[lbo-talk] Re: Know your enemy

[H. Curtiss Leung]

But he objects to Adorno as well, and makes out that
this was a piece of shabby aristocratic distain, rather 
than Marxian critique: "The later Marxists in Germany were 
haunted by the idea of culture repelled by the vulgarity 
of the bourgeoisie, and perhaps wondering whether they could
still write out a blank check to culture in the socialist
future.  They wanted to preserve past greatness...One can
easily see this in Adorno."  (p 224) But certainly, as a 
decaying aristocrat and fellow traveller in the elite, 
Adorno would have been alright, wouldn't he?  Then how to
understand this following comment: "In general, 
sophisticated Marxism became cultural criticism of 
life in the Western democracies.  For obvious reasons it 
generally stayed away from serious discussion of the
Soviet Union.  Some of that criticism was profound, some of 
it superficial and petulant.  *But none of it came from Marx 
or a Marxist perpective.  It was, and is, Nietzschean, variations 
on our way of life as that of 'the last man.'*"  

So it isn't just that he objects to Marx--he tries to *inhibit*
an understanding of Marx's roles in these thinkers' works.  If
they can be dismissed out of hand as mere epigones of Nietzsche
via Heidegger, then why bother with them?  Also, even though an
esoteric reading of the above might indicate that Adorno, et al.
would be permissable as followers of Nietzsche/Heidegger (and the
thought they Adorno would want anything to do with the latter
should give you blue fits), they are merely minor figures.

I want to make two points here: first, that the *exoteric* level
isn't just pap for the many, but is designed to distort in some
specific ways, and second, that the *esoteric* level is dishonest
as well.  Certainly Bloom is at the esoteric level a value 
relativist; but the esoteric level asserts that *ALL THINKERS
WERE VALUE RELATIVISTS*: they just dissembled in different ways
and in different degrees appropriate to their times.  


> Its a bit more complicated than that.  What he said of
> Marcuse was "Marcuse began in Germany in the
> twenties by being something of a serious Hegel scholar.
> He ended up here writing trashy culture criticism with a 
> heavy sex interest in *One Dimensional Man* and other
> well-known books."  I think what he found objectionable
> about Marcuse was precisely that he attempted to
> pitch his ideas to a mass audience (consisting at least
> of university students).  If only had Marcuse stuck to writing
> books on Hegel, presumably like *Reason and Revolution*
> then he would have been alright in Bloom's judgement.