On The Aesthetic Politics

Man and politics have been the issue that philosophy is concerned. Politicalparadigm taken to manage man’s affair depends on man’s idea. Following Marx’scriticism of capitalism, the western Marxism has been reflecting on and criticizing themodernity. Aiming at the unilateralism development of man, Marcuse brings forward aUtopia of aesthetic emancipation to reconstruct, by virtue of new sensibility and newrationality individual, a revolutionary power to emancipate human beings. Like Schiller’sunrealistic aesthetic education which conciliates reason and sensibility, Marcuse doesn’tgive any pressing political paradigm. To answer the question “What is man?” we’d betterfind a path to emancipation in “Being” instead of reason. In his Irrational Man: A Studyin Existential Philosophy William Barrett elaborates that human irrationality is theessence of human existence, namely, to be what to be. Heidegger’s Becoming what it ismeans both freedom and truth. It is beauty as well. Maurice Merleau-Ponty also pointsout that art is sensitive activity. Therefore, the politics of Being as what is stands for theaesthetic politics which is different from the traditional emancipation politics.Starting from Marcuse’s criticism of modernity, this dissertation puts forward thenecessity of aesthetic politics, elaborates the aesthetic meaning of Marx’s emancipatoryidea, analyses some ideas that are related with aesthetic politics in western countries,draws the outline of aesthetic politics and evaluates the contemporary values of Marx’sthought of sensibility.Firstly, deals with the aesthetic meaning of Marx’s emancipation idea, pointing outthat the concept of aesthetic politics is rooted in Marx’s thought of emancipation idea,which eliminates alienation and encourage aesthetic liberation. Such politics should beachieved by criticizing the rationalistic metaphysics and resuming the aesthetics. Whiletyrannical root lies in capital logic of rational thinking, aesthetics standard providesreference for liberation. Aesthetics is not simple sense inferior to reason, but is the trueintellectual resource. The fact that the private property under the capitalism makes manalienated lies in that labor is alienated into commodity and does harm to people. So incapitalist society, the aesthetic emancipation is in essence the liberation of labor. Theliberated labor is an aesthetic activity in that people produces according to the standard immanent in man without being pushed by reason and gain. Such production, stayingaway from fetishism, will produce rich sensitive labor and makes man rich in sensitivepossession rather than in material occupation. The result of an aesthetic activity is thatrealizes true individual liberation.The new way of man’s existence in modernity and aesthetic politics will bediscussed next to. Firstly, human existence in modernity holds a tendency of overallmaterialization, in which the need of loaves and fishes is considered to be the mostimportant. Man’s living art is presented to be pure technique skill. Human thought isregarded as something only to measure techniques and science. Man’s value is estimatedonly by their occupational identity and so man has actually reduced to technical animal.Secondly, since human life is totally dominated by technology, transcendentalconnotation of language gives way to demonstrative and manipulating discourse. Humansociety lives in a technique system and man is completely dominated by technology.Thirdly politics tends to be abstract and discourse becomes concept meaning nothing.There is no any dimension of anti-reality. The new way of life in modernity makespeople lose their individuality, freedom and ideas of difference. The big burden ofluxurious consummation, as a modern fetter, deprives man of the freedom. Chained bothfrom within and without, man’s natural state is concealed and man grows to be more andmore common and unilateralist. In this situation, aesthetic politics is appealed to designpolicy of “let exist”, to unbound human beings and make man develop fully.Thirdly discusses the philosophical basis of modern western aesthetic politics. Manin the perspective of aesthetics is man in the sense of being, which has been proved in thehistory of philosophy. Aesthetic emancipation means the liberation in the sense ofexistence. Kierkegaard says that man makes choice between two opposite pointstherefore he argues against the possibility of rational instruction of man’s liberation andproposes the rationality of subjective truth to explain man’s free choice. But he takes manas solitude individual in stead of man “existing”. Nietzsche emphasizes good and evil,the two sides of human nature. He, holding an irrational idea and ignoring man’sexistence, tends to achieve emancipation through the image of Overman. Nietzsche’s willto power brings man’s existence vanity, so aesthetic politics should adopt his idea partlybut not wholly. Heidegger’s Dasin refers to man in the sense of Being. Being what he is means freedom, which means the principle that aesthetic politics should follow. Themood, insight and language bear the features of freedom. Heidegger doesn’t mention themodality of “being for”, which implies both his limit and his advantage, leaving no harm.This should be taken as principles to fix policy in aesthetic politics.Fourthly, discusses as a path to freedom, the foundation of aesthetic politics ispresented. Art, truth, beauty, freedom and physical body are identical. Literary works isthe embodiment of truth. The essence of art is truth and truth is the revealing of Beingitself. Such revealing shows the tension between man and nature, indicating the poeticideal of Being. Freedom does not mean the regulation of Being from outer “truth” butmeans being itself. Art is not pure thinking but physical activity, namely the physicalbody’s presence in the freedom of Being. The state of freedom is a aesthetic state. Onlyin such state or out of shade, can existence be free. The feature of freedom is demostratedfrom the perspective of traditional aesthetics.Think that beauty is the principle toconstruct freedom and the outcome of freedom. The state of being what it is the fouraesthetic characters by Kant. The aesthetic category of sublime irrationally initiates anon-transparent, heterogeneity, irrationality, illegible, and negative freedom and supplyan outstanding impetus.Lastly covers several conclusions.Firstly, the concept of aesthetic politics is summarized as that the only rule to befollowed is to protect each individual and ensure each one to be what he is.Secondly, discusses the reality about aesthetic turning into politics. pointing out thataesthetic politics is to be established through freedom consciousness provided byaesthetics and establishing a nation by freedom.The dissertation also elaborates the vitality of Marx’s emancipatory idea, and hisaesthetic epistemology, pointing out the aesthetic liberation is the resolution tomodernity.