TEENAGE DEMOCRACY ISSUE #7
Editor’s Note… Welcome to Teenage Democracy Issue 7. With the local elections and the EU Referendum, along with interesting developments in the race for the White House, it’s been a very exciting time for us all at the magazine. In between the party political broadcasts, the rhetoric, the soundbites and the idiotic and downright dangerous comments of a certain New Yorker, we’ve all come together to put together our thoughts. With some of the most interesting elections in decades, the looming threat of climate change and the ever-growing inequality, it is an interesting albeit frightening time to be allive. With the future increasingly uncertain, we are managing to stay positive, and keep on working for a better community, a better country and a better world. One thing, however, remains clear, and that is, in the words of Bob Dylan “The times they are a changin’” As per usual, we’ve got a range of articles, from Marxist Feminism to the Sugar Tax. This is also a rather special issue for me as once this issue is on the printing presses, I am resigning as editor to make way for another great year of articles, campaigning, discussions and friendship. It has been an honour to serve as editor and to hear the discussions of writers and thinkers, to bring people together and to meet the extraordinary people that make this magazine, this community,
what it is. I’ve enjoyed hearing all the new ideas and developing my own ideas on the world along with everybody else here. So once you’ve finished wretching at my swansong sentimentality, read on with the articles!
-Stephen
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ARTICLE The Reality of Marxist Feminism Why Everybody Should Support Feminism The Sugar Tax: Regressive, Illiberal and Ineffective Donald Trump’s Success: A Machiavellian Point of View The Electric Eye: The Case Against the Snooper’s Charter Beauty and Revolution: A Vindication of a Marxist Philosophy of Proletarian Beauty Liquid Gold: The SubCulture of Bottled Water (reprint) Getting Cultured
THE REALITY OF MARXIST FEMINISM I was raised by Marxists, and for my eleventh birthday, my Dad gave me his copy of The Communist Manifesto. By now, I’ve read dozens of texts on left-wing theory, as well as countless books on the history and core ideologies of feminism. This includes works on Marxist Feminism, which hasn’t filled any voids on the political compass, but comprises an entirely new form of left wing political beliefs. Marxist Feminism has been consolidated as a serious political movement through the activism and works of people like Eleanor Marx and Dora Montefiore, but is still criticised because it labels itself as a form of feminism. This is mostly due to the stigma and misconceptions surrounding thirdwave feminism, which many are happy to condemn while simultaneously holding up the flag of second-wave feminists and the equal rights movement of the late 60s and early 70s. It’s due to the successes of feminism’s second wave that many now consider its modern form unnecessary and obsolete, a problematic movement that has been pioneered by raging misandrists who hate and demonise all males. The majority of people with this view are unaware of the tenets of third wave feminism, uneducated on the issues it prioritises, or just covering up their sexism in layers of political theory and critique. In terms of Marxist Feminism, most of its criticism doesn’t centre
Eleanor Marx around the left-wing ideology it’s built on, or even around actual Marxist Feminist theory, but on its position as a form of feminism. One of the fatal misconstructions people have about third-wave feminism is that it prioritises the cisgender female above all other social groups, probably because of the online presence of TERFs and SWERFs, despite the fact neither of these groups align themselves with thirdwave feminism. The TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) community is an authoritarian splinter group that emerged during the decade following second-wave feminism; the origins of the SWERF (Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminists) movement are harder to pinpoint, but the group probably emerged during the 1980s when sex positivity and reclaiming female sexuality became a mainstream feminist issue. Of the three recognised waves of feminism, the third wave is beyond speculation the most liberal, and Marxist Feminism is especially hinged on maintaining intersectionality and inclusivity, as it advocates not only the social and
political but also the economic equality of all genders. Since its second wave, liberal and Marxist Feminism has continued to gain momentum and recognition, and the idea that feminism has somehow “gone bad” doesn’t stand up in relation to any actual third wave feminist theory. The emergence of Marxist Feminism in particular has helped a generation of women recognise the inequality of society in terms of gender, sexuality and class. This doesn’t mean applying Marx’s principles of class struggle to men and women, but relating it to gender equality and understanding how economic and feminist ideologies are interlinked. It’s not so much a theory that men and women are economically unequal as it is a fact; women are less likely to access high-earning careers than men, and on average earn around 77% of men in the same field as them. Women’s bodies are used by corporations to sell products and generate increased revenue, the majority of which goes towards their primarily male CEOs. In 2015, only 5% of Fortune 500 companies had female CEOs, which marked its all-time high. It’s factors like this that fuel Marxist Feminist ideas, and it’s sexism that fuels the idea third wave feminism is an unnecessary offshoot of an archaic movement. I’m not saying this without personal proof, either; I’ve sat through
countless lectures on why I’m stupid to be a feminist, why feminism is pointless, and how sexism ended after its second wave. All of these lectures have come from white men who equate gender equality with man hating, so it’s probably reasonable to assume there’s a correlation. Marxist Feminism isn’t a problem with socialist politics, or a “sickness” infecting the left side of the political compass. Its purpose isn’t to enforce an autocratic matriarchy, but to make people aware of the existence and prevalence of sexism. And yet, despite being the most inclusive and intersectional form of feminism that’s ever developed, third wave feminists are still called “feminazis”, equating anyone who believes in gender equality with a brutal fascist regime. We get called misandrists for daring to address the sexist treatment of women in modern culture, and stupid for even believing gender inequality still exists - despite rampant proof that it does. Modern women have it better than twentieth century women, who had it better than nineteenth century women, but that doesn’t mean we have it “pretty good”. Maybe before deciding how women have it, ask a woman first. -
Ciara
WHY EVERYBODY SHOULD SUPPORT FEMINISM It saddens me greatly that feminism is so often ridiculed, because I think it is an incredibly noble movement whose aims for equality are exactly the kind of society I’d like to see. Having done some research, I wanted to set out some of the many good arguments for supporting feminism, with the aim of convincing all people, regardless of gender, to support it.
campaigning for equal paternity leave rights for
THE STRUGGLE FOR TRUE EQUALITY
Women are still oppressed around the world. Whether it’s receiving 40 lashes for wearing trousers to the disturbingly low number of rape prosecutions and convictions, whether it’s the lack of access to jobs to being paid roughly 23% less than men for the same work, or any of the many other issues, we all still have a long way to go in the pursuit of a fair and equal world. We sometimes like to kid ourselves that all of the problems facing women were solved with Second Wave Feminism in the 1960s. Whilst the Second Wave did achieve a lot, there is still a huge distance to go on the road to equality. We have not even ensured and enforced all the legal rights women
A criticism that is often levelled at feminism is that it doesn’t really support equality. I believe this claim to be wrong. We should remember that across history and today, feminists have sought and are seeking true equality both for women and others, which has helped has helped make the world the fairer place that it is today, and I have faith that it will help make society even fairer in the future. Who was it that campagined for the abolition of slavery in the United States? Feminists. Who sided with the Union (which aimed to abolish slavery) in the American Civil War? Feminists. Who has helped American domestic workers gain the right to overtime and sick pay? Feminists. Who has marched shoulder to shoulder with LGBTIQ activists? Feminists. Who has helped fathers spend more time with their children? Feminists. Who are now
fathers? Feminists. There will of course be other examples, but what this shows is that time and again, feminism has been and is currently at the forefront of the struggle for equality within society, helping all people alike! THE LONG DISTANCE TO GO
Women still earn only 77% of what men earn.
should have, and that statement by itself says nothing of the need for a huge amount of work that I want to see go into changing the culture and perception of women and those who don’t fit into the gender binary paradigms of society. It is because of this need for a cultural, global change in attitudes that Third Wave Feminism must enter centre-stage. THE AMBITIOUS STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM From the mid-1990s, feminism developed into what is sometimes known to as Third Wave feminism. It includes all within a global and multicultural society, its door open to all who want to help make the world a better place. It is wonderful in how it aims not only for legal changes to help improve equality for all people everywhere, but is also concerned with changing the culture which discriminates against women. For example, third wave feminism believes in a gender continuum as opposed to more binary thinking of male and female coming from traditional societies. This thinking allows for a freer expression of personal identity. It is liberating in how it doesn’t demand conformity to traditional gender stereotypes, but gives the individual freedom to express themselves how they choose, which is exactly what we should all be demanding to help build a freer and more democratic society. It is a
Simone de Beauvoir Hugely influential French feminist and philosopher
wonderful application of Simone De Beauvoir’s statement that “existence precedes essence” in that it guarantees more freedom! Coupled with its special focus on a global perspective, the potential for change is even bigger and more ambitious! It’s also worth noting that Third Wave feminism has made its mark on what the internet has become and the relationship between itself and the information revolution of widespread internet access is worthy of note. Many websites and e-zines are dedicated to feminism, and with the potential of feminism and the internet working as one, we can hopefully see a faster and more efficient transmission of ideas which will change things for the better. As someone who is passionate about seeing positive change within a society, I am thrilled by the prospects of more and more people, especially young people, getting switched on to politics, sociology and current affairs in general, hence why I believe feminism should be supported by all in society.
Stephen
The Sugar Tax: Regressive, Illiberal and Ineffective The latest attempt by the government to tell each and every one of us what we should and shouldn’t do is upon us. George Osborne and Jamie Oliver are going to protect us from the horror of sugary drinks because we just can’t take care of ourselves and we’re all so incapable of making decisions that we need the government to push us in the “right” direction. They tell us that the sugar tax is for our own good but in reality it is regressive, illiberal and ineffective.
Jeremy Corbyn, the self-proclaimed “friend of the poor”, embraced the sugar tax as a good way to tackle obesity. What both Osborne and Corbyn failed to point out is that this is a tax that will disproportionately punish the poor. It’s very easy for middle class do-gooders who never have to worry about the cost of their food to call for a tax on sugar; it makes them feel good about themselves and as though they are helping, but it’s not so easy for the average person who has to put up with more taxes on just about everything he or she enjoys in life.
The average pint of lager will cost an extra 52p because of taxes on alcohol and a packet of cigarettes will cost an extra 16.5% because of taxes on tobacco. Now with a tax on sugary
drinks the cost of living for people who may not have a great deal of money will only go up. The proponents of these regressive taxes refuse to allow individuals to pay a fair price for the products that they desire and politicians are willing to increase the cost of living simply because they do not approve of certain behaviours.
What makes a society free is the right of individuals to make decisions about their own lives so long as they do not directly infringe upon the rights of others. Freedom to make decisions means freedom to make bad decisions and to take responsibility for any harm that may follow. Therefore, if someone decides to eat unhealthy food or drink unhealthy drinks then that is a choice that they should be free to make without the interference of others.
A response may be that people who consume too much sugar cost the taxpayer money because they will need to be treated through the NHS, so they should pay a cost to cover
their treatment in the form of a tax on sugar. This is not completely unreasonable, but it would be a justification for forcing everyone whose injury is self-inflicted to pay for their own care. To agree with this is to disagree with the principles upon which the NHS was founded upon, namely that everyone gets access to healthcare free at the point of use regardless of how they came to be in the position they are in. Furthermore most people who will be subjected to the sugar tax will not cost the NHS any extra money, making it completely unjustifiable for them to be forced to pay any more than the average person.
There is no doubt that the main reason as to why the sugar tax is being introduced is because it will result in higher prices and therefore reduced consumption, leading to a healthier population. Evidence from countries that have implemented a tax on sugar does indeed suggest that it would decrease consumption, but there is no evidence to suggest that health would be improved and obesity would go down. The likely result of this measure will be that people simply switch and purchase other, often unhealthier products. They may buy cheaper versions of the drinks that they enjoy and consume more calories as a result , or buy a different product altogether such as a chocolate bar to get their fix of sugar.
This tax is being implemented purely for political purposes and as well as not having the slightest effect on reducing levels of obesity, is only going to expand the influence that the government has in the everyday lives of its citizens. The important thing to remember is that this is just the start. A tax on sugary drinks may lead to a tax on sugar in general or even a tax on calories. Since it was announced a number of suggestions have been thrown out into the public domain, with some even suggesting that certain drinks should be banned altogether. The government should be allowing individuals to make their own choices in life without punishing them for making decisions that society does not approve of. -
Dan
Donald Trump’s Success: A Machiavellian Viewpoint
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Recent history has shown us that every now and then there comes a time when the political scene is completely shaken by some event. Everyone, from the media to politicians is caught up trying to understand it what the implications are. The establishment in particular usually takes steps to contain it in some way, because whenever something is powerful enough to change power dynamics, it can obviously upset the system which keeps them at the top. It is less common that people attempt to understand what caused this event, which in this case (if it wasn’t clear enough already) is Donald Trump’s run for presidency. In this article I want to look at why Donald Trump is being so successful in his campaign to win over the Americans and become the next president of the United States. Why the political climate is right for him and why no-one seem to be able to halt his progress. Much of the rhetoric against Trump has been concerned with arguments attacking him and his supporters, but I believe it is important to understand at how the situation has gotten to be like this if you want to stop it going even more in his favour.
What follows is my own analysis and opinion based upon the ideas put forward in The Prince by Machiavelli which I recommend that anyone with an interest in politics read. For the uninitiated, Niccolò Machiavelli was a 15th to 16th century philosopher and statesmen who wrote about how power works and ,more importantly, how it is gained. His work is still relevant today and can be referred to when trying to understand what has happened to allow someone like Donald Trump to see so much success amongst American voters. So far Trump has been able to win over a huge proportion of the Republican vote and even bringing over Democrats and Independents to add to his support. The easy answer to this would be to say that his rhetoric, which can be rather hateful and collectivist towards Hispanics, has caused all the racists to flock to his side. This is most likely true but in this day and age, no candidate can win on their support alone even in the Republican race: there simply aren’t enough of these people. Despite whatever tendencies his supporters may have there is something more
important to them that it seems. Jobs.
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Unemployment overall in the USA has currently fallen to around 5.5% but this prosperity hasn’t been felt in the many areas that can be found in almost every state and which were once great providers work due to their manufacturing industries. But as the rest of the poorer countries in the world began to develop industries, those in the US faced competition from workers that were willing to work for far less than them for factories that could follow exploitative labour laws. This caused decline and failure in cities such as Detroit, which was once the car manufacturing capital of the world, but now has little to no industry and widespread urban decay. It is in places like this where an American underclass that to a certain extent has been ignored and derided by those on the Left and Right has grown weary of decline and this “underclass” have a nostalgic view to a time when the USA was, in their eyes, much better for them. So when Trump, an antiestablishment populist, speaks about “making America great again” and creating jobs it certainly reaches out not just to the unemployed but their friends, relatives and community members who can be won over with an optimistic and patriotic message which is frankly child-like in its simplicity. It appeals to the very American love of success which Trump,
being worth $4 billion according to Forbes, embodies. There is another factor to it as well. Trump’s supporters have seen that he is not at all afraid to offend people by saying hateful things that people and the Establishment press react to. In the Prince, Machiavelli tells us that those who challenge the status quo, whether in a hateful or hopeful way, are the ones who those who seek change flock behind. They build what could be described and a hype train behind them which forces rationality and introspection to the side and awards to the driver seemingly infinite possibility to expand his or her power. Movements like this and like Trump’s are always under threat of becoming tribal if they are not already and have the potential to be very dangerous. The reason that makes Trump’s followers so fervently supportive of him and the reason why the current approach to combat him by much of the media is not working is because he has been turned into a character. Whether Trump realises what he is doing or not (and quite a bit of the time I doubt that he does) he is displaying a very
presidential charismatic side. With his many appearances on TV which are often examples of self-deprecating humour and showing that he doesn’t take himself too seriously (just type in “Donald Trump Hotline Bling” into google and you will see why). What this does for the average voter is make him look more down to earth than some of the other candidates, it makes him look like one of them and complements his antiestablishment message. What it has also done is make attempts to make fun of him or depreciate him less effective due to the fact that he is wearing his flaws like armour. In fact any time someone like John Oliver (see #MakeDonaldDrumf again) tries to make him look like a joke it just makes the system look like a joke for having provided the right conditions for him to become so popular amongst voters. This in turn adds to the
John Oliver vs. Donald Trump
anti-establishment tide that is rising in the USA. If he is to be stopped then the attacks against him need to change tactics. Trying to silence or make fun of him at this stage only help him and only make his supporters more willing to support him. And it is abundantly clear by now that he and his supporters don’t care if he is called a bigot: that word has lost its power against the anti-pc crowd which he is part of. Populists like him have come before and the ones that have been defeated not by using their own tactics against them but by rationally explaining why their plans are flawed and their policies will not work in a reasoned and factual way. If this change in approach doesn’t begin soon then it will be too late by the time that it does.
-Hursley
THE ELECTRIC EYE The Case Against the Snooper’s Charter “I’m elected, electric spy, I’m protected, electric eye.” Those lyrics were first written in 1982 in the Judas Priest Hit “Electric Eye”. Despite the internet not being around, I think the writers made an eerily spooky prediction of the future, which is today manifested in what is being dubbed The Snooper’s Charter or the Investigatory Powers Bill by people who are more boring. This bill presents a real threat to our privacy but also to our democracy. And here’s why: The bill forces companies to keep Internet Connection Records (your browsing history in layman terms) for a year. What concerns me about this is that the power can be abused. Not only will every site you look at be able to be viewed by who knows how many people, but this gives the potential for blackmail purposes. When being arrested in the US, police officers are obliged to say “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you” which is known as the Miranda Warning. Maybe UK bobbies will edit this to say “Anything you say, along with all your browsing history, e-mails, phone calls and texts, can and will be used against you.” This could be used to silence government opposition, stifle free speech and be used for other unfair purposes. The government and indeed spies and police officers are all human.
Judas Priest Whilst they are capable of doing good, I fear that granting the government the powers such a power is just a power that will be abused. the powers as currently in the Snooper’s Charter will, in the words of Michelle Stanistreet writing for the Guardian “will be a death knell for whistleblowers in the future.” Journalists won’t be able to expose important revelations like the Expenses Scandal or the Panama Papers or the failings of a government department if the government has anyting to say about it. A lack of respect for the privacy of communications between clients and lawyers would deprive people of their right to the best defence. Trade Unionists will be bullied out of striking. The sick and vulnerable may not get a fair chance at a job if medical records are available for all to see. That isn’t to suggest that employers at a large respectable company are going to hack into medical databases, but such legislation
is a thin end of the wedge, a licence to encroach on our privacy even more, leading to further damaging legislation. I also doubt the efficacy of the law. Finding terrorists will only be made harder by, to use Lib Dem leader Tim Farron’s words “tripling the size of the haystack”. It will increase the amount of data available to spies meaning there will just be more data to swim through, wasting their time and abusing our privacy. The blanket surveillance that the government want will only show a mass of memes and cute kittens. What will make us all safer is an update and amendment of targeted surveillance law which only allows for the surveillance of individuals on reasonable suspicion of serious criminal and/or terrorist activity. This would be a far better use of police/spy/the government’s time and far more respectful to our human right to privacy. Provided the judicial authorisation system is made so as to ensure senior, experienced judges are passing fair and lawful judgements, and using such powers sparingly with a bias in favour of liberty and against the police and/or government, we can have a far fairer and more lawful guarantee of our civil liberties. One final note: a few years ago, in the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, several world leaders realised they had been spied on. David Cameron and Francois Hollande both rolled their eyes: Angela Merkel was furious. Why was there a far stronger reaction from
Mrs Merkel? It lies in her past. A citizen of what was East Germany, Merkel knew what it was like to be spied on: the Stasi conducted intrusive surveillance on all East German citizens. She valued her right to privacy, because it was so greatly disrespected in her youth. Like me and Angela, many people care about privacy. It deeply matters to many campaigners, and I think to an extent, to everybody in some way, shape or form: even some establishment figures would certainly have valued it at least at some point (*cough* David Cameron *cough*). Do our surveillance laws updating? Yes! Do they need to respect the civil liberties that we so deeply cherish? Yes! Do we, then, need the Snooper’s Charter? No! I believe in liberty, and I believe in rights. The Electric Eye is not the way forward: it is only a several steps back…
-Stephen
Beauty and Revolution: A Vindication of a Marxist Philosophy of Proletarian Beauty Midst the battle between past and present, where the past dominates the present, humankind dances to the rhythm of its rulers’ songs, like ants1 beneath a magnifying glass, stupefied by a burning sky of silent commands. To talk of these tortures inflicted by capitalism is to talk of ugliness, to talk of the absolute liberty of humanity is to talk of beauty. This essay attempts to argue a case for beauty in the context of current Marxist theory and contemporary artistic practice, defining and discussing beauty in the language of the revolutionary and outlining the ways in which beauty is a revolutionary force.
Humans are complex organisms that require certain substances to survive; how these biological prerequisites of life and the social demands that arise from them are met is highly political. The amount of socially necessary labour used in the associated processes of creation, appropriation and 1‘In
bourgeois society… the past dominates the present: in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependant and has no individuality. ’ Here Marx points out the domination of the present by the past and the homogenising character of capital. I subsequently use the ant as a metaphor for a homogenous species that is also naturally social. Marx, K. Engels, F. The Communist Manifesto 1848 London: Penguin.
distribution is relevant to all areas of discourse. Thus political economy is not only socio-politically important but of psychological, even physiological significance. Capitalism has commodified sociobiological need, with foodstuffs taking on exchange-value, added to their ancient, intrinsic use-value. The labour involved, with its native use-value, has been converted, accordingly into a commodity. What could be seen as purely needs in the times of tribalism are now goods bought and sold in accordance with the constant fluctuations of supply and demand market forces. In this way, a historic process of thievery and tyranny has stolen the source of all vitality. The tree of life was cut down with the axe of ownership, at the dawn of class society, and then raised, dangled from a rope above humanity. That rope is, however, with each new almighty historic storm of human effort, where the modes of production are destroyed by a revolting class and replaced, moving the tree closer to its bleeding roots, which reach skyward from the corrupted earth. This is the dialectical process of historic movement that Marx labelled historical materialism. This not an inevitable process as determinists would assert but
dependant on human activity, driven by need. Beauty works dialectically in this historic process, reflecting, even assisting revolutionary antithesis, as well as in the dialectics of living itself. It is from these processes of social existence that ‘beauty’ arises as a by-product of humankind’s productive powers.
To talk of beauty in this context; this alluring, mystical word must be defined in the language of the revolutionary. Beauty is defined by the common dictionary as a combination of qualities, usually colour, form, but also thoughts, events, relationships, which please the aesthetic senses or the intellect and are examples of excellence or attractiveness.2 The Thomistic definition of beauty is based upon the idea of a state of restfulness and bliss arising from cognition, thus, although Aquinas prudishly focused almost exclusively on beauty in the intellect rather than from sensorial perception, beauty is here still associated with pleasure and pleasant experience. Kant asserted that beauty consists of a ‘harmonious relationship between (physical) experience and the intellect’.3 Beauty again is essentially described in terms of pleasure and satisfaction, as well 2
3
Oxford Dictionaries, Beauty 2016
Kul-Want, C. Introducing Aesthetics 2007 Cambridge: Icon Books ltd
as ‘harmony’. Despite the antimaterialist philosophies of Aquinas and Kant, beauty, as described by them, is equated with pleasure and harmony. For socialists, beauty is: harmony, peace, equality; all of which are examples of pleasure for the masses, that is, universal pleasure4. Furthermore, Marx took much influence from Epicurus, mainly in his materialism, but crucially, Epicurus based all moral judgements on pleasure and pain; pleasure for Epicurus was the epitome of beauty.5
To take the Marxist critical realist ontological stance of contemporary Marxists like Alex Callinicos6, existence and reality, is twofold: intransitive in the materialist sense but also socially constructed (by whichever present hegemonic force rules as sovereign). Philosophically, critical realism points out that primary qualities (for example: solidity, motion, number) exist within the entity itself, whilst secondary qualities (for example: colour, which is the result of light interacting with the sensitivities of the light receptors in the eye, which differs from creature to Kant actually described beauty as ‘universal satisfaction’. Kennedy, S. Marx was right – Beauty Matters (date unknown). Sydney: Kennedy Associates Architects 5 Marx, K. The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature. With an Appendix 1902 Moscow: Progress Publishers 6 Callinicos, A. & Bhaskar, R. 2003 ‘Marxism and Critical Realism: A Debate’ Journal of Critical realism, vol 1, pp.89-114. Callinicos A. 2006 The Rescoirces of Critique Cambridge: Polity 4
creature) are more of a social and/or cognitive construction. Similar polemics may be made about beauty in that it arguably exists intransitively, but also exists in the form of human social perception of it. In any case, beauty, generally manifested in something material, must posses both primary and secondary qualities.
The question of beauty’s social characteristic in the sense of human production arises here: is a beautiful object, made by a person, beautiful intransitively or is it only beautiful because it has been seen and called beautiful? Answering this question takes us further than critical realism into Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism. An object made in the broad social context of the capitalist mode of production, to quote Marx, has ‘in it, the social character of men’s labour (appearing)… as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their… labour is presented to them a social relation, existing not between themselves but between the products of their labour… commodities (are) social things whose qualities are… perceptible and imperceptible by the senses.’7 In relation to this, 7
Marx, K. Capital A new abridgement 1995 New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.
beauty, in the sense of a product of human labour, in natural linkage with humanity’s natural creative force that imagines before it creates and creates beyond 8 physical necessity, arises as something physically perceptible but also something intransitively intangible; both subjective 9 (socially) and objective . The object is arguably beautiful in both the ways listed in the question. It is beautiful socially in creation, beautiful in social relation with itself or other objects and intransitively beautiful. This sense of the intransitivity of created ‘…animals also produce… But they produce only their own immediate needs…; they produce only when immediate physical need compels them to do so, while man produces even when he is free from physical need and truly produces only in freedom from such need; …their products belong immediately to their physical bodies, while man freely confronts his own product. Animals produce only according to the standards and needs of the species to which they belong, while man is capable of producing according to the standards of every species and of applying to each object its inherent standard; hence, man also produces in accordance with the laws of beauty.’ (Marx, K, Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 1932 Moscow: Progress Publishers) Marx points out the way in which beauty is key to humanity and defines it, and crucially, that it can only be fully reached when humankind is freed from the poverty necessitated by capitalism. 9 Marx gives an analogy using light, which falls ‘from an object (and is) perceived by us not as the subjective excitation of our optic nerve, but as the objective form of something outside the eye itself. But in the act of seeing... (there is) in all events, an actual passage of light… from the external object to the eye.’ Marx, K. Capital A new abridgement 1995 New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. In this action of seeing, as Marx describes, there is both subjective, in the sense of the excitation of the optic nerve, and objective in terms of something’s exterior, intransitive existence. 8
beauty is bought about by its conscious construction by a human, its continual cognitive formation that continues after its initial physical production. The apparent logical contradiction between the intransitive and perceptual reality of beauty can be solved with the polemics of cultural relativism in that an object can be objectively beautiful to one culture and objectively ugly to another. Relativism, broadly, argues that there are no absolute truths; Marxists would agree. It also argues that all judgements are subjective and relative to culture or individual perception, this is also arguably true, but I will take relativism further and argue that there cannot be subject without object, and where there is a subjective observation it is often objective to the individual. Epistemologically, this personal, objective judgement is arguably of equal material worth to any other. It is from this seemingly irresolvable aesthetic conflict between cultural subject and particular object that I shall attempt to draw up the dialectic of beauty. First there is the objective thesis, where beauty is found to be absolute and objective by an individual or a group, but this, with a broader cultural analysis, is found to be too abstract an assertion, made impossible by a host of epistemologically equal assertions, thus the idea arises of beauty being entirely subjective and
relative and this, the antithesis, negates this thesis of objectivity. This however is found to be too broad and lacking in allowances for the particularities of individual observation. The dialectical synthesis, however, cannot be fully resolved in the epoch of capitalism, because of the capitalist disharmony of object and subject, the ruling of the present by the past and capitalism’s objectification of the subject and subjectification of the object. Beauty’s synthesis will only be found with the historic synthesis of communism where the complete synthesis of experience, the realisation of human subjective potential, the self-actualisation, the individual liberty of humanity and the socialisation of the means of production shall mean the unity of subject and object where beauty will be complete and absolute in the form of universal pleasure, harmony, peace, equality10 and the subsequent egalitarian aesthetic culture of beauty. The central problem, however, returning commodity fetishism, is that an object made in the conditions of capitalism is fetishised, reigning supreme over its human creator who is reified, robbed of
10
Here, the synthesis of my dialectic of beauty is influenced by the Hegelian dialectical notion of humankind, or, more specifically, ‘geist’ or ‘spirit’ reaching a stage of complete freedom and absolute, universal wholeness (Hegel being an absolutist idealist). I will add however, that this communistic aesthetic synthesis I have drawn up of beauty’s complete absolution is, in fact, objective beauty and thus suggests a need for another dialectical resolution through antithesis.
subjectivity by its very existence.11 This fetishisation is what has partly given beauty, specifically in an art context, a confusing, iniquitous status of dishonesty: a capitalistically fetishised object, fetishised further by its mystic status as ‘art’ and the implicit obscure labour which is often surplus to obvious need or economic function. (This confusion however is the explicit aim of the bourgeoisie and has its routes in renaissance and neoclassical ideas of the sovereign subject.12)
What, then, is the revolutionary role of beauty in artwork or in society? Why should Marxists, or any egalitarians, be concerned with beauty? Many today may consider beauty too regressive a topic for the context of egalitarian progression due to the arguably implicit cultural and social construction of which it consists. Furthermore, the seemingly abstract idea of beauty may not immediately appear as a topic Marxism is concerned with as a materialist school of thought, 11
I shall explain the dual existence of beauty and objects generally and the fetishisation of objects with the first two quatrains of a sonnet: The light slopes, Aten’s white slave, onto steel/This rail, afloat in oceans of its own validity./Soon a restive eye disturbs that slumber; squeals/ Into being an extra life for this metal: internal free./As dust with water, the babes of hand and mind/Talk in solid tongues, but atop, their jaws/Harmonise ‘till the infant of steel and time/Writes its own symphonies, crushing rock, forging laws… 12 Kul-Want, C. Introducing Aesthetics 2007 Cambridge: Icon Books ltd
indeed, it is often ignored. Beauty is, by modern definition, 13 subjective whilst Marxism is ostensibly concerned with the objective and material.
These confusions may be ironed out easily: Firstly, social construction of norms, culture, stereotypes, personal and artistic ideals et cetera, is multifaceted and requires careful analysis in order to come to terms with the subtleties of both beauty and oppression. Marxism is actively concerned with social construction as it is naturally involved with the theorisation of sociability and the ways in which a collective creates its social narratives. Beauty seen here, as a social construct, is key. Furthermore, superstructure and cultural hegemony are not monolithic but reciprocal, involving cultural interchange and individuals’ internalisation of ideals and stereotypes. Cultural conflict may arise from bourgeois conflicts of interest and style, for example within the revolutionary bourgeois enlightenment, Romanticism’s emphasis on the sublime, the mystical, the emotional, posited against neoclassicism’s rational simplicity and symmetry. More interestingly, though, it can also 13
My aim is not to discuss to what extent beauty is ‘in the eye of the beholder’; my aim is to talk how it relates to Marxism.
involve proletarian cultural antithesis, thus elements of the superstructure can, occasionally, be more advanced in subjective or revolutionary potential and influence, than elements of the base structure. Examples of this advancement within the superstructure include the poetry of Alexander Blok who was of educationally bourgeois origins but welcomed the 1917 revolution with his work and reached out toward it, from his own old epoch, into the new.14 Alternatively, the Ashington Group of British 20th century painters, entirely proletarian products of capitalism - miners, asserted their class interests, reflecting their reality, countering bourgeois narratives and bourgeois reality with the content and aesthetic of their naĂŻve, socially realistic paintings, in which could be found both proletarian beauty, natural beauty and the grinding drudgery of alienated capitalist labour. Thus beauty is not an inherently regressive, bourgeois or patriarchal topic but something that is perceived by people on many levels and can be directed in different directions within the superstructure.
material conditions of human existence and a basis for subsequent revolutionary praxis. It is indeed materialist and concerned with objective fact, but humans are essentially subjective, changeable, inconsistent and in constant dialectical conflict. Marx talks of the psychic value of man lying in his ability to objectify his intentions, seeing himself as subject, and the determining factor: seeing his creations as object.15 Thus the revolutionary must be concerned with the subjective to a great degree, as it is in the realm of the subjective where there is agency, where dynamism can be most frequently observed. Beauty is tied up with man’s productive capacity; as distinct from other animals which do not recognise the subjective, objective or beautiful, who merely create for immediate physical need and who do not, as far as can be seen, imagine before creating.16 Beauty is a materialist ideal in so much as it is only ever specific, particular to the material thing or situation. It is not a universalism; rather, it is diverse. Thus beauty’s subjectivity and diversity far from making it an abstraction from which Marxists should run and hide, renders it central to analysis and praxis.
Secondly, Marxism is at its core an anthropological study. It is a method for the analysis of the 15 14
Trotsky, L. Literature and Revolution 1925 Chicago: Haymarket Books.
Marx, K, Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 1932 Moscow: Progress Publishers. 16 ibid.
Within beauty there is an almost binary opposition; an opposition that is connected with, but different from aforementioned battles within the superstructure between working class and ruling class. Beauty is a socially constructed, oppressive phenomenon in some respects but is also a form of pleasure and liberation. Indeed, that oppressive social construction involved proletarian as well as bourgeois beauty and so is not always wholly imposed. There is, then, bourgeois beauty and proletarian beauty. Dialectically this is manifested in an aesthetic and economic struggle between the bourgeois thesis and the proletarian antithesis, intertwining and battling within the same narratives of culture and society. The ruling classes endeavour explicitly to demean the sensuousness of the proletarians: limiting true pleasures, replacing them, where possible, with false intoxications, demeaning their taste, sublimating certain impulses, anathematising others, socioeconomically constructing cultural, personal, and artistic ideals and stereotypes, encouraging the capitalist process of the object’s subjectification and the subsequent disharmony of object and subject, reifying humanity and fetishising the commodity and the art object; this is bourgeois beauty. Proletarian beauty could be found in the subject’s objectification of
intention, in the socioeconomic construction of culture, not from capitalist, hierarchical base structure, but egalitarian base structure, in dialectically realised cultural enlightenment and education, in the abolishment of superior ideals and social templates, favouring individual, autonomous, cultural and artistic ideals, in re-harmonisation with natural processes and pleasures, in mass self-empowerment, in revolutionary praxis.
Thus beauty is something Marxists must be concerned with theoretically, but, more crucially, what is its revolutionary function? It is, as previously stated, inextricably linked with socialism in its bond with the productive, subjective power of humankind and with universal satisfaction. But added to this, it can, arguably, play a role in the material actions of revolution. Rosa Luxemburg famously stated that socialism requires a ‘complete spiritual transformation in the masses degraded by centuries of bourgeois class rule.’17 What is more powerfully transformative of the human spirit than beauty? To talk of beauty in the context of practical revolution, we must further concretise it for the sake of example, thus I shall hereafter Luxemburg, R. The Russian Revolution 1918 New York: Workers Age Publishers 17
discuss beauty in the form of art. Art has always been, arguably, the vanguard of socioeconomic, dialectical change, that is: the vanguard of revolution; immediately reflecting or actively assisting in altering relations of production and power. In the epoch of tribalism, humans primitively generated beauty, unfettered by the chains of class society and alienation, reproducing the entirety of nature, as a byproduct of their natural, raw productive powers, (but fettered still by physical need). With the arrival of class society in the form of ancient society, where the mode of production (based on labour relations of slavery) allowed a greater synthesis of skill and labour for easier production and reproduction of the means of subsistence, art and beauty became increasingly refined in both practice and theory. Each new order of Greek architecture represented a new stratum of society, a new kind of productive relation. The Corinthian order arguably reflected a cultural antithesis to the traditional societal conformity seen, for example, in the Doric order. With the decentralisation of classical empires (and the rise of monotheism) came the feudal mode of production. The art of this era reflected the economic relations between lord and surf but also articulated revolutionary antithesis to classical beauty with naïve, didactic,
religious tapestries and paintings with complex patterning. Most significantly, the revolutionary role of art and beauty can be seen in the artistic works of the enlightenment and the bourgeois revolutions: most famously the English, French and American revolutions. The literary writings of Marquis de Sade directly acted in the French revolution, challenging traditional concepts of hierarchy, authority, sexuality and the mind. De Sade being regularly imprisoned for his revolutionary activities in the search for political change and beauty (as well as for his more atrocious acts)18. Jacques-Louis David’s ‘The ‘Oath of Horatii’, not an explicitly revolutionary painting, became a symbol of the revolution in that it epitomised the new bourgeois age of rationality, clarity and order with its beautifully idealised, definite rendering of reality.
What Marxists are more concerned with, however, is beauty in the service of proletarian revolution as well as beauty that assists the revolutionary amelioration of proletarian life. This is, as Marxists would see it, the aesthetic, economic battle that is of importance today. Here is where the spiritual transformation talked of by Luxemburg is essential, as 18
Perrottet, T. “Who Was the Marquis de Sade?” 2015 Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Magazine
socialism requires more of a mass spiritual shift than any other socioeconomic synthesis, because, unlike the bourgeoisie who planted their avaricious roots firmly Western in society in the renaissance, the proletariat has not had the luxury to realise itself culturally or politically – or at least not truly independently of bourgeois culture. Beauty can, like no other force, subjectify the economically objectified human; it can stir a deep psychic ability to change, it can without rationality, change, destroy or grow the social importance of an object or relationship. It is a force of love and not hate which renders it a revolutionary force of optimism and dynamism. It can empower the soul of the worker, who has been systematically taught docility and pessimism. In the Russian Revolution, as the proletarian masses became empowered, seeing themselves fully as the people of agency, with the historic power to change the world. A huge amount of creative energy erupted, in areas of industry and, notably, in artistic practice. This was the case even with illiterate peasants never previously exposed to art. Trotsky was committed to the dialectical education of the masses in bourgeois culture in order to realise proletarian culture whilst the Proletkultists aggressively asserted proletarian culture. Although Trotsky was right to argue that Proletkult, in this assertion of
proletarian culture, was dangerously uncritical, undialectical, and thus 19 counterproductive , he was possibly too harsh on the Proletkultists because they actually enabled mass creative selfactualisation with highly democratic bodies representing workers across Russia. The 1918 Proletkult conference having 330 delegates from different factories, workers’ clubs etc.20 Today in the struggle for equality, we may see beauty working for the amelioration of proletarian conditions, arguably, in the movement of contemporary socially engaged artistic practice. Its critical engagement with culture, its interaction with communities, its subjectification of working class audiences, its aims to influence social strategy21, all show revolutionary potential. WochenKlausur, the current artists collective show the revolutionary power of beauty in their piece ‘Medical care for homeless people’ in which they provided a van from which the homeless could receive free medical care. Although they are not specifically political in their actions, their intentionally ‘non art’ art achieves beauty in the Kantian, Epicurean sense of satisfaction and 19
Trotsky, L. Literature and Revolution 1925 Chicago: Haymarket Books. 20 Mally, L. Culture of the Future 1990 California: University of California Press 21
Creativity Networks Socially Engaged Art 2016 available at: https://www.creativitynetworks.org.uk/o Date accessed: 12.2.2016
harmony which is of strong subjective, socially revolutionary potential. They use, rather than paint or clay, the social problems of communities as their materials. These elements of beauty in revolutionary or quasi-revolutionary action show the almighty revolutionary potential power of beauty as a material force for changing the world. Beauty is not merely a reflection of reality and humanity’s productive powers; it is a tool that can and must be used in the revolutionary transformation of the spirits and souls of mankind, in the subjective transformation of the objective world and in the cultural overthrowing of cultural hegemony.
To conclude, beauty will be, in the epoch of classless, stateless communism, not the stifling stereotypes and ideals of capitalism, but the manifestation of individual self-actualisation, liberty and universal satisfaction. Proletarian beauty exists, currently, only in tangled, bleeding shards of light in the bourgeois bog of mechanised inhumanity. It will shine as a great, clear, bright light when the means of production are commonly owned and the bourgeoisie are merely the whispers of the past.
Mataio
Bibliography:
Marx, K. Engels, F. The Communist Manifesto 1848 London: Penguin. Oxford Dictionaries, Beauty 2016 available at: http://www.oxforddictionariies.com/definition/english/beauty Date accessed: 27.1.2016.
Kul-Want, C. Introducing Aesthetics 2007 Cambridge: Icon Books ltd
Kennedy, S. Marx was right – Beauty Matters (date unknown). Sydney: Kennedy Associates Architects Marx, K. The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature. With an Appendix 1902 Moscow: Progress Publishers
Callinicos, A. & Bhaskar, R. 2003 ‘Marxism and Critical Realism: A Debate’ Journal of Critical realism, vol 1, pp. 89-114. Callinicos A. 2006 The Resources of Critique Cambridge: Polity Marx, K. Capital A new abridgement 1995 New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. Marx, K, Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 1932 Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Perrottet, T. “Who Was the Marquis de Sade?” 2015 Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Magazine
Trotsky, L. Literature and Revolution 1925 Chicago: Haymarket Books.
Luxemburg, R. The Russian Revolution 1918 New York: Workers Age Publishers
Mally, L. Culture of the Future 1990 California: University of California Press
Creativity Networks Socially Engaged Art 2016 available at: https://www.creativitynetworks.org.uk/o Date accessed: 12.2.2016
Liquid Gold: The Sub-Culture of Bottled Water
In the UK the wealthiest 10% of society earn 12 times as much as the poorest 10 percent, an inequality that can be represented through the use of bottled water. In 2006, the bottled water industry was valued at $60b, while globally 200 billion bottles of water are consumed. These are worryingly large figures due to safe UK water being available to everyone equally. In theory, the question of ‘if water is equally good and safe in the UK then why would people go out of their way to pay for something which is already provided to them?’ can be raised. The view, that huge mass market of people all drink bottled water from disliking the taste of tap water is easily dismissed as 40% of bottled water comes from the same supply of water which taps also provide. I think the reason that there are so many people paying into the bottled water industry is due to water being available to everyone equally, with no class distinctions. Drinking bottled water induces a higher standard in something which should be available to everyone in equal measures, for the benefit of the wealthy. I strongly believe that this extremely wealthy group of people feel it is below them to have to drink the same quality of water as the poorest
group. To the upper class, drinking bottled water is a culture or a lifestyle. After going for a morning yoga session and then tending to the horses nothing quenches the thirst like a cool bottle of Evian, Volvic or Spa. This culture has been created as a lifestyle which not many can afford, making it exclusive. Another negative side of bottled water can be found through the unnecessary waste it creates. Water can flow straight out of a tap into a glass, but instead, when we drink bottled water the plastic must be recycled or it can take up to 1000 years to decompose. U.S. landfills are overflowing with 2 million tons of discarded water bottles alone. There is also in-depth research to show that bottled water is no better or safer for you than tap water. So we must ask why people drink it. I put it down to 2 reasons. Firstly, people have been brainwashed into believing it is better for them and drinking tap water puts them in some kind of danger. The other possible reason is that people use water as a statement to suggest that they are better than everyone else in some way because of it. Hamo Forsyth said that “Bottled water has become liquid gold” and this is symbolic of the capitalist society we live in today
Simon
Getting Cultured: Top 5 Ideas for This Issue Here at Teenage Democracy, we believe that it’s important to take time to relax. Here are some ideas we came up with… THEATRE: Hamilton Musical
MUSIC: One Dance- Drake
LITERATURE: The Prince- Machiavelli
CINEMA: Now You See Me 2
VIDEO GAMES: Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture