis between 43:13.362 --> 43:16.502 the notion of "I Am a Camera" in Christopher 43:16.498 --> 43:19.988 Isherwood and the way in which it may be appropriated-- 43:19.989 --> 43:22.679 or it may simply be a happy coincidence-- 43:22.679 --> 43:25.029 in the work of Benjamin. 43:25.030 --> 43:28.630 But in a certain sense for Benjamin, the spectator, 43:28.630 --> 43:32.230 in order to be a participant, is the camera, 43:32.231 --> 43:35.041 is in other words the camera's eye. 43:35.039 --> 43:36.529 What is the consequence of this? 43:36.530 --> 43:39.410 Well, the spectator is, in a certain sense, 43:39.411 --> 43:41.061 then, a critic. 43:41.059 --> 43:44.819 Benjamin keeps comparing the eye of the camera with a 43:44.817 --> 43:46.187 "test." 43:46.190 --> 43:49.830 He even compares it with the vocational aptitude test. 43:49.829 --> 43:54.229 It's as though what in the theater would count as an 43:54.233 --> 43:56.773 audition-- I appear before the director, 43:56.766 --> 43:58.776 I recite certain lines of the script, 43:58.780 --> 44:02.800 and I'm either told to come back another day or I'm given 44:02.797 --> 44:05.717 the part-- it's as though to substitute 44:05.719 --> 44:10.129 what counts as an audition with the perpetual audition of the 44:10.132 --> 44:14.212 film actor before the camera, because after all, 44:14.213 --> 44:19.823 there is the camera recording what the film actor is doing-- 44:19.820 --> 44:21.690 not this camera up here, by the way-- 44:21.690 --> 44:24.660 but ordinarily, the camera has the option of 44:24.664 --> 44:27.714 later on throwing out what isn't any good. 44:27.710 --> 44:28.380 > 44:28.380 --> 44:31.220 Would that they [gestures to film crew] 44:31.224 --> 44:34.074 could, but the film camera can edit. 44:34.070 --> 44:36.930 The film camera is part of an editing "process, 44:36.929 --> 44:41.549 so that the actor in front of the camera is perpetually being 44:41.554 --> 44:46.264 tested and auditioned in just the way that you might be tested 44:46.255 --> 44:50.645 or auditioned if you took a vocational aptitude test for a 44:50.648 --> 44:51.418 job. 44:51.420 --> 44:54.610 That's Benjamin's point, and what he means to say is 44:54.612 --> 44:58.432 that if the spectator then takes the camera's eye position the 44:58.431 --> 45:01.321 spectator, him- or herself then becomes a 45:01.322 --> 45:04.042 critic, like a sports fan. 45:04.039 --> 45:08.609 Benjamin doesn't pretend for a moment that to become a critic 45:08.610 --> 45:12.420 of this kind is to be a good critic--not at all. 45:12.420 --> 45:14.800 Benjamin agrees with people who say, "Well, 45:14.802 --> 45:16.782 we go to the movies when we're tired. 45:16.780 --> 45:18.630 All we want is to be entertained." 45:18.630 --> 45:21.890 In fact, we are distracted. 45:21.889 --> 45:25.269 We are critics, as Benjamin argues, 45:25.268 --> 45:28.048 in a state of distraction. 45:28.050 --> 45:30.220 The German word is Zerstreutheit. 45:30.219 --> 45:32.079 We are zerstreut. 45:32.079 --> 45:34.629 We are perpetually, in other words, 45:34.625 --> 45:39.115 not quite paying attention even while at the same time we are 45:39.117 --> 45:43.007 seeing things from the camera-eye point of view. 45:43.010 --> 45:45.970 To see things from the camera-- I'll come back to distraction in 45:45.965 --> 45:48.925 a minute-- from the camera-eye point of 45:48.929 --> 45:53.469 view is a position of privilege because it exposes, 45:53.469 --> 45:56.019 as Benjamin tells us again and again, 45:56.018 --> 46:01.268 things about reality that we wouldn't otherwise notice. 46:01.268 --> 46:05.088 The camera is capable of slow motion, and it's capable of 46:05.092 --> 46:08.712 angles of incidence that we couldn't otherwise see. 46:08.710 --> 46:11.760 It's capable of all kinds of effects. 46:11.760 --> 46:13.020 Let me enumerate them. 46:13.018 --> 46:19.738 I think it's on page 1235 at the top of the left-hand column: 46:19.735 --> 46:24.545 "…photographic reproduction, 46:24.550 --> 46:27.800 with the aid of certain processes, such as enlargement 46:27.804 --> 46:32.034 or slow motion, can capture images which escape 46:32.032 --> 46:34.252 natural vision." 46:34.250 --> 46:38.380 Then on page 1245, he gives this process a name. 46:38.380 --> 46:42.760 He says, "The camera introduces us to unconscious 46:42.764 --> 46:46.744 optics just as does psychoanalysis to unconscious 46:46.737 --> 46:48.307 impulses." 46:48.309 --> 46:51.599 In other words, the camera's-eye point of view 46:51.597 --> 46:53.787 is a privileged perspective. 46:53.789 --> 46:57.279 It does show us things as they are or, 46:57.280 --> 47:00.840 perhaps if not as they are, at least it reminds us that 47:00.840 --> 47:04.660 things as we see them with the naked eye aren't necessarily 47:04.664 --> 47:06.514 "as they are." 47:06.510 --> 47:10.590 It's not, perhaps, so much a notion of privileging 47:10.594 --> 47:15.184 what the camera sees as real over against what I see. 47:15.179 --> 47:18.729 It's a question of the camera reminding us-- 47:18.730 --> 47:22.000 demystifying our ideology, in short-- 47:22.000 --> 47:27.350 reminding us that things as we see them aren't necessarily the 47:27.349 --> 47:28.839 way things are. 47:28.840 --> 47:31.640 The camera, too, may have its bias. 47:31.639 --> 47:35.469 Slow motion is an obvious bias, speed-up is an obvious bias; 47:35.469 --> 47:41.999 but the speed at which we see things may be a bias, 47:41.996 --> 47:42.776 too. 47:42.780 --> 47:46.550 It's not that the psychoanalytic unconscious is 47:46.550 --> 47:48.190 telling the truth. 47:48.190 --> 47:49.890 Dreams are crazy, right? 47:49.889 --> 47:50.789 > 47:50.789 --> 47:52.119 That's the whole point of dreams. 47:52.119 --> 47:57.109 It's not that it's reality over against a mystified world seen 47:57.106 --> 47:58.656 in consciousness. 47:58.659 --> 48:01.989 It's a challenge to consciousness by the world 48:01.994 --> 48:06.074 evoked in the unconscious, not a question of what's real 48:06.070 --> 48:07.850 and what isn't real. 48:07.849 --> 48:10.349 Well, it's the same with the camera's-eye point of view, 48:10.349 --> 48:14.869 and it's all of this which, in a certain sense, 48:14.869 --> 48:20.399 awakens the spectator from the complacency of supposing his or 48:20.396 --> 48:23.836 her own perspective to be the truth. 48:23.840 --> 48:26.760 At the same time, admittedly the spectator is 48:26.755 --> 48:29.665 distracted--remember Zerstreutheit. 48:29.670 --> 48:31.120 Well, what then? 48:31.119 --> 48:35.809 The point is this: there is a kind of dialectic 48:35.809 --> 48:40.499 between distraction and shock which is crucial, 48:40.501 --> 48:44.381 Benjamin thinks, to a genuine aesthetic 48:44.376 --> 48:46.106 revelation. 48:46.110 --> 48:49.860 Perhaps the best analogy is with Saul on the road to 48:49.860 --> 48:50.670 Damascus. 48:50.670 --> 48:53.930 You know how the story goes: Saul is trotting along on his 48:53.927 --> 48:56.327 horse and not paying a lot of attention. 48:56.329 --> 48:57.859 He's distracted, daydreaming, 48:57.856 --> 48:59.216 whatever, and whhoooop! 48:59.219 --> 49:01.749 All of a sudden he falls off his horse, right? 49:01.750 --> 49:04.460 That's a shock, and it's such a shock that he's 49:04.458 --> 49:07.818 converted to Christianity, and he stands up and he brushes 49:07.817 --> 49:10.407 himself off and his name is Paul, right? 49:10.409 --> 49:15.269 He's a completely different person as a result. 49:15.268 --> 49:17.528 This couldn't have happened, in other words, 49:17.530 --> 49:19.160 if he hadn't been distracted. 49:19.159 --> 49:20.019 Right? 49:20.019 --> 49:22.109 That's Benjamin's point. 49:22.110 --> 49:26.980 Distraction is the atmosphere or medium in which the shock of 49:26.983 --> 49:31.293 revelation can take place, and that's the advantage of 49:31.289 --> 49:32.589 distraction. 49:32.590 --> 49:36.350 He gives a wonderful example of the way in which we do receive 49:36.349 --> 49:40.229 works of art in distraction even if we're the kind of person who 49:40.233 --> 49:43.873 does pay a lot of attention when they go to the movies. 49:43.869 --> 49:46.329 "Oh, that's not me," we say. 49:46.329 --> 49:48.799 Nevertheless, there is one way in which all 49:48.802 --> 49:51.862 of us receive works of art in a state of distraction, 49:51.864 --> 49:54.694 and that's in our reception of architecture. 49:54.690 --> 49:57.630 We pass through architecture. 49:57.630 --> 50:00.590 I work in the British Art Center every day. 50:00.590 --> 50:03.950 I have long since ceased to pay any attention to the British Art 50:03.952 --> 50:05.182 Center as a building. 50:05.179 --> 50:08.419 I receive the British Art Center, in other words, 50:08.420 --> 50:12.270 in a state of distraction, but that doesn't mean that it's 50:12.268 --> 50:14.968 not part of my aesthetic experience. 50:14.969 --> 50:19.829 It does, however, show that the aesthetic and the 50:19.831 --> 50:25.201 ways in which we process the forms of the world can be 50:25.201 --> 50:31.281 assimilated in more than one kind of state of attention. 50:31.280 --> 50:34.990 It is in one's bones, in a certain sense, 50:34.994 --> 50:38.974 to receive architecture; and yet at the same time, 50:38.967 --> 50:42.827 unless we are sort of tourists gaping in front of the Taj Mahal 50:42.833 --> 50:45.393 with a camera or something like that-- 50:45.389 --> 50:47.909 and Benjamin does take that into account-- 50:47.909 --> 50:51.189 unless we are in that particular mode, 50:51.190 --> 50:56.110 we receive the forms of our dwellings in a state of what you 50:56.110 --> 50:59.280 might call constructive distraction. 50:59.280 --> 51:03.360 All of that goes into Benjamin's aesthetic of 51:03.356 --> 51:04.836 participation. 51:04.840 --> 51:06.930 Now I am out of time. 51:06.929 --> 51:10.759 Perhaps I have said just about as much about Adorno as I need 51:10.760 --> 51:12.680 to say, although admittedly I haven't 51:12.681 --> 51:14.761 said much about the "Culture Industry" 51:14.760 --> 51:15.160 essay. 51:15.159 --> 51:19.679 Maybe I'll come back to that briefly before launching into 51:19.682 --> 51:21.432 Jameson on Thursday. 51:21.429 --> 51:24.739 On Tuesday of next week, we'll be talking about the New 51:24.740 --> 51:25.600 Historicism. 51:25.599 --> 51:29.339 Then we'll bring Tony back and we'll go through all of these 51:29.335 --> 51:33.125 various perspectives that we will have been rehearsing to see 51:33.134 --> 51:36.304 what we can do with them when we read Tony. 51:36.300 --> 51:41.000