Is art necessary?

We publish here the editorial of issue 46 of In Defence of Marxism magazine, which looks at the relationship of culture, and art in particular, to the struggle for socialist revolution and human emancipation. In this editorial, Alan Woods dismantles the lazy caricature of Marxism as unconcerned with the rich cultural and artistic history of humanity. Issue 46 of In Defence of Marxism magazine is available now! Get your copy here.

The Austrian Marxist Ernst Fischer wrote a very interesting book called The Necessity of Art. It first came out in 1959 and it made a profound impression on me. My admiration for it has not diminished with the passing of time.

Of course, one may disagree with this or that statement in it, but it contains some very profound insights. For example: “Art is necessary in order that man should be able to recognize and change the world. But art is also necessary by virtue of the magic inherent in it.”

How are we to understand those words?

Imagine for just a moment a world without art, without colour, without music, dancing or singing. Such a world would be an intolerable place – a grim and miserable one, even if one supposes that sufficient food, accommodation and healthcare were provided for everyone.

Life, in fact, would be meaningless without the search for something higher, more sublime, more beautiful than the sordid reality of everyday existence.

A lifeless view of Marxism

Marxism is often accused of being a lifeless dogma, engaging purely in economic analysis. This is entirely false. Historical materialism asserts that in the final analysis, the viability of any socio-economic system is determined by its ability to develop the productive forces.

That is undoubtedly true. But to derive from this general statement the conclusion that the entire complex and contradictory evolution of our species can be reduced purely to economic factors is frankly absurd.

Materialism seeks to explore the manifold links that connect all forms of thought – including art and religion – to the real life of real men and women, that is to their social being.

In the last analysis, changes in our way of thinking will be seen to have their origin in changes in society. However, the relationship between thought and social being is neither automatic nor mechanical. It is complex, contradictory, in a word, dialectical.

Contrary to the illusions of the idealists, who imagine that all human history has been driven by the force of ideas and (what is only an extension of this initial proposition) by the actions of great individuals, the human mind is generally conservative and lags behind events.

It is precisely this chronic lag of consciousness and the development of society, propelled by the demands of the productive forces and other objective factors that unfold independently of our will, that explains the need for social (and also artistic) revolutions.

Two cultures

For the entire history of what we call civilisation, that is to say, class society, the dominant ideas have been those of the ruling classes who have a monopoly of culture. The great mass of people has been systematically excluded from it.

Whereas the idealists see art as an independent manifestation of the human spirit – something mysterious and inexplicably spun out of the fancies of the brain, or divine inspiration that descends from heaven – in class society there are always at least two cultures present: the dominant culture, which usually includes the most advanced schools of art and literature, and a parallel culture that circulates among the exploited classes.

As Plekhanov wrote:

“The same capitalism that in the sphere of production is an obstacle to the utilisation of all the productive forces at the disposal of modern mankind is also a brake in the sphere of artistic creation.”

Culture as a tool of oppression

Materialism seeks to explore the manifold links that connect all forms of thought / Image: public domain

The lives of most people are characterised by endless drudgery in boring dead-end jobs. In order to escape from that drudgery, they take refuge in different ways.

The French poet Baudelaire referred to les paradis artificiels – artificial paradises like drugs and alcohol, which serve as a convenient escape route from the deadly monotony of everyday life.

Then, of course, there is the ultimate artificial paradise, that hardest of all hard drugs that we call religion, which offers men and women the tantalising prospect of a life of eternal bliss – when they are dead.

Today, despite the so-called freedom of the press, that much-vaunted hallmark of bourgeois democracy, the few daily papers that exist are rigidly controlled by a handful of media billionaires and their content is mainly garbage.

This is said to be because Big Business “gives the public what it wants”. In reality, Capital gives the public what it thinks they should have: a steady diet of pap, of sex, sport and scandal, with a minimum of politics and culture, neatly tailored to the requirements of the bankers and capitalists.

The aim of this entertainment can be simply stated. It is an attempt to stop people from thinking about their problems and prevent them from taking positive action to resolve them.

In this, the ruling class has been remarkably successful. The fervour with which football fans support their team against all others is an excellent way of preventing them from participating in united action by the class against the bankers and capitalists.

There is nothing new in this. It is the modern equivalent of ‘bread and circuses’. For even in slave society, bread alone was never sufficient to keep the masses in a state of obedient stupor. That is the sole function of the so-called ‘popular culture’.

Television presents a sorry spectacle of cultural and moral bankruptcy. A poverty of ideas, a total lack of any originality and content, capable of producing only a sense of tedium and disgust in any minimally cultivated mind.

It is an insult to the people’s intelligence. But the last thing the ruling class needs is an intelligent public. Indeed, that would be dangerous.

But this tactic has definite limits. The day will come when the same football fans will display even greater fervour in fighting for their class. As Frederick the Great once said: “We are lost when these bayonets begin to think.”

Culture and the working class

I have often heard it said that the working class is not interested in art and culture. It is clear to me that those who make such statements have absolutely no knowledge of the working class or how it thinks and feels.

It is, in fact, an expression of the innate snobbery of middle-class intellectuals who are profoundly convinced of their superiority over the rest of the human race. In my experience, however, this arrogance usually conceals an amazing degree of stupidity and ignorance.

Class society is designed to suffocate the intellectual potential of working people, to prevent them by all means from acquiring a higher level of culture and understanding.

But the thirst for learning that has been suppressed for a very long time emerges whenever the workers move into struggle. We see this in every strike, where even the most backward elements of the class begin to search for ideas.

This is a thousand times more evident in the revolution, when the masses begin to take their destiny into their own hands and to change society.

They keenly feel the limited nature of their understanding, and they strive to learn and to understand. This striving is precisely an indication that the masses have begun to throw off the old slave mentality and are striving for higher things – that means, for culture.

Capitalism and art

Under capitalism the alienation of art from society has reached unprecedented levels. Genuine art finds itself oppressed and annulled – imprisoned in a suffocating straitjacket, excluded from the masses and subject to the iron hand of the market.

The English poet Robert Graves recalls that as a young man he was admonished by a wealthy businessman who warned him that there was no money in poetry. The young man fired back: “perhaps, but there is no poetry in money.”

In the same spirit, John Ruskin once remarked that a maiden may sing of her lost love, but a miser cannot sing of his lost money. Why not? because if he did so, it would evoke not sympathy but only a loud guffaw.

In poetry, human beings communicate to each other their innermost thoughts and feelings. But the capitalist does not love people, who are only a means to an end – machines for the production of surplus value.

The interest of the capitalists in art increases in inverse proportion to its desire to invest in the development of industry, science and technology and to create things that are of real use to the majority of the human race.

There is a thriving international art market, where investors eagerly buy up anything available, often for the most absurd prices.

The biggest centre of this trade is, naturally, the USA, which accounts for no less than 42 percent of it. Needless to say, this huge expenditure on works of art has precious little to do with aesthetics.

Most of the works thus purchased are not intended for display but as an economic investment – or, to call things by their right name – speculation.

They will not be seen by the public, and most of them will not even be seen by their purchasers, which tend to be the big banks and corporations.

Priceless old masterpieces that ought to be the common property of all humanity are concealed in a miser’s hoard, where they will never see the light of day. In this way the human race is being robbed of a precious part of its heritage.

The destruction of culture

The continuation of capitalism is the death of art / Image: public domain

In its period of senile decay, the bourgeoisie is engaged in the wholesale destruction of culture. The new universal war-cry of ‘tax reduction’ signifies government cuts, which undermine even those elements of a semi-human existence that were so painfully wrested from the ruling class in the past.

Schools, concert halls, theatres, public libraries, all fall under the axe. It reminds one forcibly of Goering’s celebrated phrase: “When I hear the word ‘Culture’, I reach for my revolver.”

However, this is not to say that art has ceased to exist. Beneath the surface, the green shoots continued to struggle towards the air and light. But they are constantly blocked by a thick layer of money, patronage and privilege.

The galleries, art dealers, record companies and recording studios are in the hands of the business elite.

Hundreds of thousands of good young artists are denied access to the means of culture. Their work will never be shown.

These artists will emerge during a revolution, when they become free from the shackles of big business which is crushing art.

To the capitalists, art, culture and education have no intrinsic worth. They are only of interest insofar as they provide a source of enrichment to those who are already obscenely rich. In other words, works of art are only of interest when they become transformed into commodities.

If the bourgeois can get away with closing schools and hospitals in order to save on taxes, they will cheerfully do so. If they can make people pay for public services like museums, libraries and art galleries, they will privatise them. If that does not provide enough money, they will close them.

The fact that these ‘principles’ constitute a threat to culture and civilised values is disregarded. All that matters is that Capital rules and is allowed to carry out the plunder of the whole world without let or hindrance.

The conclusion is inescapable. The continuation of capitalism is the death of art. Rescuing culture and raising it to a higher level for future generations is an essential task of the class struggle.

The foundation of a higher society

We are in the midst of a general regression of what used to be called civilisation, and this is the inevitable result of the fact that the present socio-economic system has outlived its historical reason to exist.

Civilisation is being held back by two gigantic fetters on progress – private ownership of the means of production and the nation state.

The present period in the history of capitalism is characterised, among other things, by the absence of any great artistic creations, original thinking or philosophy. It is a period of extreme shallowness, intellectual poverty and spiritual emptiness.

The road to the socialist revolution will be paved by a struggle to defend the conquests of art and culture against the threat posed to it by the decay and degeneration of capitalism.

The working class cannot be indifferent to the fate of culture. This is the foundation upon which the future socialist edifice will be built. We cannot allow the bourgeoisie to wreck it!

The struggle against imperialism and capitalism is inevitably fused with the struggle to defend the gains of human culture against a destructive force that threatens to crush them underfoot in order to satisfy its insatiable greed.

The accumulated gains of 5,000 years of human civilisation must be defended, valued, treasured and preserved for the benefit of our children and grandchildren.

Shortly before the outbreak of the second World War, Trotsky wrote a manifesto on art which was published over the signature of André Breton in defence of the freedom of art. In 1938, the FIARI (International Federation of Independent Revolutionary Art) was established in response to the manifesto.

Here we have an inspiring model to follow!

Artists, musicians, writers and intellectuals! You must put aside all fear and hesitation and unite with the working class in the revolutionary fight to transform society and build a new world that is fit for humans to live in.

We invite you to join us in the struggle for culture and the conquests of human civilisation against capitalist barbarism.

Through your activities you can make a valuable contribution to the struggle for the emancipation of the workers of the world, which is the prior condition for freeing art and cultural life from its chains.

Do not remain on the sidelines! Do not hesitate! Take up your rightful place in the ranks of the Revolutionary Communist International!