The Self Alone?
He keeps using that word. I don't think it means what he thinks it means.
His description of government enforcing the "neutrality" of society in a democracy is interesting. Neutrality, here, means a point of equilibrium for a system always under tension.
It's interesting to relate the "neutrality" of modern art with politics. Cubism is often described as presenting different views at the same time, and Mondrian, later, balanced primary colors and rectangular shapes to achieve nonrepresentational harmony. What then, I wonder, do the large, single band of color paintings by Rothko portend?
Given the fact most of us can no longer speak our minds, even, I think the tension's a done deal.
It's not the writer so much as his spilling the beans in some respects.
You don't mind if I drop a bit more clarity into the thread, do you?
The Transition Period According to Marx.... Between capitalist and Communist societies, he said, lies the period of revolutionary transformation of the one into the other and, corresponding to this, there is also a political transition period in which the State can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.Regardless of what various disciples of Marx may have added to or taken away from his system, they all agree on the necessity both of class struggle and of the dictatorship of the proletariat. As late as September 28, 1962, the Tenth Plenary Session of the Chinese Communist Central Committee emphasized in its communique that class struggle marks the period of proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship and will continue throughout the historial period of transition from capitalism to communism -- a transition that will last scores of years or even longer. [Follows with the Pre-Gramscian quaint notion of Marx that the proletariat actually would remained armed, revolt, tear down the bourgeoisie State and police and, as the new functionaries, would never think to constitute themselves a separate class of privileged bureaucrats. I think we also can exchange class struggle with that of sex, skin, intelligence, as well -- better to breed you, my dear.] Decades later -- in the current era of Communist compromises at least in practice if not in doctrine -- the transition is described in less brutal terms, and the main instrument of transisition is conceived as cooperation with all revolutionary, democratic and progressive elements in any given situation. [...] Welfare State as Transition to UtopiaThis dilution of the properly revolutionary element of the passage to socialism ... was made possible by the intervening evolution of the centralized Welfare State designed to take the wind out of the sails of the revolution.The question is: Does the Welfare State tame and organize the revolutionary idea, or does it merely serve the ultimate objectives of the revolution by adjusting people's attitudes to the post-revolutionary world? The fact is that the concept of the State (or the community) completing dominating and regulating the lives of its citizens, had been, by and large, accepted in the second half of the 20th century. Although there is still considerable discussion, largely theoretical and irrelevant, about what Lefebvre calls the "rhythm and modalities" of the transistion, the debate of the past several decades has been merely whether the State, the race, the ideological Empire or World Government will stage-manage the last accts of the passage to coalescing mankind. Whichever prevails, the tend has been unmistakable for a long time now: the mechanism is in place; small concrete decisions are made daily; only the theoretical measures are still discussed. As early as 1891, Chauncy Thomas outlined the general process in his utopian novel The Crystal Button. The community is described as living in the Year Of Peace 4872 (1372 years after 3,500 years spent under the calendar of Anno Domini). The novel's character refers to the end of the nineteenth century as almost a prehistoric date when certain signs already indicated the shape of things to come. The Professors tells Paul Prognosis, the Bostonian who dreams of the future.
Even in your day it was one of the signs of the times that small interests were beginning to be absorbed by corporations, and those by giant monopolies. By slow and peaceful steps, the same movement progressed until the government itself came into possession of such industries as were of peculiarly public interest, including all means of communication and transportation, and life and fire insurance; and the land question was settled in the same manner. Ever since Chauncey Thomas wrote these lines, the trends he detected have become immeasureably stronger. The Welfare State is an accepted fact; two ideological empires exist; and both the Welfare State and the ideological empries resemble each other increasingly in the techniques they utilize and even in some fundamental thinking. The world government is still only a distant image [c. 1967], but many highly regarded statesmen speak about it as a distinct possibility. (13) In his own way, Adolf Hitler also believed that larger units than states were emerging and that the transition needed the skill of political minds of his own cast. This is what he told Herman Rauschning: The conception of the nation has become meaningless. We have to get rid of this false conception and set in its place the conception of race. The New Order cannot be conceived in terms of the national boundaries of the peoples with an historic past, but in terms of race that transcend these boundaries ... Less nebulous and romantic, and still influenced by the concept of the Roman State, Mussolini wrote that people should be viewed qualitatively and, therefore, they may be represented in the will of a few or even one. In this respect, judgment belongs not to the individual but to the State, because the State is all citizens, and its formation is the formation of a consciousness of its individuals in the masses. [Mussolini's untrained mind, inspired as it was by only a few of the writings of prominent socialist doctrinaires, struggled with incompatible concepts such as "masses" and "individuals rights"] but the twentieth-century utopian leitmotiv is present:
"For the Fascist," writes Mussolini, "all is comprised in the State and nothing spiritual or human exists -- much less has any value -- outside the State ... The Fascist State -- the unification and synthesis of every value -- interprets, develops and potentiates the whole life of the people."
(13) --- When India suffered under the invasion by the Red Chinese in 1962, Indian politicians consulted Nehru regarding his intentions. He simply told them that by the year 2000, border conflicts would be a thing of the past since all countries would be provinces of a one-world organization. (14) --- Quoted in A. Bullock, Hitler, Harper & Row, New York, 1952, pp. 363-364.
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As linked from the "Hear No Evil" thread in The First Duty of Citizenship: Enthusiasm
Or, as the United Way likes to say: "we don't care how much you give, all we really want is 100% participation."
That's a whole 'nother thread, by the way.
It's "Art for Art's Sake" season down here. I do love my artist friends but feel I offended one of them the other day with repeated heavy sighs as he extolled the Moments his little coterie had during their little readings together that morning.
While there's some truth to beauty's being in the eye of the beholder, I think that truth speaks more to Mind over Matter. The Golden Ratio (and a stretch of 6% on the average model's frame where possible) still is going to rule the day and we all know it. I mean, look how nicely the gay male and buff female flat-bellied aesthetics are taking hold of the collective consciousness. You see it all the time here on the forum, even.
Rather, I think the point of modern art was to destroy the math: no golden ratios. Destroy the natural relationships: no harmonic hues, even. And, above all, instill the idea that truth is relative and the days of extolling (by copying) the order and beauty of creation onto the page were LONG GONE ... along with signing "All for the greater honor and glory of God" instead of one's own name.
The Self Alone?