[FRA:] Lukacs revisited

[rdumain at autodidactproject.org]

Over a month ago I started re-reading Georg Lukács History & Class Consciousness, specifically the essay “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat,” which I finished this evening after a long interruption. I began by reading the 1967 preface. I got sidetracked for a few weeks with Walter Benjamin, so my memory has faded somewhat. (I need to write up my notes on his essay on Edward Fuchs. On the other hand, Margaret Cohen’s book on Benjamin and surrealism was mostly tedious, but with some usable content.)

 As I recall, I pretty much agreed with Lukács 1967 self-critique, but there was something that bothered me. I can’t remember any specific points right now, but I think the overall feeling was that this was a man preoccupied with justifying himself in terms of Marxist authority, feeling the pressure of proving himself in the face of Marxist orthodoxy, as befits a man who has little room to breathe, who has never known freedom. 

 In the Reification essay, I was particularly looking forward to section II: “Antinomies of Bourgeois Thought”. This proved to be highly rewarding, with some of the key ideas continued into section III: “The Standpoint of the Proletariat.” I can’t remember when I first read this essay, but I was not equipped to perceive its riches at the time. I might have advanced further along earlier and faster. Because Lukács was thoroughly steeped in German idealism before turning to Marxism, he was apparently the first to discern the shape of the philosophical contradictions engendered by bourgeois society. He could see beyond not only positivism but the irrationalism connected with romantic anti-capitalism. He could outline the contradictory unity of bourgeois rationalism and bourgeois irrationalism, and the duality of ahistorical, fatalistic mechanism and spiritualist voluntarism. 

 I plan to go over my notes and raise specific points and questions.