György Lukács

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"However, with a single great exception, that of Walter Benjamin (and in his footsteps, Brecht), Marxists have not understood the consciousness industry and have been aware only of its bourgeois capitalist dark side and not of its socialist possibilities. An author such as Georg Lukacs is a perfect example of this theoretical and practical backwardness."--"Constituents of a Theory of Media" (1970) by Hans Magnus Enzensberger

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György Lukács (April 13, 1885 – June 4, 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic. His literary criticism was a defense of realism and centered on the novel as a literary genre. His best-known works of literary theory include The Theory of the Novel (1916), his essay "Kafka or Thomas Mann?" and Realism in the Balance.

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+"However, with a single great exception, that of [[Walter Benjamin]] (and in his footsteps, [[Brecht]]), [[Marxists]] have not understood the [[consciousness industry]] and have been aware only of its bourgeois capitalist dark side and not of its socialist possibilities. An author such as [[Georg Lukacs]] is a perfect example of this theoretical and practical backwardness."--"[[Constituents of a Theory of Media]]" (1970) by Hans Magnus Enzensberger
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-'''György Lukács''' ([[April 13]], [[1885]] – [[June 4]], [[1971]]) was a [[Hungary|Hungarian]] [[Marxist]] [[philosopher]] and [[literary critic]].  Most scholars consider him to be the founder of the tradition of [[Western Marxism]].  He contributed the ideas of [[reification (Marxism)|reification]] and [[class consciousness]] to [[Marxist philosophy]] and [[Marxist theory|theory]], and his literary criticism was influential in thinking about [[Literary realism|realism]] and about the [[novel]] as a [[literary genre]].  He served briefly as Hungary's Minister of Culture following the [[1956 Hungarian Revolution]].
+'''György Lukács''' ([[April 13]], [[1885]] – [[June 4]], [[1971]]) was a [[Hungary|Hungarian]] [[Marxist philosopher]] and [[literary critic]].  His literary criticism was a defense of [[Literary realism|realism]] and centered on the [[novel]] as a [[literary genre]]. His best-known works of literary theory include ''[[The Theory of the Novel]]'' (1916), his essay "[[Kafka or Thomas Mann?]]" and [[Realism in the Balance]]''.
+==See also==
+*''[[The Historical Novel]]''
+* [[Theodor Adorno]]
+* [[Max Horkheimer]]
+* [[Antonio Gramsci]]
+* [[Louis Althusser]]
+* [[Cultural Marxism]]
-== Work ==
-===History and Class Consciousness===
-:See [[Class consciousness]]
-:See [[Political consciousness]]
-Written between 1919 and 1922 and first published in 1923, ''[[History and Class Consciousness]]'' initiated the current of thought that came to be known as [[Western Marxism]]. The book is notable for contributing to debates concerning [[Marxism]] and its relation to [[sociology]], [[politics]] and [[philosophy]], and for reconstructing [[Marx's theory of alienation]] before many of the works of the [[Young Marx]] had been published. Lukács's work elaborates and expands upon Marxist theories such as [[ideology#Ideology as an instrument of social reproduction|ideology]], [[false consciousness]], [[reification (Marxism)|reification]] and [[class consciousness]].
-In the first chapter, "[http://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/orthodox.htm What is Orthodox Marxism?]", Lukács defined orthodoxy as the fidelity to the "Marxist method", and not to the "dogmas":
-<blockquote> "Orthodox Marxism, therefore, does not imply the uncritical acceptance of the results of Marx’s investigations. It is not the ‘belief’ in this or that thesis, nor the exegesis of a ‘sacred’ book. On the contrary, orthodoxy refers exclusively to method. It is the scientific conviction that dialectical materialism is the road to truth and that its methods can be developed, expanded and deepened only along the lines laid down by its founders." (§1) </blockquote>
-He criticized [[Marxist revisionism|revisionist]] attempts by calling to the return to this Marxist method, which is fundamentally [[dialectical materialism]]. In much the same way that [[Louis Althusser|Althusser]] would later define Marxism and [[psychoanalysis]] as "conflictual sciences", Lukács conceives "revisionism" as inherent to the Marxist theory, insofar as dialectical materialism is, according to him, the product of class struggle:
-<blockquote> "For this reason the task of orthodox Marxism, its victory over Revisionism and [[utopian socialism|utopianism]] can never mean the defeat, once and for all, of false tendencies. It is an ever-renewed struggle against the insidious effects of bourgeois ideology on the thought of the proletariat. Marxist orthodoxy is no guardian of traditions, it is the eternally vigilant prophet proclaiming the relation between the tasks of the immediate present and the totality of the historical process." (end of §5) </blockquote>
-According to him, "The premise of dialectical materialism is, we recall: 'It is not men’s consciousness that determines their existence, but on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness.'... Only when the core of existence stands revealed as a social process can existence be seen as the product, albeit the hitherto unconscious product, of human activity." (§5). In line with Marx's thought, he thus criticized the [[individualist]] [[bourgeois]] philosophy of the [[subject (philosophy)|subject]], which founds itself on the voluntary and conscious subject. Against this [[ideology]], he asserts the primacy of social relations. Existence &mdash; and thus the world &mdash; is the product of human activity; but this can be seen only if the primacy of social process on individual consciousness, which is but the effect of ideological mystification, is accepted. This doesn't entail that Lukács restrain human [[liberty]] on behalf of some kind of sociological [[determinism]]: to the contrary, this production of existence is the possibility of ''[[praxis (process)|praxis]]''.
-Henceforth, the problem consists in the relationship between theory and practice. Lukács quotes Marx's words: "It is not enough that thought should seek to realise itself; reality must also strive towards thought." How does the thought of [[intellectual]]s be related to class struggle, if theory is not simply to lag behind history, as it is in Hegel's philosophy of history ("Minerva always comes at the dusk of night...")? Lukács criticizes [[Engels]]' ''[[Anti-Dühring]]'', charging that he "does not even mention the most vital interaction, namely the dialectical relation between subject and object in the historical process, let alone give it the prominence it deserves." This dialectical relation between subject and object gives the basis for Lukács' critique of [[Kant]]'s [[epistemology]], according to which the subject is the exterior, universal and contemplating subject, separated from the object.
-For Lukács, "ideology" is really a projection of the class consciousness of the [[bourgeoisie]], which functions to prevent the [[proletariat]] from attaining a real consciousness of its revolutionary position. Ideology determines the "form of [[Objectivity (philosophy)|objectivity]]", thus the structure of knowledge itself. Real science must attain, according to Lukács, the "concrete totality" through which only it is possible to think the current form of objectivity as a historical period. Thus, the so-called eternal "[[law (principle)|laws]]" of economics are dismissed as the ideological illusion projected by the current form of objectivity ("What is Orthodoxical Marxism?", §3). He also writes: "It is only when the core of [[being]] has showed itself as social becoming, that the being itself can appear as a product, so far unconscious, of human activity, and this activity, in turn, as the decisive element of the transformation of being." ("What is Orthodoxical Marxism?",§5) Finally, "orthodoxical marxism" is not defined as interpretation of ''Capital'' as if it were the Bible or as embracement of certain "marxist thesis", but as fidelity to the "marxist method", [[Dialectics#Marxist dialectics|dialectics]].
-Lukács presents the category of ''[[reification (Marxism)|reification]]'' whereby, due to the [[commodity]] nature of capitalist society, social relations become objectified, precluding the ability for a spontaneous emergence of class consciousness. It is in this context that the need for a party in the [[Leninist]] sense emerges, the subjective aspect of the re-invigorated [[dialectical materialism|Marxian dialectic]].
-In his later career, Lukács repudiated the ideas of ''History and Class Consciousness'', in particular the belief in the proletariat as a [[subject (philosophy)|subject]]-[[object (philosophy)|object]] of history" (1960 Postface to French translation), but he wrote a defence of them as late as [[1925]] or [[1926]]. This unfinished manuscript, which he called ''Tailism and the Dialectic'', was only published in [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]] in 1996 and English in 2000 under the title ''A Defence of History and Class Consciousness''. It is perhaps the most important "unknown" Marxist text of the twentieth century.
-===Literary and aesthetic work===
-In addition to his standing as a Marxist political thinker, Lukács was an influential [[literary critic]] of the twentieth century. His important work in literary criticism began early in his career, with ''[[The Theory of the Novel]]'', a seminal work in [[literary theory]] and the [[genre theory|theory of genre]]. The book is a history of the [[novel]] as a form, and an investigation into its distinct characteristics.
-Lukács later repudiated ''The Theory of the Novel'', writing a lengthy introduction that described it as erroneous, but nonetheless containing a "romantic anti-capitalism" which would later develop into Marxism. (This introduction also contains his famous dismissal of [[Theodor Adorno]] and others in Western Marxism as having taken up residence in the "Grand Hotel Abyss".)
-Lukács's later literary criticism includes the well-known essay "Kafka or Thomas Mann?", in which Lukács argues for the work of [[Thomas Mann]] as a superior attempt to deal with the condition of [[modernity]], while he criticizes [[Franz Kafka]]'s brand of [[modernism]]. Lukács was steadfastly opposed to the formal innovations of modernist writers like Kafka, [[James Joyce]], and [[Samuel Beckett]], preferring the traditional aesthetic of realism. He famously argued for the revolutionary character of the novels of [[Sir Walter Scott]] and [[Honoré de Balzac]]. Lukács felt that both authors' nostalgic, pro-aristocratic politics allowed them accurate and critical stances because of their opposition to the rising [[bourgeoisie]] (albeit reactionary opposition). This view was expressed in his later book ''The Historical Novel'', as well as in his 1938 essay [[Realism in the Balance]].
-===“Realism in the Balance” (1938)—Lukács’ defense of literary realism===
-:''See [[Realism in the Balance]]''
-The initial intent of “Realism in the Balance”, stated at its outset, is debunking the claims of those defending [[Expressionism]] as a valuable literary movement. Lukacs addresses the discordance in the community of modernist critics, whom he regarded as incapable of deciding which writers were Expressionist and which were not, arguing that “perhaps there is no such thing as an Expressionist writer.”
-But although his aim is ostensibly to criticize what he perceived as the over-valuation of modernist schools of writing at the time the article was published, Lukacs uses the essay as an opportunity to advance his formulation of the desirable alternative to these schools. He rejects the notion that modern art must necessarily manifest itself as a litany of sequential movements, beginning with [[Naturalism (arts)|Naturalism]], and proceeding through [[Impressionism]] and [[Expressionism]] to culminate in [[Surrealism]]. For Lukacs, the important issue at stake was not the conflict that results from the modernists’ evolving oppositions to classical forms, but rather the ability of art to confront an objective reality that exists in the world, an ability he found almost entirely lacking in [[modernism]].
-Lukacs believed that desirable alternative to such modernism must therefore take the form of Realism, and he enlists the realist authors [[Maxim Gorky]], Thomas and [[Heinrich Mann]], and [[Romain Rolland]] to champion his cause. To frame the debate, Lukacs introduces the arguments of critic [[Ernst Bloch]], a defender of [[Expressionism]], and the author to whom Lukacs was chiefly responding. He maintains that modernists such as Bloch are too willing to ignore the realist tradition, an ignorance that he believes derives from a modernist rejection of a crucial tenet of Marxist theory, a rejection which he quotes Bloch as propounding. This tenet is the belief that the system of capitalism is “an objective totality of social relations,” and it is fundamental to Lukacs’ arguments in favor of realism.
-He explains that the pervasiveness of [[capitalism]], the unity in its economic and ideological theory, and its profound influence on social relations comprise a “closed integration” or “totality,” an objective whole that functions independent of human consciousness. Lukacs cites [[Marx]] to bolster this historical materialist worldview: “The relations of production in every society form a whole.” He further relies on Marx to argue that the [[bourgeoisie]]’s unabated development of the world’s markets are so far-reaching as to create a unified totality, and explains that because the increasing autonomy of elements of the capitalist system (such as the autonomy of currency) is perceived by society as “crisis,” there must be an underlying unity that binds these seemingly autonomous elements of the capitalist system together, and makes their separation appear as crisis.
-Returning to modernist forms, Lukacs stipulates that such theories disregard the relationship of literature to objective reality, in favor of the portrayal of subjective experience and immediacy that do little to evince the underlying capitalist totality of existence. It is clear that Lukacs regards the representation of reality as art’s chief purpose—in this he is perhaps not in disagreement with the modernists—but he maintains that “If a writer strives to represent reality as it truly is, i.e. if he is an authentic realist, then the question of totality plays a decisive role.” “True realists” demonstrate the importance of the social context, and since the unmasking of this objective totality is a crucial element in Lukacs’ Marxist ideology, he privileges their authorial approach.
-Lukacs then sets up a dialectical opposition between two elements he believes inherent to human experience. He maintains that this dialectical relation exists between the “appearance” of events as subjective, unfettered experiences and their “essence” as provoked by the objective totality of capitalism. Lukacs explains that good realists, such as [[Thomas Mann]], create a contrast between the consciousnesses of their characters (appearance) and a reality independent of them (essence). According to Lukacs, Mann succeeds because he creates this contrast, conversely, modernist writers fail because they portray reality only as it appears to themselves and their characters—subjectively-- and “fail to pierce the surface” of these immediate, subjective experiences “to discover the underlying essence, i.e. the real factors that relate their experiences to the hidden social forces that produce them.” The pitfalls of relying on immediacy are manifold, according to Lukacs. Because the prejudices inculcated by the capitalist system are so insidious, they cannot be escaped without the abandonment of subjective experience and immediacy in the literary sphere. They can only be superseded by realist authors who “abandon and transcend the limits of immediacy, by scrutinizing all subjective experiences and measuring them against social reality;” this is no easy task. Lukacs relies on [[Hegel]]ian dialectics to explain how the relationship between this immediacy and abstraction effects a subtle indoctrination on the part of capitalist totality. The circulation of money, he explains, as well as other elements of capitalism, is entirely abstracted away from its place in the broader capitalist system, and therefore appears as a subjective immediacy, which elides its position as a crucial element of objective totality.
-Although abstraction can lead to the concealment of objective reality, it is necessary for art, and Lukacs believes that realist authors can successfully employ it “to penetrate the laws governing objective reality, and to uncover the deeper, hidden, mediated, not immediately perceptible of relationships that go to make up society.” After a great deal of intellectual effort, Lukacs claims a successful realist can discover these objective relationships and give them artistic shape in the form of a character's subjective experience. Then, by employing the technique of abstraction, the author can portray the character’s experience of objective reality as the same kind of subjective, immediate experience that characterize totality’s influence on non-fictional individuals. The best realists, he claims, “depict the vital, but not immediately obvious forces at work in objective reality. They do so with such profundity and truth that the products of their imagination can potentially receive confirmation from subsequent historical events. The true masterpieces of realism can be appreciated as “wholes” which depict a wide-ranging and exhaustive objective reality like the one that exists in the non-fictional world.
-After advancing his formulation of a desirable literary school, a realism that depicts objective reality, Lukacs turns once again to the proponents of modernism. Citing [[Nietzsche]], who argues that “the mark of every form of literary decadence…is that life no longer dwells in the totality,” Lukacs strives to debunk modernist portrayals, claiming they reflect not on objective reality, but instead proceed from subjectivity to create a “home-made model of the contemporary world.” The abstraction (and  immediacy) inherent in modernism portrays “essences” of capitalist domination divorced from their context, in a way that takes each essence in “isolation,” rather than taking into account the objective totality that is the foundation for all of them. Lukacs believes that the “social mission of literature” is to clarify the experience of the masses, and in turn show these masses that their experiences are influenced by the objective totality of capitalism, and his chief criticism of modernist schools of literature is that they fail to live up to this goal, instead proceeding inexorably towards more immediate, more subjective, more abstracted versions of fictional reality that ignore the objective reality of the capitalist system. Realism, because it creates apparently subjective experiences that demonstrate the essential social realities that provoke them, is for Lukacs the only defensible or valuable literary school of the early twentieth century.
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György Lukács

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