[lbo-talk] Warm summers or dark ages?

[james at communistbanker.com]

I don’t altogether with Justin when he says, “I don't think people know 
when they are living in Golden Ages. Taht decision is made by other 
later.”  The Florentine renaissance, for example, was identified at the 
time as a golden age.  And by and large, great artists have been 
recognised in their own day and only rarely lost sight of. If we 
distinguish between the truly great (Poussin, Cezanne, Botticelli), the 
merely fashionable (Renoir, Munnings), and the historically important 
but not particularly brilliant (Monet, Perugino, Wtewael, Goltzius), I 
think that the first category has shown remarkable stability through 
history – including during the lifetime of the truly great artists.  
Main exceptions are in the nineteenth century when a certain concept of 
fashion was absolutised between artists, patrons and critics through 
the academy, and isolated cases of artists who eschewed self-promotion 
in favour of introverted self-development and limited public 
interaction (Poussin, Vermeer).  Fashion has occasionally neglected 
some great artists (eg Rembrandt), and promoted others falsely (eg 
Claude), but usually only briefly. Greatness re-asserts itself.

John made a good point when he tried to pull the discussion away from 
thinking of golden ages purely in cultural terms, providing me with an 
opportunity for agreement that I think I should cherish!  I can think 
of at least three other levels at stake in this debate.

Material progress is not up for discussion.  Clearly this is the most 
brilliantly goldenest age ever!  What this means is debatable 
(distribution, sustainability, happiness), but the interpretation is a 
separate question. 

Moral progress is something reactionaries worry about.  Debating the 
merits of energy use on this list, I’m told that I neglect 
environmental destruction.  Making the same points to conservative 
friends, they try to look very profound and ask me if moral progress 
has accompanied material progress!

Finally, there’s something that we might call existential progress.  
Are we happy/equal/just etc?  And I think that there is some of that in 
the romanticising of the 1950s.  I know that no one is denying the 
racism and reaction of the time, but suggesting that the working class 
did well in those years can only mean that they felt good.  Which may 
be true, but doesn’t this reaction almost define the conservative 
mentality?

Lamenting golden ages can in some cases be a clarion call to raise 
cultural standards now (true of the baroque, at least in Italy, I 
think).  Or it can be a miserabilist rant against the present.  I think 
most discussion today tends towards the latter, at the cost of missing 
much that is good today.  And today we have the cultural achievements 
of Buffy the Vampire Slayer AND the material achievements of lots of 
big fast cars.  Needless to say, I think that we should prioritise the 
material, not because the others are unimportant, but because the 
material is something that we can consciously address, and the 
satisfaction of material wants is the pre-condition for culture.  

--James

James Greenstein