Notes on Georg Lukács, “The Ideology of Modernism” (1956); or, “One Cranky Dude” (1217-1232)

- most prominent theorist of Western Marxism during 20thC

o influenced Benjamin, Adorno, Jameson
o in this article, responding to Adorno and other Leftist and non-Leftist proponents of
modernism (including various avant-garde movements)
- Major works: The Theory of the Novel (1920), History and Class Consciousness (1923), Studies in
European Realism (1948), & The Historical Novel (pub. 1962)
- Reflects early- to mid-20thC debates within the Left re: what art form(s) could best contribute to
growth of socialism
- not so popular these days (poststructuralists don’t like him)

Critiques of Modernism:

 Bourgeois Subjectivism: Modernist emphasis on alienation and isolation of human beings—and

absurdity of modern existence—becomes delinked from reality and history, and becomes not only
naturalized and universalized but also glorified.
- “the denial of history, of development, and thus of perspective” becomes “reality” 1226
- if neither individual subject nor reality can be understood, situation becomes horrific, absurd,
STATIC
- this “ontological dogma of the solitariness of man” is actually an “ideological problem” (1224-5)
- the deeply-rooted subjectivism of “the modern bourgeois intellectual” is actually “an intoxicated
fascination with his forlorn condition” 1228

 Quietist – i.e. actually helps maintain status quo of bourgeois society

- this “is the ideological complement of their [bourgeois critics and artists’] historical position” (1224)

 Formalism – says praise of modernism by leftist and mainstream critics comes out of too much emphasis
on aesthetic form: “by concentrating on formal criteria, by isolating technique from content and exaggerating
its importance, these critics refrain from judgment on the social or artistic significance of subject matter”
(1226)

Trad. Realism (esp 19thC) Modernism

- bourgeois in origin and outlook, but still
politically good bc shows historical forces at
work
- narrative objectivity
- solitariness is specific social fate,
product of historical forces 1219
- historical, recuperates meaning
Dialectical
- deals with “dialectic between the
individual’s subjectivity and objective
reality”
- i.e. treats hmns as “political animals”
- professed ideology may be various/contradictory
1221
- much modernist lit sees itself as protest against
modern society
- but emphasizes subjectivity (stream of
consciousness, point-of-view)
- makes solitariness a universal condition 1219
A) “man” is ahistorical 1220
- individuals are confined to limits of own exp
- individuals are often without personal history
- bc this situation is not historically situated, “reality
is static”
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 1224
- “displays the contradictions within
society and within the individual in the
context of a dialectical unity” 1225
- realism helps explain world and subject
as dynamic, meaningful, objective,
dialectic btw group and individual, reality
and subjectivity
Particular/Universal – “Typical”
- Lukács’ conception of “typical” is
central to his thought
- “concrete typicality”preserves both
individual as well as social: “the average
man is simply a dimmer reflection of the
contradictions always existing in man and
society; eccentricity is a socially-conditioned
distortion” 1225
- The “typical”: although individuals are
“normal” or “typical,” relationships between
the individual and the world are dynamic &
developing
Selective use of perspective & distortion
 Uses perspective “selectively”—i.e. not as
everything (in other words, objective and
subjective points of view of are
discernable/exist)
- concept of normal “places” distortion
correctly
- “selective principle” of perspective 1226
- assumes “change and development to be
the proper subject of literature” 1227
 “Previous realistic literature, however
violent its criticism of reality, had always
assumed the unity of the world it described and
seen it as a living whole inseparable from man
himself” 1229
- even when use “elements of
disintegration,” such as “subjectivizing
of time,” still serves to portray complex
whole 1229
 “Every human action is based on a
presupposition of its inherent meaningfulness,
at least to the subject. Absence of meaning
makes a mockery of action and reduces art to
B) “Reality” is inability to know reality 1221
- assumes outer world inherently inexplicable 1222
- “negation of outward reality”
- “the attenuation of actuality”
C) Deliberately makes “dissolution of personality” a
universal condition (1222)
- i.e. an “immutable condition humaine” 1225
- humans are “a sequence of unrelated experiential
fragments…as inexplicable to others as to himself”
- “escape into neurosis as a protest against
the evils of society” becomes “reality”
- pathology becomes normalized and/or even
romanticized
D) Neurosis becomes glorified 1225
- critique of psychoanalysis (Freud)
- “fascination with morbid eccentricity” 1225
E) In fact, this “flight into psychopathology” is non-
critique
- this “rejection of reality is wholesale and
summary, containing no concrete criticism” and
“purely subjective” 1224
- social critique “lacks both content and direction”
1) lack of definition (LACKS CONTENT)
2) leads nowhere, “an escape into nothingness”
(LACKS DIRECTION)
- so Mod’ism is an EMPTY GESTURE, only
expressive of “nausea, or discomfort, or longing”
1224
F) rejection of history & loss of grounds for critique
- presents “social and historical phenomena as
static” 1227
- “Lack of objectivity in the description of the outer
world finds its complement in the reduction of
reality to a nightmare” 1225
- deprives literature of a sense of perspective
- distortion in portrayal of reality 1226  there is
no “normality” to compare it to
- & furthermore, “to present psychopathology as a
way of escape from this distortion is itself a
distortion” 1226
- no grounds or basis from which to criticize
 Modernism has ideological continuity with literary
Naturalism
- by only looking at surface (not entire system),
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naturalistic description” 1227 naturalizes and then actually prescribes the way
- ex) Dostoyevsky’s House of the Dead things are
provides perspective, relation to reality, - presents our only choices as conformity or
meaning, etc. neurosis (all or nothing) 1223-4

Political/Social implications/influences
- product of bourgeois self-absorptoin
- through Heidegger and Schmitt, links modernism
to Nazis and fascism 1223
- “unity of thought and principle” seen by
Modernists as “backwoods philosophy” 1222-3

 disintegration of modernist art serves ideological

intention of separation, abstraction, ahistoricism – i.e. so
you can’t put the whole picture together and understand it
- reality becomes static, subjective,
incomprehensible
- Modernism is the “negation of art” 1232

Examples
 “As the ideology of most modernist writers asserts the
unalterability of outward reality… human activity is, a
priori, rendered impotent and robbed of meaning” 1227
- “psychopathology became the goal…of their
artistic intention” 1224

ex) “Kafta’s artistic ingenuity is really directed towards

substituting his angst-ridden vision of the world for
objective reality” 1222
- impotence, paralysis

ex) Joyce’s stream of consciousness 1222

ex) Symbolism, Futurism, constructivism, Surrealism 1226

ex) Bergson – exp’d time, space = real time/space

- “by separating time from the outer world of
objective reality, the inner world of the subject is
transformed into a sinister, inexplicable flux and
acquires – paradoxically, as it may seem – a static
character” 1228

 Refers to Walter Benjamin: “the notion of objective time is essential to any understanding of
history, and that the notion of subjective time is a product of a period of decline” 1230 / 1139 c1
- So this is the problem with, say, modernist allegory vs. realist allegory (typical/individual)
- realist allegory treats each element as “both individual and typical” (1230)
o preserve distinctiveness of each element while also relating to whole
o i.e. refers to real world/historical situation
- modernism rejects the typical (relate to others/whole), so each detail is just a particularity
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 o in Modernist art, detail in allegory can be anything (transferable), so becomes “abstract
function” 1230
o ex) Kafka’s “aim is to raise the individual detail in its immediate particularity (without
generalizing its content) to the level of abstraction” (1231)

QUESTIONs & COMMENTs:

On p. 1232, in discussing abstraction of allegory in modernism in general and Kafka in particular, Lukács
writes, “Specific subject matter and stylistic variation do not matter; what matters is the basic ideological
determination of form and content.”
- Couldn’t we use Lukács own words’ to defend avant-garde art?
- see Bertolt Brecht, “The Popular and the Realistic” & “Against George Lukács”– charges Lukács
with formalism for using form as litmus test for capturing reality; Brecht argues that realism &
political valence of a text should be determined by its relationship to reality

At the same time, we have to remember that many of us are reading Lukács from a poststructuralist (even if
we don’t realize it), postmodernist, cultural pluralist world that privileges difference, perspective, relativism,
etc., as a matter of course. He may sound dogmatic sometimes, but his critiques of modernism are important
in several ways:
- against the Cold War cultural privileging of High Modernism as proof of the superiority of the First
World (Western artists have freedom in contrast to Soviet socialist realism and Zhdanovism)
- against the Left’s sometimes too-easy celebration of disruption of form as disruption of political life;
whereas the Italian Futurists leaned right-ward, the Russian constructivists, the Surrealists and other
avant-garde types touted (with varying degrees of rigor and convincing-ness) formal experimentation
as political disruption

Sources for more info on avant-garde art, politics, and history include:

- Andreas Huyssen, After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism (1986) – For
Huyssen, the “great divide” between modernism and postmodernism is the attitude towards mass
culture (modernism disdains, postmodernism is inseparable from). His book is a great historical
overview of the development of twentieth-century experimental art, including the “historical avant-
garde” (surrealists, Dadaists, constructivists, etc.).

- Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde (1984) – Bürger argues that in their debate on avant-garde
art, Lukács, Benjamin, Adorno, and others are two sides of the same failing: they treat works of art as
individual, discrete object within society as a totality, whereas a materialist analysis of the historical
avant-garde (and this is what Brecht argues too) requires an analysis of the “institutions of art.” In
other words, there are levels of mediation between the “totality” of society and the individual work of
art, and literary critics need to understand the unique development of these institutions (including
publishing houses and markets, literary critical institutions, and schools of art) in between the work
itself and the various parts of society in general.

- David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (1990) –Harvey argues that we’re not ALL in a
condition of postmodernity, whether you define it as a mode of production (late capitalism,
decentralized, flexible accumulation) or a state of being (fragmented, uncertain of reality, etc.). He
argues that different historical modes-of-being coexist right now, including modern, postmodern, and
premodern (although I don’t think he actually uses the term “premodern”). He then explores this
through different modes of production, types of social organization, and art and culture. Harvey is
also very readable.
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