Studies and Further Studies in a Dying Culture by Christopher Caudwell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Written from the early context of the civil unrest between the two world wars, Caudwell takes a vulgar Marxist view of the end of capitalism for reality. He expands on himself in this two volumes, talking about various structures that center our social reality… from beauty, and reality and consciousness to the arts and the place of psychoanalysis. Caudwell seeks to show us exactly how our culture of capitalism is dying and withering in its own material (and intellectual) excess.
What makes him at times difficult to stomach but also admirable is his very strong view of deterministic relationships between access to resources and every aspect of our culture and being. His range of topics and how he manages to see his line of dialectical materialism conveys his passion for the theory and love and his disgust of people through the separation of what is good in us and what is bad.
It’s a strange thing to see him care so deeply about other people in the abstract (that he took the risk of dying in a war) and yet would condemn his fellow man’s action, being, psychology and identity… if that man had not yet woken up the proletariat truth. His passion takes him deeply also, into thought has he critiques even the most abstract of the sciences, mathematics and philosophy in order to sweep all these topics under the rug of Marxist revolution and explanatory power.
What is strange and odd about him though, and what makes his books also difficult to swallow is how often you catch him agreeing with himself. A good author should also present counter arguments, demonstrate how the dialectical truth twists in its logic to create false poses that must shift into more stable positions in later revolutions. Instead he rushes too quickly to the point, making it obvious that he is railroading us swiftly into the proletariat reality as if writing books, (even keeping journals, or papers) would help usher in the Marxist dream of plenty for all, and the end of suffering.
For example, in talking about the flaw of bourgeois science, Caudwell will make the claim that much of scientific knowledge is swayed, or fragmented by bourgeois decay — the blind hoarding and administration of the ruling class would impede science from making real discoveries, else use science to justify their agenda. Yet Caudwell, decides to tell us what the real discoveries are, the overlooked gems that science has to offer… how does he decide this? By what supports the idea for him of the Marxist paradise — that man must move towards as the absolute stable equilibrium? The question I would have is how does he know what scientific truths are to be valued? And if so, what is it that is reasonable about such criteria? And if not this, then also if every institution or form of human thought is created through class struggle between the class conscious ruling class and the unconscious working class, then is not Reason and Rationality itself also created by this decaying and dying culture?
Of course he does not go so far, as to justify why Reason or even the dialectical materialism provides such answers… he is less a theorist than say, Jameson or Engels but more of a practioner, or applicationist… he heard the call and merely extends their thoughts for himself, to give himself direction and that extends for him as far as his eye can see. And he sees a lot, tries to see everything.
These writings may not have been intended for public eye, but it is refreshing to connect with a mind from so long ago, and get a taste of what he thought to share with someone… although he doesn’t tell you who he thinks you are, he does seek to enlighten you, pull you up from your oppression and unconscious acceptance of your oppression.
He also does not talk about what things will be like when the day will come.
All in all, I felt this was like visiting an old mind, trapped in old photographs of a time when things seemed so much simplier and the answers fathomable. He doesn’t talk about his life — he is being serious though, and for that, I don’t mind he doesn’t break his shield and be more personal. Still, for the vulgarness and the directness, Caudwell seems sometimes like a brick wall, unmoving, uncompromising and unhearing. We sometimes want the other’s stance to acknowledge us as well, so maybe the visiting metaphor was not apt at all. =p
Still, that he doesn’t question his own roots, seems to me to be a big reason why I wouldn’t take what he wants to convey too seriously. He fits the form of a thinker, and has a good heart, but is critically unaware of his own stance. That’s probably okay though, because who of us would want to fall into a pit of despair of not knowing what to value, or how to be, or what should matter? Certainly not Caudwell, although you could maybe take his Marxism as an answer to what seems like a deep despair and loss of person early on in his first volume. So in that sense, maybe this isn’t a Marxist work… but the Marxism takes place as a practice of a deeper philosophy, perhaps an existential one, one in which Caudwell paid the ultimate price for, dying in the Spainish Civil war in the name of la revolución.
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