Criticism And Revolution:Studies On The Connotation Of The Theory Of Culture In Marxism FromClassical Marxism To The Frankfurt School

The concept of "culture" weighs significantly in the Marxist perspective and it has gone through a process of continuous development and enrichment in Marxism within half a century of Marxism. Basically, just as what the Frankfurt School has said, the Marxist cultural theory has been defined as a critical social theory. The introduction part gives a brief introduction to the current scholarship of the Marxist cultural theory, the research necessity and culture connotation evolution.This dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapter One is concerned with the concept of culture in Classical Marxism. Since the birth of Marxism, Marx and Engels have considered culture as a power of moving toward freedom. Although they failed to develop a systematic theory of culture, there are rich cultural ideas about the economic foundation and superstructure, and the discourse on the concept of ideology, spiritual life in their book. This means that culture is not only a reflection of the economic base, but also the driving force of the economic base. Both of them two are mutually dependent.Young Marx’s "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of1844" creats the critique of alienated labor.Chapter Two is the cultural theory of the "orthodox Marxism," which discusses the theme of culture and society. Plekhanov removed the false propositions of ideology and gave the intermediate links of social psychology to explain the reasons of ideology accepted by the public. He emphasized the class nature of culture, its cultural inheritance and mutual influence. His idea has a huge impact on the future development of the theory of Marxist ideology. Lenin stressed that Socialism needed the culture of capitalism, proposing ideas and the specific path of the "’cultural revolution." Rosa Luxemburg’s cultural theory emphasizes that culture serves the "overall concept" of bourgeois nationalism. At the same time, she reflected on the complex and arduous nature of the culture of the proletariat. Her "overall thoughts on ideology" were once an important resource of Western Marxism.Chapter Three is about the cultural theory of early Western Marxism, with Lukacs, Korsch, and Gramsci as its representatives. This chapter researches into why Western Marxism began to focus on culture, with one of the underlying causes being how the proletariat could win the "Culture Hegemony." Lukacs, while stressing the major role of the class consciousness of historical subjects, argues that, in order to succeed in the revolution of the proletariat, it is necessary to remove the reified consciousness and inspire their subjectivity of history. In the way, they could find the path of getting free from the situation of alienation. Korsch, while advocating the restoration of the composition of humanism and the initiative of Marxism, stresses the unity of the theory and practice, the revolutionary and critical power of Marxism as a philosophy. Gramsci holds that Marxism, as a Practical philosophy with humanity as its point of departure, is the absolute historical humanitarianism. In his opinion, modern Western socialist revolutionary strategy should focus on the "positional warfare," in order to win the bourgeois "Cultural Hegemony" and he undertakes a detailed discussion of the problem of the proletarian party and how intellectuals could win cultural hegemony in a civil society.Chapter Four is about the critical theory of cultural industry of the Frankfurt School, with the critical theories of Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse and others as its representatives. Horkheimer’s critical theory of society has laid a solid foundation for his criticism of the spirit of the Enlightenment and "Affirmative Culture." His intention was to emphasize the negative side of culture. Adorno, according to his "Negative Dialectics," points out that the industrial culture retrogressed to the ideology and the nature of the industrial culture are fetishism and entertainment. As a result, culture has lost its critical efforts to become a tool for manipulation and to control human consciousness. He proposes the modern art as the way to save culture. The mass-culture theory of Benjamin was full of dialectical implication. He takes photography, film and other modern public arts as examples, while stressing the technological forces in the cultural liberation on the one hand, demonstrating on the other hand the disappearance of "aura and wisdom" in art. Marcuse, while criticizing the capitalist culture from the affirmative, repressive, one-dimensional aspects, reveals that the instrumental rationality in the development has resulted in the division of material culture and spiritual culture and has caused the alienation among people, even repression in Eros. His revolutionary strategy is that the redemptive power of "high-level culture" in the aesthetic sensibility areas could fight against the commodity culture.Chapter Five is a summary of and a reflection on about Marxist cultural studies, some conclusions of which are paradoxical or contradictory. At the same time, the research methods have also changed. However,Marxist Cultural Studies will have a great inspiration for its counterpart china. To sum up. in the field of vision of Marxism, culture revolts against materialization and gets freedom and liberation. Culture can change the world by changing the human spirit. Therefore, culture is the practice of the material strength. Culture reflects and embodies reality on the one hand, while on the other hand reality should also move closer to culture.