"Thus wit, like faith, by each man is applied To one small sect, and all are damned
beside."
-Alexander Pope
Pauline Johnson: Marxist Aesthetics: The Foundations Within Everyday Life for an Enlightened Consciousness; Routledge and Kegan Paul; London.
T. W. Adorno: Aesthetic Theory;
Routledge and Kegan Paul; London.
Of Marx's numerous ex cathedra pronouncements, none has presented a greater hermeneutical challenge to the faithful than the assertion that life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. It seemed to follow as a consequence that men could not, by acts of their will, create a new world. The classless society would be realized only as the final outcome of the logic of economic, and hence social, development. In one sense, this was heartening news because it meant that revolutionaries would not be disappointed in their hopes. But on closer examination, their assurance was seen to have been purchased at the price of denying the historical influence of ideas. In the effort to rid itself of the last vestige of idealism, Marxism had...