Another of Lukács’ essays from his famous 1923 collection History and Class Consciousness, Legality and Illegality is an important warning against the diametrically opposed romanticisation or mortal fear of illegality seen in altogether too many so-called “communist” organisations of the modern day, as well as a thorough exploration of bourgeois […]
Hayts
User’s Guide to Détournement, Guy Debord
Every reasonably aware person of our time is aware of the obvious fact that art can no longer be justified as a superior activity, or even as a compensatory activity to which one might honorably devote oneself. The reason for this deterioration is clearly the emergence of productive forces that necessitate other production […]
Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat
One of the essays from ‘History and Class Consciousness’, Lukács’ best known and most influential work, Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat introduces his concept of reification, how reified consciousnesses have influenced philosophy and political thought, and the standpoint of the proletariat in history from a Marxian point of view.
What is Legitimacy? Hayts
We fully regard civil wars, i.e., wars waged by the oppressed class against the oppressing class, slaves against slave-owners, serfs against land-owners, and wage-workers against the bourgeoisie, as legitimate, progressive and necessary. Vladimir Lenin, Socialism and War (1915) What is Legitimacy? Much is made about the distinction between legitimate […]
Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord
Debord’s 1967 work of analysis of culture under capitalism, and criticism of previous Marxists – positing that they functioned as part of the same spectacle of capitalism.