In Tony Judt’s chapter “America Has Gone Mad”, the anti-American view played a role in the identification of french intellectuals since most french intellectual circle shared that antiemrican sentiment. Intellectuals and popular classes found America to be suspect because of commerce and the business community, and also the free market capitalist activity in which french intellectuals criticized. Anti Americanism was associated in the French mind with antisemitism. America was seen as a culture that had opened itself up free for immigration, especially for the jewish immigrants coming to America from Germany and German-controlled areas. This is seen in the twentieth century in the wake of world war two.
In Tony Judt’s chapter, “We Must Not Disillusion the Workers, there is a self-abnegation of the intellectual class and the elected affinity that they see themselves associated with the working class. Because the intellectuals are very critical and negative of their own class, they seek to unite themselves with another part of society that was not as critical and negative of themselves (which in some cases ended up being the communist party). In a nut shell, Judt is trying to discern why the intellectuals are identifying themselves as a subset of the working class? Why is this appealing to them to go in that direction to begin with? The intellectuals, as a group who is self-abnegating, sees their class as negative, an empty class or worldview without a future. The french intellectuals viewed the working as a whole working community, who had a pure idealization of the working class. There is a connection to sacredness here, because humans (it is in there nature) to find other individuals or whole groups to try to associate themselves with them (they hold the right values) some narrative that we have come to accept about them and create some idealized view of them.
Marxism has a history of wanting to control history, who ever controls that then controls the means of production, then limited powers of the chief, and then conflict. After the conflict ends when one class is overthrown (proletariate takes power), the Communists utopia is the end result (the ultimate goal).
The French communist party is in line with the soviet union which also plays into Antiamericanism (because they are pro-soviet). However, some french intellectuals became fellow travelers because they did not fully align with the french communists or the soviet union. The leaders of communist movements were thought of in an idealized way which is talked about by Hollander and Judt. Socialist realist art is officially recognized by the society union, where all working-class figures are portrayed as heroic and in this way workers are able to see themselves in the painting and relate to what they are seeing. They see something of value in the art because it represents their everyday lives as a popular artistic form. The working class would not understand or appreciate something like abstract or modern art since it lacks those personal and relatable elements that they tend to connect with.
Communisms for some subset of western intellectuals became a quesi religion, a belief system that could not be disproven always a justification for any negative facts. The intellectuals appeal to marxism could be for many reasons including: the alienation from their own societies, looking for some way to identify themselves as positive instead of negative light, and the utopian aspect is appealing which is common for most religious projects (ex. Christianity). They could also see it as an agent of transformation through the working class
One reply on “Blog post/ class notes week 6”
I also talked about the complications with intellectuals identifying as a subset of the working class. In my other blog post I talked about how I tend to associate intellectuals with the bourgeoisie due to their high levels of education and skill. Yet, they associate with the working class because they believe that society can only achieve a utopian society. I think the point that you mentioned about self abnegation you brought up is very important in this discussion. The fact that some intellectuals feel like they are a part of the problem makes them isolate themselves from society. These intellectuals think that there is nothing that they can do to help the working class and only the workers themselves are capable of a revolution. They view themselves as a direct barrier to this revolution. This is because by definition intellectuals have always been aligned with the bourgeoisie. A quote that stood out to me that directly expresses this idea states, “ As a characteristic trope of the French intelligentsia it thus has a fine pedigree, this curious expression of an over sophisticated conscience never at ease with itself unless engaged in unremitting self-condemnation” (Judt, 215). There is also this aspect of elected affinity that you bring up. They are trying to unite themselves with a class that is not so negative. In their minds the bourgeoisie is a controlling and manipulative force that is limiting the upward mobility of the proletariat class. There is also this complex identification and association of intellectuals and communism. It made me think why would intellectuals even want to be communists? I think this reasoning for identification also goes back to their overall goal at achieving a utopian society.