Fwd: Lukacs & Adorno comparisons, Horkheimer &

[Ralph Dumain]

>To: marxistphilosophy@yahoogroups.com
>From: Ralph Dumain <rdumain@igc.org>
>Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 10:35:13 -0400
>Subject: [marxistphilosophy] Re: Lukacs & Adorno comparisons
>
>Chapter 8 of Jay's MARXISM AND TOTALITY is on this topic.  Haven't read it
>yet, but I've been rummaging around the book looking up other topics, such
>as Nietzsche.  There are a few pejorative stray references to Lukacs' THE
>DESTRUCTION OF REASON, characterized as the low point of Lukacs'
>intellectual trajectory.  However, I don't trust Jay's judgment.  He
>operates from the premise that German idealism is the antidote to (Second
>International) scientism, i.e. from the premises of the construct "Western
>Marxism".  That covers a lot of territory, to be sure, but I believe it is
>still a provincial perspective, as is scientism, albeit much sexier.
>
>Now I'm looking at Jay's THE DIALECTICAL IMAGINATION, and I'm finding the
>description of the early Horkheimer fascinating.  His relation to Nietzsche
>is interesting, both accepting and critical of various aspects of
>Nietzsche's methodology.  Horkheimer also draws a distinction between the
>lebensphilosophie and irrationalism of the 19th century, which he lauds as
>a protest against the dehumanizing tendencies of modern social
>organization, and the same tendencies of the 20th century, which he sees as
>unequivocally reactionary and conformist.  In this, according to Jay,
>Horkheimer stands almost alone, as Marxism traditionally abhors the whole
>tradition of lebensphilosophie.
>
>Horkheimer is revealed here to be pretty sharp as a whole, but I think the
>fatal flaw of him and his colleagues is also revealed.  They were
>materialists by way of idealism, which made them much more sophisticated
>than the competition, but they were still bound within the dichotomizing
>dynamic of late bourgeois philosophy.
>
>At 02:20 AM 4/22/2003 +0000, Justin Schwartz wrote:
> > >JAY, MARTIN.  "THE CONCEPT OF TOTALITY IN LUKACS AND ADORNO", Telos, SUM
> > >77; 117-137.
> >
> >Probably included in his big book on totality on Marxist theory . . . jks