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vostoklake) wrote2007-03-18 12:48 pm
vostoklake) wrote2007-03-18 12:48 pm
An abstract
The Painkiller of the Masses: Popular Culture and Revolution
This book aims to build a Marxist understanding of modern mass-media culture which will not simply be a systematic analysis, but also a guide to strategy and tactics for cultural and political activism. It will begin by situating the modern mass-culture industry in a rigorous application of Marxist political economy.
Drawing on the work of Gramsci, Adorno, Chomsky and Mike Wayne, it will argue that in late capitalism's conditions of stagnating real wages and permanent unemployment, mass production of cultural or ideological goods has become increasingly important to the continued reproduction of capitalist property relationships. These goods - art, film, television, music, literature and all other kinds of cultural product - are not only new avenues to make profit. In the marketing industries, cultural goods become capital goods in themselves - they can also help to sell other goods and services and thus stave off periodic crises of profitability.
But, it will also be argued in and of themselves, cultural goods participate in the process of "manufacturing consent" of which Chomsky speaks. Successful cultural goods - including politics and religion - fill the "spiritual gap" left by capitalist alienation. We are sold identities, as well as identification with the system which exploits us. This book will argue that popular culture increasingly fills, in the advanced capitalist countries, the social function of religion as described in Marx's work - an analgesic for spiritual discontent and physical lack, and a consolation for our inability to change the world around us.
Important to this understanding is an understanding of the class structure of late capitalist country. This book will argue that a new middle-class layer - what Richard Florida calls "the Creative Class" - are the "priests" of this ultra-modern religion. Cultural and intellectual work, in the media/artistic industries and in those closely allied such as marketing, management, political consultancy, is increasingly vital to keep the whole system running. This "Ideological Class" finds new ways to sell products, and creates new products to sell, thus staving off crises of overproduction - and also "sells" the system itself. However, they increasingly have interests of their own which differ from their capitalist masters.
It will be argued that the Ideological Class are the basis of the politics of the Third Way, of social liberalism, which have captured virtually every centre-left party in the world. As the capitalist offensive in the 1980's smashed the organised workers' movement in most countries, the Ideological Class moved into the vacuum left in the formerly social-democratic parties. Their "new politics" is the politics of consumerism, individualism and a kind of middle-class multiculturalism. Class is dissolved in this vision, and all that is left are "identities" and "communities" - in other words, ghettoised nichemarkets.
But this book will challenge Adorno's thesis that nothing of value to a revolutionary movement can come out of the mass-culture industries. It will include several case studies of exactly how artifacts of popular culture are created, who they are created by, who makes the money from them, who consumes them and how. It will attempt to refute the idea that popular culture works on a simple "brainwashing" model - that, for example, everyone who goes to see the film 300 will come out supporting a US attack on Iran. It will in particular examine non-commercial popular culture - which often grows up around corporate culture, but "reclaims" it in a fusion of the categories of creator and producer. It will argue that, for example, fan fiction offers a possible vision of what a post-capitalist popular culture will look like, where cultural artifacts will no longer be commodities like baked beans, producers and consumers becoming increasingly identical in a culture of "free exchange".
The book will finally argue that a group aiming to overthrow the capitalist system must take popular culture seriously. If popular culture is the religion of the late-capitalist era, then an elitist dismissal of it is as gross a strategic error as a dismissal of any other religion. Corporate popular culture exists because it fills a psychic need, and only a change in the objective circumstances will remove that need. The book will argue that, here and now, revolutionaries should encourage, not rejection of, but critical engagement with and respect for corporate popular culture.
The revolutionary organisation must set itself a goal of smashing and replacing the Ideological Class as well as the capitalist class - in both cases, in favour of a new system of mass democratic participation. It must begin to create its own culture and "psychic goods" which feed off and at the same time challenge the corporate media, in a similar way to which fan fiction and similar "recuperations" do. A culture of struggle and democratic creativity must be built as the antithesis to the culture of passivity and fear.
===
ETA: Apparently a certainannoying comrade says that I am "hit and miss" when it comes to theory. Well, I actually take that as a compliment. If you hit sometimes and miss sometimes, all that means is that you keep on shooting. Better, I think, than keeping your powder dry for a day that might never come,
This book aims to build a Marxist understanding of modern mass-media culture which will not simply be a systematic analysis, but also a guide to strategy and tactics for cultural and political activism. It will begin by situating the modern mass-culture industry in a rigorous application of Marxist political economy.
Drawing on the work of Gramsci, Adorno, Chomsky and Mike Wayne, it will argue that in late capitalism's conditions of stagnating real wages and permanent unemployment, mass production of cultural or ideological goods has become increasingly important to the continued reproduction of capitalist property relationships. These goods - art, film, television, music, literature and all other kinds of cultural product - are not only new avenues to make profit. In the marketing industries, cultural goods become capital goods in themselves - they can also help to sell other goods and services and thus stave off periodic crises of profitability.
But, it will also be argued in and of themselves, cultural goods participate in the process of "manufacturing consent" of which Chomsky speaks. Successful cultural goods - including politics and religion - fill the "spiritual gap" left by capitalist alienation. We are sold identities, as well as identification with the system which exploits us. This book will argue that popular culture increasingly fills, in the advanced capitalist countries, the social function of religion as described in Marx's work - an analgesic for spiritual discontent and physical lack, and a consolation for our inability to change the world around us.
Important to this understanding is an understanding of the class structure of late capitalist country. This book will argue that a new middle-class layer - what Richard Florida calls "the Creative Class" - are the "priests" of this ultra-modern religion. Cultural and intellectual work, in the media/artistic industries and in those closely allied such as marketing, management, political consultancy, is increasingly vital to keep the whole system running. This "Ideological Class" finds new ways to sell products, and creates new products to sell, thus staving off crises of overproduction - and also "sells" the system itself. However, they increasingly have interests of their own which differ from their capitalist masters.
It will be argued that the Ideological Class are the basis of the politics of the Third Way, of social liberalism, which have captured virtually every centre-left party in the world. As the capitalist offensive in the 1980's smashed the organised workers' movement in most countries, the Ideological Class moved into the vacuum left in the formerly social-democratic parties. Their "new politics" is the politics of consumerism, individualism and a kind of middle-class multiculturalism. Class is dissolved in this vision, and all that is left are "identities" and "communities" - in other words, ghettoised nichemarkets.
But this book will challenge Adorno's thesis that nothing of value to a revolutionary movement can come out of the mass-culture industries. It will include several case studies of exactly how artifacts of popular culture are created, who they are created by, who makes the money from them, who consumes them and how. It will attempt to refute the idea that popular culture works on a simple "brainwashing" model - that, for example, everyone who goes to see the film 300 will come out supporting a US attack on Iran. It will in particular examine non-commercial popular culture - which often grows up around corporate culture, but "reclaims" it in a fusion of the categories of creator and producer. It will argue that, for example, fan fiction offers a possible vision of what a post-capitalist popular culture will look like, where cultural artifacts will no longer be commodities like baked beans, producers and consumers becoming increasingly identical in a culture of "free exchange".
The book will finally argue that a group aiming to overthrow the capitalist system must take popular culture seriously. If popular culture is the religion of the late-capitalist era, then an elitist dismissal of it is as gross a strategic error as a dismissal of any other religion. Corporate popular culture exists because it fills a psychic need, and only a change in the objective circumstances will remove that need. The book will argue that, here and now, revolutionaries should encourage, not rejection of, but critical engagement with and respect for corporate popular culture.
The revolutionary organisation must set itself a goal of smashing and replacing the Ideological Class as well as the capitalist class - in both cases, in favour of a new system of mass democratic participation. It must begin to create its own culture and "psychic goods" which feed off and at the same time challenge the corporate media, in a similar way to which fan fiction and similar "recuperations" do. A culture of struggle and democratic creativity must be built as the antithesis to the culture of passivity and fear.
===
ETA: Apparently a certain