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PARTISAN REVIEW
187
be the focal point of a revolutionary new culture
is
in fact the ad–
justment to the established one.
To
be
sure, the cultural revolution must recognize and subvert
this
atmosphere of the working-class home, but
this
will
not
be
done
by "tuning in" on the emotions aroused by the delivery of a wash–
ing machine. On the contrary, such empathy perpetuates the prevail–
ing "atmosphere."
The concept of proletarian literature
=
revolutionary literature
remains questionable even if it
is
freed from the "tuning in" on
prevailing
emotions, and, instead, related to the most
advanced
work–
ing-cla&'! consciousness. This would be a political consciousness, and
prevalent only among a minority of the working class.
If
art and
literature would reflect such advanced consciousness, they would have
to express the actual conditions of the class struggle and the actual
prospects
of
subverting -the capitalist system. But precisely these bru–
tally political contents
militate
against their aesthetic transformation -
therefore the very valid objection against "pure art." However, these
contents
also
militate against a less pure translation into art, namely,
the translation into the concreteness of the daily life and practice.
Lukacs has, on these grounds, criticized a representative workers'
novel of the time: the personages of
this
novel talk at the dinner
table at home the same language as a delegate at a party meeting.
15
A revolutionary literature in which the working class
is
the sub–
ject-object, and which is the historical heir, the definite negation, of
"bourgeois" literature, remains a thing of the future.
But what holds true for the notion of revolutionary art with
respect to the working classes in the advanced capitalist countries
does
not apply to the situation of the racial minorities in these coun–
tries,
and the majorities in the Third World. I have already referred
to black music; there is
also
a black literature, especially poetry,
which may well be called revolutionary: it lends voice to a total
rebellion which finds expression in the aesthetic form. It is not a
"class"
literature, and its particular content is at the same time the
universal one: what is at stake in the specific situation of the op–
pres<>ed racial minority is the most general of
all
needs, namely, the
very existence of the individual and
his
group as human beings. The
most extreme political content does not repel traditional forms.
15. Gallas,
lac. cit.,
p. 121. A Communist participant in the discussion re–
marked correctly that in this case one should call things by their name and
speak not of art or literature but of propaganda.
