ยป Postmodernism vs Neo-Marxism
My friend Tara recently wrote an excellent summary of what a neo-Marxist revolutionary does. My summary is that neo-Marxists believe that the majority of us live under a false meta-narrative, believing that our alienation is either desirable or has no alternative. (This sounds a lot more like The Matrix than Baudrillard does, eh?) The neo-Marxists (and Tara uses the Situationist flavour of neo-Marxist jargon) attempt to raise our consciousness by doing stuff like avant-garde art.
I don’t really get neo-Marxism, while I do dig postmodernism, so I see the situation through a postmodern lens: The neo-Marxists are incredulous to the dominant meta-narrative (ie: work is good) but see their own meta-narrative (ie: wacky stuff is good) as more authentic. Postmodernism says that all meta-narratives are not credible and the craving for the authentic is part of the late-modern meta-narrative, so the neo-Marxists are part of the system they’re attempting to overthrow. (The highly accessible text that introduced me to this idea is The Rebel Sell.)
Wow, great link. Cheers. Apparently I’ve done all the intellectual legwork behind “neo-Marxism”, so if you’d like anything explained…
I can’t argue that “neo-Marxism” (if you label me you deny me, and I’ve never read Marx) is more authentic. It’s just that given those two metanarratives it’s the one I pick. It feels better, and it provides a (n over-intellectualized) justification for graffiti.
Plus, the apathetic are counted with the system, because the system is powered by apathy.
Jack
19 Mar 09 at 11:27 am
This is good timing. I’m working on a story containing a Pareto inefficient economy. I can use these ideas I think…
Jack
19 Mar 09 at 11:54 am
A similar line of thought is carried out in Situationist literature, albeit in different language – that any resistance is either quickly subsumed into the dominant ideology, or that all resistance was always just a pseudo-resistance presented by modern spectacle. This pseudo-resistance actually just keeps people in check by making them feel they have some power when they actually don’t. This is why avant-garde movements quickly die out before they can actually achieve any lasting or significant political effect. Plus, the avant-garde is so deeply rooted in the modern that any movement is quickly replaced by a newer “better” one in the race for progress.
Funny, whenever I’ve tried to explain Debord’s ‘Society of the Spectacle’ to people, I’ve always used ‘The Matrix’ as a comparison too.
tara
19 Mar 09 at 12:04 pm
Alex – I did a bunch of research last year on Pareto Efficiency and how the Efficiency Movement registers in modernist literature. Fascinating stuff.
tara
19 Mar 09 at 12:05 pm
Subsumption into the dominant ideology is such a modernist accusation: “Our ideas were totally counter-culture, but by the time we went to show you how cool we are *poof* they were mainstream!”
Pseudo-resistance is what I’m talking about in my post. So if these criticisms are coming from within Situationism, does that mean Situationism is both modern and postmodern? Or perhaps these criticisms should be said to be post-Situationist?
How does mainstream Situationism respond? (How can they?!)
And wow, is that a great explanation for the fickle nature of avant-garde movements!
Jared
19 Mar 09 at 1:20 pm
I hesitate to call Situationism either modernist or post-modernist, as much as I hesitate to call its own auto-critique post-Situationist. I don’t think it’s a movement that fits squarely into either (or both) – in fact, the SI themselves would have taken great issue with being reduced into an intellectual (and clearly institutional) category. Situationism is about lived experience – putting theory into practice in everyday life – rather than maintaining an abstract philosophical or critical paradigm. I also hesitate to designate a “mainstream” in Situationist thought. The closest it has come to being mainstream is the May 1968 general strike in France – and that, like all other avant-garde movements, achieved no lasting effect. There is no response really. It is a fundamentally pessimistic worldview.
One of the most astute and readable accounts of “the fickle nature of avant-garde movements” is, in my opinion, Greil Marcus’ “Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century.” It explains why punk had already failed from its inception, and draws similar connections with the historical avant-garde as a whole. It’s the book I wish I had written.
tara
20 Mar 09 at 12:39 am
Yeah, my attempt to categorize Situationism is a horrible modernist habit.
Thanks for the book recommendation – I’ll check it out.
Jared
22 Mar 09 at 4:55 pm
This is a misplaced comment, only related to this post by your interest in postmodernism. I thought you might find this good reading: http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/article/pref/
tara
23 Mar 09 at 3:30 pm
[...] than overthrowing society, which was the goal of Dadaism and situationism, it created a more resilient society that can include counter-cultures – like how antibiotics [...]
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