There Is an Alternative: With Herbert Marcuse and Mark Fisher Towards a Political Aesthetics of Neoliberalism

157 Pages·2022·1.02 MB·English

by  Lukas Schutzbach

Lukas Schutzbach
There Is an
Alternative
With Herbert Marcuse and Mark
Fisher Towards a Political Aesthetics
of Neoliberalism
There Is an Alternative
Lukas Schutzbach
There Is an Alternative
With Herbert Marcuse and Mark
Fisher Towards a Political Aesthetics
of Neoliberalism
LukasSchutzbach
Heidelberg,Germany
ISBN978-3-662-66236-6 ISBN978-3-662-66237-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66237-3
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Itavailsnot,timenorplace—distance
availsnot,
Iamwithyou,youmenandwomenofa
generation,oreversomanygenerations
hence,
Justasyoufeelwhenyoulookonthe
riverandsky,soIfelt,
Justasanyofyouisoneofaliving
crowd,Iwasoneofacrowd
(Whitman1990,130)
Whydowebegintowritepoemsfor
ourselves
IntheVicinityofDeath?
(Otherswritepoemsatthebeginning.)
Becausewearenolongersubjecttothe
lawsofevery-day
Butratherunderahigherlaw
Whoselanguageisnolongerthatof
every-day,
Nolongerprose,
Althoughthewordsarethesame.
(Marcuse2007,196)
Formyparents
Acknowledgements
This book is comprised of a revised and expanded version of my final thesis in
English studies. This project would not have been possible without the support
and reassurance of my family, friends, and colleagues and for this I am deeply
grateful.
First, I want to thank my thesis supervisor Prof. Dr. Günter Leypoldt for his
patience and continuous encouragement. Further thanks go to Marta Schmidt,
Alfie Chrisolyte, and Henning Schönenberger from Springer Nature for trusting
me with this opportunity and making this publication possible.
I am also deeply grateful to my parents for their unconditional support and
trust. Special thanks go to my brother for his generosity, his brilliant and seem-
ingly inexhaustible expertise in sociology and critical theory, and a never-ending
stream of cherished book recommendations.
My deep appreciation also goes to my friends. It goes to Jonas Spies, one
of my most attentive readers and fiercest critics, for his great personal and
intellectual contributions. Without his invaluable feedback and our late-night
kitchen-table discussions, this book and the ideas collected in it would not be
what they are today. Thanks also go to Williams Rothvoss-Buchheimer for his
insightful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript and to Burak Aytac for
reminding me of the value of sincere curiosity and for confronting me with the
academic realities of the economics profession Marxists too often tend to forget
about.
ix
x Acknowledgements
Finally,thisendeavorwouldnothavebeenpossiblewithoutmypartnerLaura.
Thankyouforalwaysbeingthereandforyourpatienceduringmymoreobsessive
momentswhileworkingonthisbook.Thankyoufornotbackingdownfromyet
another discussion of the history of Marxism over dinner but also for reminding
me that there always is a place and time and a life outside of academia. Thank
you for always knowing the right thing to say, for showing me how intuitive
solidarityandcommunitycanbe,andformakingmewhoIamtoday.Thankyou
for everything.
Contents
1 Introduction .................................................. 1
1.1 Why Neoliberalism? ....................................... 3
1.2 Why Marcuse? (Re-)Turning to Aesthetics ................... 6
1.3 Why Ben Lerner? ......................................... 9
2 NeoliberalismandOne-DimensionalSociety ..................... 11
2.1 Neoliberalism: Attempting to Grasp Contemporary
Capitalism ............................................... 12
2.1.1 A (Very) Brief History of Neoliberalism .............. 13
2.1.2 How Ontological Is the “Ontological Phase”? .......... 20
2.2 Capitalist Realism and Capitalism’s Real .................... 27
2.2.1 Preliminaries on the Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism ......................................... 28
2.2.2 Defining Capitalist Realism .......................... 44
2.2.3 Capitalist Realism and Ideology ...................... 46
2.2.4 Capitalist Realism and Emancipation ................. 49
2.3 From Fisher to Marcuse: One-Dimensional Man
as a Critique of Neoliberalism .............................. 53
2.4 Reiterating the Problem of Critique and Emancipation ......... 56
3 One-DimensionalSocietyandEmancipatoryArt ................. 59
3.1 Adorno and the Idea of a Critical Aesthetics ................. 59
3.1.1 Form and the Dialectics of Mimesis
and Construction ................................... 60
3.1.2 What Art Can Do: Negativity and Emancipatory
Potential .......................................... 62
3.2 Art and Liberation in Marcuse’s Radical Aesthetics ........... 63
xi
xii Contents
3.2.1 Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism ................... 64
3.2.2 A Brief Note in Defense of Marcuse .................. 69
3.2.3 Marcuse’s Adorno .................................. 75
3.2.4 One-Dimensional Man and the Aesthetic Dimension .... 77
3.2.5 A Brief Note on the Critical Potential of Inwardness .... 79
3.2.6 Art, New Sensibility, and Liberation .................. 81
3.3 Toward a Critical Aesthetics of Neoliberalism ................ 84
3.3.1 Mark Fisher’s Aesthetic Turn ........................ 85
3.3.2 Unforgetting the ‘60s: “Acid Communism”
and “Psychedelic Reason” ........................... 89
3.3.3 A Brief Note on the Question of Art and Its
Relationship to Theory .............................. 96
4 EmancipatoryArtandNeoliberalisminBenLerner’s10:04 ....... 99
4.1 A Story About the World to Come .......................... 101
4.2 Irene: Performative Failures ................................ 105
4.2.1 “Liberal Communists” and Gestural Radicalism ........ 105
4.2.2 Whole Foods and Exercises in Marxism ............... 107
4.2.3 Broken Promises of Unconditional Community ........ 110
4.2.4 Occupying Consciousness ........................... 112
4.2.5 Realizations of Capitalist Realism .................... 114
4.3 Psychedelic Proprioceptions ................................ 115
4.3.1 The Urban Sublime ................................. 116
4.3.2 Donald Judd and the “Utopian Glimmer of Fiction” .... 119
4.3.3 Ketamine and the “Poet Nurse” ...................... 121
4.3.4 “Shorthand for What Our Language Couldn’t
Represent” ......................................... 124
4.4 Sandy: Crossing Brooklyn Bridge ........................... 125
4.5 Metafictionality and Aesthetic Experience .................... 127
4.5.1 “The Golden Vanity” and Form ...................... 129
4.5.2 The Text as an “Object to be Experienced” ............ 130
5 Conclusions ................................................... 135
5.1 Summing Up ............................................. 135
5.2 TheAestheticDimension: An Unfinished Project .............. 137
Bibliography ..................................................... 141