The critic can therefore latch on to any form of theoretical and practical consciousness and deve... more The critic can therefore latch on to any form of theoretical and practical consciousness and develop true reality out of the separate forms of existing reality as their obligation and their final purpose... It will then become apparent that the world has long possessed the dream of a matter, of which it must only possess the consciousness in order to possess it in reality. Marx, letter to Ruge, 1843 Bloch is playing on a German saying 'It is not yet the night to end all days', an English equivalent of which would be 'We are not yet out of the wood'. * Spiegelberg: the unscrupulous marauder in Schiller's 'The Robbers'. * Emile Boutroux, 1845-1921, French philosopher of science. * Rev. 2.1. s: 'Behold, I make all things new'.
THE SOCIALIST REGISTER, 1967 more-profitable survival. These mechanisms and devices which absorb ... more THE SOCIALIST REGISTER, 1967 more-profitable survival. These mechanisms and devices which absorb opposition while exploiting and squandering resources are required for American capitalism's continued survival-and they seem to have indeed succeeded. A high standard of living prevails; the major labour unions are solidly in the system and actively supporting it. In the 1950's and early 1960's American capitalism appeared to have resolved what Marxists had insisted were its fundamental underlying contradictions. So much so that its ideologues called for "the end of ideology" and its opponents with bitterness and despair called it "the Great American Celebration" and the "One Dimensional Society". A brief description is necessary of these mechanisms which have made the "Great Society" out of the underemployed, underproducing capitalist system of the 1930's, a system which had seemed to fulfil classical Marxism's anticipations. The Great Depression disappeared with the war-time mobilization of the 1940'~.~ It is now evident that the New Deal provided a number of the necessary conditions but not the sufficient cause for the postthirties recovery and rehabilitation of the American economy. In short, it was the permanent war-economy ushered in during the forties which led to the revolutionizing of productive capacity and the subsequent remarkable rise in living standards of the 1950'~.~ Within this general movement of recovery the tendency noted by Berle and Means in 1932,' for the economy to come under the dominance and control of a few hundred large corporations, continued to assert itself. As a result, a few hundred supercorporations have come to control the strategic areas, "the commanding heights", of the economy. As one economist has concluded : "The removal of 150supercorporations would effectively destroy the American economy. . . .
his son Jan was born in 1937. Keeping one step ahead of the Nazis, he emigrated to the United Sta... more his son Jan was born in 1937. Keeping one step ahead of the Nazis, he emigrated to the United States in 1938 and remained there for over a decade, living on the East Coast. It was during this period that 'The Principle of Hope' was largely written (it was revised in the 1950s). Originally Bloch hoped to publish it in America under the title 'Dreams of a Better Life'. The book shows a clear antipathy to a culture which he saw as the inevitable heir of the fascism he had left Europe to escape. 'The Principle of Hope' bristles with anti-American sentiments, and a good deal of its ideological analysis of the psychology of the Babbitt (a term he borrowed from the American author Sinclair Lewis), the archetype of the little man, has an American frame of reference. Bloch never fully mastered English, as may be seen from some of his rather bizarre uses of American colloquialisms, and in fact he lived rather remote from the other exiled German intellectuals in the United States, grouped around Thomas Mann. The comprehensive 'Triptych of the German Emigration' painted by Arthur Kaufmann during those years shows Bloch withdrawn, in the very back row. Like Benjamin, who died during exile, Bloch was not given employment in Horkheimer's Institute for Social Research when it moved from France to the USA, though Adorno's influence must have carried great weight there. This perhaps shows the extent to which their friendship had atrophied in the thirties. In 1942 Adorno did make a public appeal on behalf of Bloch in a New York journal, outlining the deprivation in which Bloch was living at the time and requesting donations. But this must have been very double-edged loyalty for Bloch, since Adorno incorrectly stated that Bloch had been earning his living by washing dishes and that he had been dismissed for his slowness. In fact, Karola Bloch supported Ernst and Jan by working first as a waitress and then in an architect's office. Neither were the Blochs entirely free of the anti-Semitism which had forced them to leave Germany. Many places of recreation, Karola reports in her biography, were 'restricted' and inaccessible for Jews. In 1938, more than a decade before McCarthyism, a committee against 'un-American activities' had been founded to counteract communism. Bloch was repeatedly forced to appear in the Immigration Office in Boston to establish whether he was fit for American citizenship. Though he had never been a member of the KPD, the Communist Party in Germany, he was considered 'a premature anti-fascist', that is, someone who had been opposed to the fascists before Pearl Harbour. Finally he was forced to undergo an oral examination on the American Constitution. Karola Bloch relates that the astonished examiner called in his colleagues to listen to Bloch's riveting analysis of the American War of Independence.
The SAGE Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory
This chapter provides an overview of Ernst Bloch's intellectual development and that of h... more This chapter provides an overview of Ernst Bloch's intellectual development and that of his key concept, the principle of hope. Situating Bloch's ideas among those of his Frankfurt School contemporaries, it makes a case for considering his utopian Marxism as a form of critical theory.
... Sartre caps this discussion with a marvelous passage: And probably if the process of planned ... more ... Sartre caps this discussion with a marvelous passage: And probably if the process of planned growth could have been directed by an angel, Page 7. SARTRE ON STALIN 137 praxis would have the maximum unity joined to the maximum objectivity. ...
Sartre and the International Impact of Existentialism, 2020
In the May 1965 issue of Harper's magazine, a little-known philosophy professor named Glenn Gray ... more In the May 1965 issue of Harper's magazine, a little-known philosophy professor named Glenn Gray at a small college in Colorado published an article titled "Salvation on the Campus: Why Existentialism is Capturing the Students." In it he spoke about the mood of the current generation, born into relative affluence, lacking any compelling historical cause such as previous generations' experience of the Great Depression, the threat of fascism, or the struggle against Nazism. Gray's students found themselves alienated from a vastly expanded university system perceived as soulless, impersonal, and competitive. Influenced by Heidegger and Sartre, they were drawn to themes like Absurdity and Nothingness and sought to avoid bad faith and find authenticity. Rejecting the packaged lives awaiting them, they found themselves forced to choose between life paths pointing to absurdity on the one hand or tragedy on the other, yet sought to take responsibility for themselves by creating their own lives.
In The Dialectics of Disaster: A Preface to Hope I have analyzed the 'Final Solution to the J... more In The Dialectics of Disaster: A Preface to Hope I have analyzed the 'Final Solution to the Jewish Problem' as an act of societal madness <1>. We ordinarily use this term 'madness' quite freely in conversation, but then abandon it upon moving into serious discourse and study perhaps in trying to be more precise, objective or scientific, perhaps to avoid a contentious descriptive term. I would argue, ho~eve.r, that sophisticated thought has ignored an important spontaneous insight. Used carefully and self-consciously, the term 'madness' illuminates much of the century's genocidal history, including above all the Nazi project to exterminate Europe's Jews. Mad: un tutored and casual reflection contains an insight to be preserved and deepened, not suppressed, by systematic and scientific study. Nazi policies towards the Jews were mad, as were Stalin's attacks upon Russian society, as was the American near-destruction of Vietnam. And in the dynam...
The critic can therefore latch on to any form of theoretical and practical consciousness and deve... more The critic can therefore latch on to any form of theoretical and practical consciousness and develop true reality out of the separate forms of existing reality as their obligation and their final purpose... It will then become apparent that the world has long possessed the dream of a matter, of which it must only possess the consciousness in order to possess it in reality. Marx, letter to Ruge, 1843 Bloch is playing on a German saying 'It is not yet the night to end all days', an English equivalent of which would be 'We are not yet out of the wood'. * Spiegelberg: the unscrupulous marauder in Schiller's 'The Robbers'. * Emile Boutroux, 1845-1921, French philosopher of science. * Rev. 2.1. s: 'Behold, I make all things new'.
THE SOCIALIST REGISTER, 1967 more-profitable survival. These mechanisms and devices which absorb ... more THE SOCIALIST REGISTER, 1967 more-profitable survival. These mechanisms and devices which absorb opposition while exploiting and squandering resources are required for American capitalism's continued survival-and they seem to have indeed succeeded. A high standard of living prevails; the major labour unions are solidly in the system and actively supporting it. In the 1950's and early 1960's American capitalism appeared to have resolved what Marxists had insisted were its fundamental underlying contradictions. So much so that its ideologues called for "the end of ideology" and its opponents with bitterness and despair called it "the Great American Celebration" and the "One Dimensional Society". A brief description is necessary of these mechanisms which have made the "Great Society" out of the underemployed, underproducing capitalist system of the 1930's, a system which had seemed to fulfil classical Marxism's anticipations. The Great Depression disappeared with the war-time mobilization of the 1940'~.~ It is now evident that the New Deal provided a number of the necessary conditions but not the sufficient cause for the postthirties recovery and rehabilitation of the American economy. In short, it was the permanent war-economy ushered in during the forties which led to the revolutionizing of productive capacity and the subsequent remarkable rise in living standards of the 1950'~.~ Within this general movement of recovery the tendency noted by Berle and Means in 1932,' for the economy to come under the dominance and control of a few hundred large corporations, continued to assert itself. As a result, a few hundred supercorporations have come to control the strategic areas, "the commanding heights", of the economy. As one economist has concluded : "The removal of 150supercorporations would effectively destroy the American economy. . . .
his son Jan was born in 1937. Keeping one step ahead of the Nazis, he emigrated to the United Sta... more his son Jan was born in 1937. Keeping one step ahead of the Nazis, he emigrated to the United States in 1938 and remained there for over a decade, living on the East Coast. It was during this period that 'The Principle of Hope' was largely written (it was revised in the 1950s). Originally Bloch hoped to publish it in America under the title 'Dreams of a Better Life'. The book shows a clear antipathy to a culture which he saw as the inevitable heir of the fascism he had left Europe to escape. 'The Principle of Hope' bristles with anti-American sentiments, and a good deal of its ideological analysis of the psychology of the Babbitt (a term he borrowed from the American author Sinclair Lewis), the archetype of the little man, has an American frame of reference. Bloch never fully mastered English, as may be seen from some of his rather bizarre uses of American colloquialisms, and in fact he lived rather remote from the other exiled German intellectuals in the United States, grouped around Thomas Mann. The comprehensive 'Triptych of the German Emigration' painted by Arthur Kaufmann during those years shows Bloch withdrawn, in the very back row. Like Benjamin, who died during exile, Bloch was not given employment in Horkheimer's Institute for Social Research when it moved from France to the USA, though Adorno's influence must have carried great weight there. This perhaps shows the extent to which their friendship had atrophied in the thirties. In 1942 Adorno did make a public appeal on behalf of Bloch in a New York journal, outlining the deprivation in which Bloch was living at the time and requesting donations. But this must have been very double-edged loyalty for Bloch, since Adorno incorrectly stated that Bloch had been earning his living by washing dishes and that he had been dismissed for his slowness. In fact, Karola Bloch supported Ernst and Jan by working first as a waitress and then in an architect's office. Neither were the Blochs entirely free of the anti-Semitism which had forced them to leave Germany. Many places of recreation, Karola reports in her biography, were 'restricted' and inaccessible for Jews. In 1938, more than a decade before McCarthyism, a committee against 'un-American activities' had been founded to counteract communism. Bloch was repeatedly forced to appear in the Immigration Office in Boston to establish whether he was fit for American citizenship. Though he had never been a member of the KPD, the Communist Party in Germany, he was considered 'a premature anti-fascist', that is, someone who had been opposed to the fascists before Pearl Harbour. Finally he was forced to undergo an oral examination on the American Constitution. Karola Bloch relates that the astonished examiner called in his colleagues to listen to Bloch's riveting analysis of the American War of Independence.
The SAGE Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory
This chapter provides an overview of Ernst Bloch&#39;s intellectual development and that of h... more This chapter provides an overview of Ernst Bloch&#39;s intellectual development and that of his key concept, the principle of hope. Situating Bloch&#39;s ideas among those of his Frankfurt School contemporaries, it makes a case for considering his utopian Marxism as a form of critical theory.
... Sartre caps this discussion with a marvelous passage: And probably if the process of planned ... more ... Sartre caps this discussion with a marvelous passage: And probably if the process of planned growth could have been directed by an angel, Page 7. SARTRE ON STALIN 137 praxis would have the maximum unity joined to the maximum objectivity. ...
Sartre and the International Impact of Existentialism, 2020
In the May 1965 issue of Harper's magazine, a little-known philosophy professor named Glenn Gray ... more In the May 1965 issue of Harper's magazine, a little-known philosophy professor named Glenn Gray at a small college in Colorado published an article titled "Salvation on the Campus: Why Existentialism is Capturing the Students." In it he spoke about the mood of the current generation, born into relative affluence, lacking any compelling historical cause such as previous generations' experience of the Great Depression, the threat of fascism, or the struggle against Nazism. Gray's students found themselves alienated from a vastly expanded university system perceived as soulless, impersonal, and competitive. Influenced by Heidegger and Sartre, they were drawn to themes like Absurdity and Nothingness and sought to avoid bad faith and find authenticity. Rejecting the packaged lives awaiting them, they found themselves forced to choose between life paths pointing to absurdity on the one hand or tragedy on the other, yet sought to take responsibility for themselves by creating their own lives.
In The Dialectics of Disaster: A Preface to Hope I have analyzed the 'Final Solution to the J... more In The Dialectics of Disaster: A Preface to Hope I have analyzed the 'Final Solution to the Jewish Problem' as an act of societal madness <1>. We ordinarily use this term 'madness' quite freely in conversation, but then abandon it upon moving into serious discourse and study perhaps in trying to be more precise, objective or scientific, perhaps to avoid a contentious descriptive term. I would argue, ho~eve.r, that sophisticated thought has ignored an important spontaneous insight. Used carefully and self-consciously, the term 'madness' illuminates much of the century's genocidal history, including above all the Nazi project to exterminate Europe's Jews. Mad: un tutored and casual reflection contains an insight to be preserved and deepened, not suppressed, by systematic and scientific study. Nazi policies towards the Jews were mad, as were Stalin's attacks upon Russian society, as was the American near-destruction of Vietnam. And in the dynam...
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