83 | What is Aesthetics? Part III. Ernst Bloch: In Search of the Red Sublime
Feb 19, 2024
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Delve into Ernst Bloch's Marxist account of art, the red sublime, and the utopian surplus in certain artworks. Explore how art can provoke experiences of beauty and sublimity beyond historical contexts. Challenge the idea of art as resistance and attempt to understand the concept of art guiding processes towards a classless society.
Art can challenge societal norms and domination through the utopian surplus in certain works.
Aesthetic genius in art offers a glimpse of freedom and equity by challenging power dynamics.
Engaging with art unlocks a utopian surplus for societal transformation beyond mere resistance.
Deep dives
Art as a Tool for Emancipation
Art serves as a crucial element in the process of understanding and challenging the societal norms and structures that perpetuate class domination. Ernst Bloch highlights the importance of distinguishing between ideological distortions of the past and the utopian surplus embedded in certain works of art. This surplus envisions a classless society and aids in constructing a socialist heritage that transcends historical limitations.
The Role of Aesthetic Genius
Bloch explores the concept of aesthetic genius as a source of art that captures and conserves an ideological surplus that hints towards the future. This surplus challenges the prevailing societal roles and power dynamics, offering a glimpse of overcoming false consciousness and domination. Through art, artists like Beethoven and Dostoevsky provide resources for reshaping societal perspectives towards freedom and equity.
Transcending Historical Limitations through Art
By engaging with art and understanding its historical economic basis, individuals can extract a utopian surplus that propels processes of emancipation from current realities into a future of possibility. Bloch emphasizes the need to move beyond mere resistance and access the explosive content embedded in art forms that defy normative constraints, thus offering pathways to profound societal transformation.
Education Through Art and Aesthetics
Bloch advocates for the education of desires and sensibilities through art, aiming to cultivate a transformative sensibility that breaks free from ideological constraints. Contrary to mere contemplation, art serves as a means of inciting actions and movements towards a more liberated future. He suggests that art acts as a compelling tool to grasp and articulate the deep contradictions within society, facilitating a process of active engagement and emancipation.
The Red Sublime and Discordant Aesthetics
Bloch's concept of the 'red sublime' delves into the experience of societal turmoil and discord expressed through art. This unconventional approach to aesthetics confronts the harmony-seeking norms and instead embraces the disruptive nature of art that challenges existing power structures and inspires revolutionary action. The 'red sublime' signifies a transformative lens through which societal contradictions are revealed and mobilized for progressive change.
In this episode, we return to the work of Ernst Bloch and his theory concerning “aesthetic genius” and the possibility of the red sublime. Bloch attempts to construct a Marxist account of art that can explain how it is possible for aesthetic objects to provoke experiences of beauty and sublimity long after the historical conditions of their genesis have passed. Bloch thinks certain artworks contain a utopian surplus that beckons for a not-yet existing classless society. In other words, Bloch thinks we can inherit the knowledge of the real possibility of communism from the history of class domination and catastrophe. Join us as we try to make sense of these claims, dunk on the idea of art as “resistance,” and even try (in vain) to get Gil to experience the sublime!
leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil
References:
Ernst Bloch, “Ideas as Transformed Material in Human Minds, or Problems of an Ideological Superstructure (Cultural Heritage) (1972)” in The Utopian Function of Art and Literature, trans. Jack Zipes and Frank Mecklenburg (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1988), 18-71.
Filippo Menozzi, "Inheriting Marx: Daniel Bensaïd, Ernst Bloch and the Discordance of Time” in Historical Materialism 28, 1 (2020): 147-182.
Stuart Hall, “Marx’s Notes on Method: A ‘Reading’ of the ‘1857 Introduction’ [1974]” in Selected Writings on Marxism, ed. Gregor McLennan (Durham: Duke University Press, 2021), 19-62.
Music:
“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN
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