458
PAUL DELANY
Revolt,
which does not present a unified intellectual system and whioh
descends to particulars (if not to nuances) more often than earlier
works have done. The book contains three loosely-connected essays:
one on the political situation in the U.S., one on "nature and revolu–
tion," and one on "art and revolution." They share a concern with the
renewed aggressiveness of right-wing forces in American politics since
1968, a development that Marcuse calls a "counter-revolution" - a con–
fusing term, since he simultaneously asserts tJhat in the Western world
"there is no recent revolution to be undone, and there is none in the
offing." Against this background Marcuse sets the recent decline of the
New Left, and suggests the means of its potential resurgence.
'JIhe third essay stands apart as a sketch for a theory of revolution–
ary
art; little need be said of it since it will already be familiar to
P.R.
reiliders. The essay's main concern is the question: how may
art
acquire
a revolutionary content, yet still preserve its traditional forms and its
"alienation from established reality?" This is certainl y an engrossing issue
for the literary theorist, but a Marxist critic should first consider a
more basic question: what are the social functions of the various "high"
and "low" art forms today, i.e., what ideologies inform them, and what
audiences are they directed to? But Marcuse's response to mass art, such
as cinema, TV, or pop music, is generally one of aloof distaste; such an
attitude precludes his offering a comprehensive view of the role of
art
in modem capitalist society. Even so meticulous a Weimar intellectual
as Walter Benjamin saw the necessity of placing mass culture at center
stage (in, for example, his seminal essay on "The Work of Art in nhe
Age of Mechanical Reproduotion").
There remaans Marcuse's analysis of current U.S. politics, in which
he reviews the conservative offensive and nhe response to it of the New
Left, the ecology movement, and Women's Liberation. Here the style of
exposition is too often spasmodic and oracular, whetJher in set-piece
declarations of solidarity with Angela Davis and the Living Theater or
in pronouncements unsupported by evidence or argument, such as "the
murder of the Kennedys shows
~hilit
even Liberals are not safe if they
appears as too liberal. . . ." Beyond such mannerisms lies a more
central, and typical, weakness in Marcuse's argument: he gives the
enemy various names, yet never really defines him. In negation, he is
precise; we are told, for example, that "the bourgeoisie is, in terms of its
social function and spirit,
no longer
the
ruling class
today." But
if we
try
to find out who has replaced it, we encounter only such terms
as "the power structure," "the rulers," "the
cap~talist
system," "politicians,
general, and managers," and, most often, "the Establishment" (with a
capital E). These are mere cliches of pop sociology, yet Marcuse
is
