Aestheticization of politics

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The aestheticization of politics was an idea first coined in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" by critical theorist Walter Benjamin as being a key ingredient to fascist regimes.[1] Benjamin said that fascism tends towards an aestheticization of politics, in the sense of a spectacle in which it allows the masses to express themselves without seeing their rights recognized, and without affecting the relations of ownership which the proletarian masses aim to eliminate.[2] Benjamin said:

> Fascism attempts to organize the newly proletarianized masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life. [...] Mankind, which in Homer’s time was a spectacle for the Olympian gods, has become one for itself. [...] Communism responds by politicizing art.[2]

In the essay, Benjamin connected the concept to the Italian Futurist movement and its involvement in the fascist regime of Italy.

Alternately, "politicization of aesthetics" (or "politicization of art") has been used as a term for an ideologically opposing synthesis,[2] wherein art is ultimately subordinate to political life and thus a result of it, separate from it, but which is attempted to be incorporated for political use as theory relating to the consequential political nature of art. Professor of Contemporary History,[3] Emilio Gentile has stressed that these two ideas are not mutually exclusive overlapping to a large degree.

In Benjamin's original formulation, the politicization of aesthetics was considered the opposite of the aestheticization of politics, the latter possibly being indicated as an instrument of "mythologizing" totalitarian Fascist regimes.[4] The "politicizing of art", in contrast, requires one to "[affirm] the political value and force of art [by] demystifying concepts like genius and eternal value [and by] demystifying the idea [...] that art expresses the essential nature of some nation or race". In other words, to politicize art is to recognize that it is fundamentally a product that exists within a specific socio-cultural context; communism thus "takes art seriously not just as a cultural product but as a cultural force".[5]

Benjamin's concept has been linked to Guy Debord's 1967 book, The Society of the Spectacle.[6]

## See also

* Aestheticization of violence
* Art for art's sake
* The arts and politics
* Relations of production
* Spectacle (critical theory)

## References

1. ↑ Jay, Martin (1992). ""The Aesthetic Ideology" as Ideology; Or, What Does It Mean to Aestheticize Politics?". Cultural Critique (University of Minnesota Press) (21): 41–61. doi:10.2307/1354116.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Walter Benjamin (1935) "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", ch.XIX/Epilogue, link to full translated text (published by Schocken/Random House, ed. by Hannah Arendt.
3. ↑ Emilio Gentile is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’. (2005)
4. ↑ Jay, Martin (1992). "'The Aesthetic Ideology' as Ideology; Or, What Does It Mean to Aestheticize Politics?". Cultural Critique (21): 42. doi:10.2307/1354116.
5. ↑ Miller, J. Hillis (2005). Wolfreys, Julian. ed. The J. Hillis Miller Reader. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. pp. 330–331. ISBN 978-0-8047-5056-1.
6. ↑ Tamara Trodd (2015) The Art of Mechanical Reproduction p.14

## Primary sources

* "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", in n Walter Benjamin Illuminations. Some excerpts quoted in Susan Buck-Morss (1992) Aesthetic and Anaesthetics: Walter Benjamin's Artwork Essay Reconsidered, in October, n.62 Fall 1992, pp.3-41.

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Aesthetics topics

Philosophers|

* Abhinavagupta
* Theodor W. Adorno
* Leon Battista Alberti
* Thomas Aquinas
* Hans Urs von Balthasar
* Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten
* Clive Bell
* Bernard Bosanquet
* Edward Bullough
* R. G. Collingwood
* Ananda Coomaraswamy
* Arthur Danto
* John Dewey
* Denis Diderot
* Hubert Dreyfus
* Curt John Ducasse
* Thierry de Duve
* Roger Fry
* Nelson Goodman
* Clement Greenberg
* Georg Hegel
* Martin Heidegger
* David Hume
* Immanuel Kant
* Paul Klee
* Susanne Langer
* Theodor Lipps
* György Lukács
* Jean-François Lyotard
* Joseph Margolis
* Jacques Maritain
* Thomas Munro
* Friedrich Nietzsche
* José Ortega y Gasset
* Dewitt H. Parker
* Stephen Pepper
* David Prall
* Jacques Rancière
* Ayn Rand
* Louis Lavelle
* George Lansing Raymond
* I. A. Richards
* George Santayana
* Friedrich Schiller
* Arthur Schopenhauer
* Roger Scruton
* Irving Singer
* Rabindranath Tagore
* Giorgio Vasari
* Morris Weitz
* Johann Joachim Winckelmann
* Richard Wollheim
* more...

Theories|

* Classicism
* Evolutionary aesthetics
* Historicism
* Modernism
* New Classical
* Postmodernism
* Psychoanalytic theory
* Romanticism
* Symbolism
* more...

Concepts|

* Aesthetic emotions
* Aesthetic interpretation
* Art manifesto
* Avant-garde
* Axiology
* Beauty
* Boredom
* Camp
* Comedy
* Creativity
* Cuteness
* Disgust
* Ecstasy
* Elegance
* Entertainment
* Eroticism
* Gaze
* Harmony
* Judgement
* Kama
* Kitsch
* Life imitating art
* Magnificence
* Mimesis
* Perception
* Quality
* Rasa
* Reverence
* Style
* Sublime
* Taste
* Work of art

Related|

* Aesthetics of music
* Applied aesthetics
* Architecture
* Art
* Arts criticism
* Feminist aesthetics
* Gastronomy
* History of painting
* Humour
* Japanese aesthetics
* Literary merit
* Mathematical beauty
* Mathematics and architecture
* Mathematics and art
* Medieval aesthetics
* Music theory
* Neuroesthetics
* Painting
* Patterns in nature
* Philosophy of design
* Philosophy of film
* Philosophy of music
* Poetry
* Sculpture
* Theory of painting
* Theory of art
* Tragedy
* Visual arts

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