Anshen on Walter Benjamin

Reading notes: Marxist Literary and Cultural Theory by David Anshen (2017)

Chapter Two: Major Marxists' Approaches to Literature and Culture

CONCEPTUAL APPROACHES TO CATEGORISING MARXIST LITERARY THEORY

Anshen continues discussing some of the categories of critics Eagleton and Milne introduce in their anthology Marxist Literary Theory: A Reader (1996).

Here he touches upon Walter Benjamin:

Other Marxists who share aspects of what Eagleton classifies as the 'anthropological' tradition of Marxist cultural analysis includes Walter Benjamin, who in his famous essay, 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' (1936) argues that the ritual and 'aura' of the work of art as a mystical powerful force that overwhelms spectators gets largely removed with mechanical reproduction. This is particularly true for photography and, importantly, film, two mediums that remove the uniqueness of time and space surrounding traditional works of art, and thereby strip art of its sacred power.

....In Benjamin's analysis this 'aura' mystifies and makes human productions magical.

....these commodities are made available universally, even cheaply, rather than the almost monopolised purview of a select few lucky enough to be in geographic, social and often class proximity to view master paintings.

....So in Benjamin's analysis mechanical reproduction democratises and demystifies art while also causing it to lose some of its magical appeal.

....our access to film as a mechanical reproduction and a commodity transforms it from other art forms that functioned as semi-artisanal crafts, to a mass-produced copy. To Benjamin, this transformation has positive and negative features. Politically, however, Benjamin remained optimistic that if we change the relations of production towards socialism, art could expand its service to people. In this view, Benjamin demonstrates the influence of his friend Bertolt Brecht, who stressed that transformations of art as a medium and mode of reception can change its political impact. This optimistic view contrasts with other intellectuals, including other friends of Benjamin, who argued quite differently. Theodor Adorno, for example, one of the guiding lights of the Frankfurt school, felt that the commodification of art undermined its 'autonomy' and critical potential.

....an 'anthropologic' Marxist, since he is not evaluating an individual work of art or interpreting an aesthetic movement (although he does this elsewhere), but instead considers how technology and the 'forces of production' transform the function of art in a changing society.

....transformations in the technical features of art brings into effect both potentially positive features and dangers as the dialectic appears in Benjamin's considerations.

....Benjamin writes, 'Its [humanity's] self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.

....any attempt to artificially restore conditions of a mystical aesthetics leads to the irrationality and confusion of the fascist mindset.

....liberates all of us to evaluate, criticise and politicise art and culture rather than bow before its authority.

....as society loses its sacred, or aesthetic qualities, fascists attempt to reapply such mystical qualities into politics – mass spectacles and goose-stepping as a means of stirring the heart and numbing the intellect – whereas communists need to clarify thinking and appeal to authentic social bonds to challenge reality and evaluate the political meaning of art. Nothing, least of all art, remains neutral in such a situation of mass polarisation.

Jay

4 November 2021