This article discusses only (observing the impossibility of exhausting the theme) about some important points in the works of Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) and Walter Benjamin (1892-1940). These authors lead their works to a critical and reflective sphere regarding Marxism, approaching categories and concepts that now say a lot about the consequences and directions that result from the practice. Marxist of the past and of the moment they write (first half of the 20th century), sometimes they say a lot about a kind of proposal or re-reading of what could (or not) and deserve to be done. Therefore, it will be from the concern to suggest and unveil a reified and “contaminated” reality by the capitalist logic that such works will be born, in a questioning of the ways to achieve the effective awareness of class and, in this way, overcome the capitalist situation given.
At first, peculiar to both authors, there is the uncomfortable realization not only of the restriction of the means and instruments that could lead to awareness – of the “true” and necessary awareness – but also of the alienation produced by the industrial society resulting from such situation. What catches the attention of these theorists (such as the Frankfurt School in general) is the way in which Marxist ideological parties (as in the Germany) dealt with the reification of society and social/work relations after reaching power (later leading to regimes totalitarians, fascists), as well as the way they read historical materialism for the struggle of the proletarian class, to reach the consciousness of class.
In addition, culture, history, art, literature, in short, are some of the concepts that permeate the works of Marcuse and Benjamin, and that here made possible a kind of dialogue (how far this is possible) among such authors, since these themes have common characteristics among themselves regarding the promotion of clarification and awareness of the individual in an industrial society Modern.
According to Marcuse, relegated to the scope of culture would be literature, arts, philosophy and religion, all somehow separated from that which he called social praxis, which in turn would be a series of "practices" and behaviors relevant to the development of the day's activities. morning. In his words, culture would be identified as the complex of moral, intellectual and aesthetic goals and values, considered by a society as a goal of the organization, division and direction of its work, with cultural goals and means factual. Thus, culture would relate to a higher dimension, of autonomy and human achievement, as social praxis (or the what Marcuse calls “Civilization”) would indicate the scope of socially necessary need, work and behavior. While the concept of progress (technical progress itself) is becoming more and more established in the realm from the needs and forms of man's work, this relationship between "higher culture" and social praxis will become transforming. It will be with the complexization of capitalist practices and, in this way, with the increase in the process of reification of society (which to some extent account for this progress) that there will be a true incorporation and imbrication of social praxis and culture, negatively resulting in the latter, especially if it takes into account its transcendent goals, points out Marcuse (1998).
In this way, Marcuse will make a kind of apology for the way in which the philosophy of the past was understood, more precisely with regard to his basic characteristic of proposing reflection about the world and man, within a constant feeling of the latter of discomfort with society, its position, your action. With the reorientation of the patterns of social and work relations, with the resurgence of capitalist forms of production, this same “superior culture” (of reflection, contestation, constructed by a spirit imbued with an antagonistic character the order) becomes ideological, utopian, being dominated by the utilitarian logic and operationalism of the current thinking of society industrialized. In other words, it surrenders and loses its inquisitive character.
In the logic of modern industrial society, needs are redefined, as are the values that guide and guide men. They are capable of mobilizing for war or expending forces together for defense and maintenance of the system, alienatingly reproducing an order that defined for them their "true" needs. In other words, individuals under the effect of this submission to the means of organizing life (organization is given by subjecting culture to scientific progress as the order of the day) in industrial society they take it as truth, as fact. given away. It will be this behavior that will produce a lack of commitment or atrophy to the exercise of reflection and questioning, since that formerly capacity for restraint is suffocated.
While the sciences (natural and human), values, “culture and civilization” are leveled, the possibilities for contestation and change are destroyed. This damage to the spirit linked to reflection and questioning reflects on the conditions of class consciousness, which is read as a way to contest the established order. Access to culture through culture would not necessarily mean emancipation, as this would be reproduced by the bourgeoisie itself, immediately imbued with its values, a statement that is also seen in Benjamin. To change this situation would require a social change of vital needs (which were reshaped with capitalism). Liberation, or resumption of this, proposes what Marcuse called repairing the cultural dimension lost with such "progress" that in the past, at the heart of that superior culture in this author's speech, was protected from violence totalitarian.
When Benjamin goes to propose getting to know a work of art, an artistic production, as a rescue of something that had occurred and is still living in the present, he approaches Marcuse with regard to the repudiation of this evolutionism and leveling – as in the sciences – coming from modern society, being in the past a “lesson” that leads to reflection. If for Marcuse the maintenance of what he called superior or pure culture is interesting in terms of preserving its potential as a way antagonistic to the order given to industrial society, for Benjamin is essential to have in the concept of history not a construction whose place is the homogeneous and rectilinear time, but a time saturated with "nows", in order to understand the present and Act.
While the historicist is responsible for an eternal image of the past, it is for the historical materialist the connotation of an experience unique to this same past. The pure historicist (and the direct criticism of Benjamin is addressed to him) is content to establish a causal link between various moments in history, such as a patchwork quilt, that is, within the logic that refers to the idea of evolution and progress, disregarding the influence or repetition of the past in the gift. “The idea of humanity's progress in history is inseparable from the idea of its march within an empty and homogeneous time. The critique of the idea of progress presupposes the critique of the idea of this march” (BENJAMIN, 1985, p. 229).
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Thus, it is necessary to value the past experiences that evolutionism ignores, since history is straight for this one. This would be the wrong path taken by a historicist reading of culture, causing this last does not reveal in a transparent way the emancipating message of each work, for now “asleep”. Benjamin will draw attention to the possibility of a materialist theory of culture. In order to build a tradition, he intended to go beyond the political aspect of Marxism, since issues related to the domain of culture would have remained in the background. He took up Engels again and, on the other hand, made a different interpretation of the Second International, since it admitted an evolutionism and progress throughout history, sympathizing with them. For Benjamin, the way in which the history of culture was studied by names such as Eduard Furchs, collector and historian, was mistaken, since what was produced, in his words, was a science of character museum. He again kept an inventory of works, showing his “evolution”, taking history as a patchwork. They lacked a science that would renounce this, and called it “dialectical materialism”.
Thus, for Benjamin, it is possible to claim that there is a materialist theory of culture, which generally assumes that the whole idea of evolutionism present in the readings of materialism history of the past (and of the bourgeois way of making history) falls to the ground, an evolutionism that would later foster the blind belief in progress presented by the Social Democratic Party.
Therefore, for both Marcuse and Benjamin, the way in which the “making history” (for the latter) and the “thinking” of the culture (for the former) of this capitalist society end up promoting a distance from the real awareness of reality. This degree of "development" reached by the present society (bourgeois, industrial), with the bias of a progressive and evolutionist, not only changed the traditional role of cultural elements that shaped ethical and moral values, but also camouflaged the reminiscences (and responses) of the past contained in works of art, thus allowing the power of contestation (of the individual) to weaken.
Culture is redefined by the existing order: the words, tones, colors and shapes of the surviving works remain the same, but what they express loses its truth, its validity; works that had once scandalously detached themselves from existing reality and were against it have been neutralized as classics; with this they no longer retain their alienation from the alienated society (MARCUSE, 1998, p.161).
Therefore, the way in which culture is built for Marcuse and the way in which the reproduction of a historicism of culture (of an evolutionary nature) for Benjamin prevent the awareness of class.
However, the defense of access to culture through culture would not actually result in the emancipation of the individual. In this logic of the thoughts of Marcuse and Benjamin, the maxim of “knowledge is power” ends up being questioned, since the culture that is developed in the present has a bourgeois mentality bias. It would be necessary to politicize culture, a politicization that occurs in the choice and conditions of reproduction and presentation of art. All work and cultural production in this scenario of strong imbrication of culture and social praxis (that is, the leveling of these spheres and extreme rationalization of life) is presented in a detached way from its history, hiding the relationships it keeps with its context when it was made, that is, not making clear the recovery of the experiences of the past as learning, experiences that are necessary for social change as suggested by Marcuse. Thus, in Benjamin's speech, as this politicization is not taken into account in his production (of the work), he will not take into account tells its reproduction, and in this way, it is forgotten that under capitalism, the reproduction of the work ends up making it a merchandise.
It is this preoccupation with the suppression of the political potential of culture that permeates both Benjamin's and Marcuse's work. In this sense, the Social Democratic Party will also be criticized, which defends this discourse (of access to culture) as the path to struggle. Benjamin will say that the basis for the construction of this vision of culture comes in the wake of the conception of history, seen from straight and homogeneous form, not realizing the barbarism (given by the conditions of development) that was taking place gift; This barbarity reflected in the Social Democratic Party's loss of state command for the implementation of a totalitarian regime. “The theory and, even more, the practice of social democracy were determined by a dogmatic concept of progress without any link with reality” (BENJAMIN, 1985, p. 229). The objective of Social Democracy was the same in relation to science, seen as emancipatory and guiding, and, in this way, it should become something close to the people. This logic suggested that culture alone gave power to the people, emancipating them. Contrary to this statement, Benjamin and Marcuse claim that this culture constructed by “bourgeois science”, as I would say Lukács (2003), it would not be valid, but that something should be looked for in the past to think about the present, seeking to promote a action. Hence, the redefinition of the concept of history is the high point of Benjamin's work, which will propose the observation of history against the grain, breaking with the linearity of evolutionisms.
Roughly speaking, Benjamin criticizes the Party's action pointing out the mistake of the defended concept of history, which he reflects in the way of reproduction of culture and its assimilation and, in this way, shares with Marcuse both the valorization of the resumption of conditions (experiences) of yesteryear to unveil this reified society, as the diagnosis that sees the suppression and "depoliticization" of culture at the pace of progress. Thus, the concept of history that was fundamental to Marxism (in view of historical materialism) should be reformulated, as well as the Marxist discourse itself should be, because the class struggle was inserted in these concepts: in history and in culture.
Paulo Silvino Ribeiro
Brazil School Collaborator
Bachelor in Social Sciences from UNICAMP - State University of Campinas
Master in Sociology from UNESP - São Paulo State University "Júlio de Mesquita Filho"
Doctoral Student in Sociology at UNICAMP - State University of Campinas
