NORMAN BIRNBAUM
ist realism, in France force art onto a terrain so ferociously defended,
so rigorously defined, that it becomes a realm apart. A hideous life
opposes a life-defying art.
But what has become of the principle I uttered some paragraphs
ago? Art as a realm entirely separate from politics caricatures the
inner life, exists in a willfully created realm devoid of any meaning
but one imposed upon it. Art defined exclusively in terms of politics
makes of the inner life a crude reflection of society - and minimizes
or eliminates the structures of aesthetic experience. Perhaps we come
closer to a solution of the problem by recognizing that politics may set
the conditions in which aesthetic experience is possible. A large defini–
tion of politics is necessary, politics as the organization of the common
life.
In societies like our own, the common life is hard enough to find.
All kinds of surrogates - some of them frenzied, others embarrassingly
inauthentic - have not quite filled the vacuum. Perhaps there never
was a true common life. History as the history of multiple alienations,
of domination and exploitation, allows of no sentimentalizing. Some
epochs, however, were sufficiently unified in spiritual substance for a
common aesthetic discourse to develop. One of the peculiarities of
our own is the impossibility of common discourse - in nearly every–
thing. A general politics, in these circumstances, is almost equally im–
possible: consider the failure of western socialism.
It
is absurd that
some should wish to make art bear a burden doubly staggering.
It
is
supposed not alone to interpret our experience, but somehow - as a
political force - to redirect it.
Art is a realm of freedom, in that it points to possibilities unreal–
ized (very possibly, immediately unrealizable) in social existence. When
the freedom of art depicts possibilities of a realizable kind, the political
dimensions of art become salient, if not paramount. Politics and aesthet–
ics still remain separate. The function of art is to concretize in an object
a universal element of experience. The purpose of politics is precisely
the opposite, to generalize or universalize a concrete segment of human
experience. Let us take a utopian definition of politics, as the formal–
ization in rules of sentiments of affinity and fraternity, love and com–
passion. Even on a utopian note, art and politics are structurally dif–
ferent.
Aesthetic conservativism may have radical implications. The late
Theodor Adorno once said that the defense of bourgeois humanism had
critical consequences in late capitalist society. Bourgeois humanism was
obsolescent - but its obsolescence illuminated the contradictions and de–
ficiencies of the society which claimed unbroken descent from it. The
term "obsolescent" merits attention. Values which no longer can take
concrete form may well be obsolescent, but it does not follow that their
historical successors are either more profound or more sublime. History
may record decline as well as secular triumph. Conservatism may be
less frightening if we ask if there is anything that is worth conserving
- and if we ask, as well, whether it can be conserved. In America, at
least, what is there to go back to? We have had a simulacrum of an
educated middle class, now replaced by college graduates - a category
identifiable with difficulty with the possession of culture. In societies
