Question (which the reader cannot fail to ask): 'What gives you the right to talk in the name of official Marxism, the Marxism you call 'institutional' and are so critical of? You call yourself a dialectician, an ironist, anti-establishment, a partisan of radical critique. You represent only yourself, and you're not a spokesman for any social or political force. Well, what are your problems, and what solutions can you offer?'
Reply: This is precisely where irony appears in its true light, with all the frailty from which it draws its strength. Official Marxism is skilled at organizing its own publicity (known as 'propaganda'). But it is incapable of self-knowledge, and even more incapable of self-exposure, in the sense of openness. If I may be permitted to pun, really to expose oneself in this way one must be capable of exposing oneself (in the sense of being vulnerable and not being afraid of losing face and, above all, of appearing infallible to one's devoted and somewhat blinkered followers). Therefore, only Marxist irony can expose the becoming of Marxism in the modern world, opening it to the light of day, in all its objectivity. It is an essential aspect of the modern world.... Furthermore, dialectical irony does not wear any particular expression, unless it be a certain smile at the extraordinary tragicomedy of our lives and the fabulous and ludicrous metamorphoses of modernism and modernity. Does dialectical irony refrain from offering precepts? Does it avoid the search for a sort of wisdom? Perhaps not. We shall see. Meanwhile, dialectical irony would gladly reactivate the initial project of Marxist thought. How can the world (the earth) be changed so that objects become objects of enjoyment (and not objects of power), aesthetic realities, or transformed by art (rather than technological realities)? But irony labours under no illusions. If history, which is still at the prehistoric stage, decides otherwise, if it follows another tack, then irony will not remain stubbornly anchored to nostalgia....