ART, POLITICS, AMERICA
Art and Politics.
I don't know whether more nonsense has
been written about literature or about politics. But perhaps the most
nonsense has come from those ideologues both of the right and the
left who have tried to squeeze art and politics into some theoretical
scheme as though they were two abstract categories distInct from or op–
posed to each other. Hence discussions of art and politics often have
a lofty air which disguises their oversimplifications. Politics has usually
boiled down to left politics, and literature reduced to its "content." A
basic difficulty is that the subject has become embedded in the conven–
tions of social criticism, so that the questions are indistinguishable from
the traditional answers. And Marxist criticism has usually combined
narrow politics with narrow aesthetics.
As compared with even the best Marxist writings, Marcuse's piece
in this issue is most impressive. It is one of the few attempts I have
seen at a fresh Marxist analysis. Except for Walter Benjamin, Marcuse
is the only Marxist I know who has made use of the more sophisticated
methods of modern criticism. But with all due respect for Marcuse's
intellectual powers, he, too, is restricted by his definition of art and pol–
itics, and hence
in
his idea of their relation.
1.
Despite his flexibility. and lack of orthodoxy, for Marcuse politics
is revolutionary and Marxist. This means that the politics of art is
dictated by the existing revolutionary movements.
2.
Marcuse's assumption that "art can and will draw its jnspirations,
and its very forms, from the. prevailing revolutionary movements–
for revolution is the substance of art"sets up too direct and simple
a connection between art and politics and ,could be used to justify
vulgar Marxist notions of art as a political weapon. Marcuse him–
self argues for revolutionary art with considerable subtlety, and his
statement that "art can indeed become a weapon in the·class strug–
gle by promoting changes in the prevailing consciousness" seems to
suggest a broader view of revolutionary art. But those changes are
measured by their relation to revolutionary politics. And the work
he cites (Brecht, Dylan, black writing) suggests a special idea of
revolutionary art. What about Joyce, or Pollock?
3. The interpretation of Beckett, where Marcuse is not at his best,
strikes me as quite arbitrary and reductive, and suggests the
pos–
sibility of finding facile political meanings in almost any writer.
4. The term "beauty" is a hangover from old· aesthetic theories, not
very relevant, I think, to actual writing·"or problems of criticism.
At best, it is an honorific term used to indicate that a work is good
