From: "Russell Pearson" <r.pearson-AT-clara.net>
Subject: M-TH: Reification and alienation
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 19:59:40 +0100



James H writes of Lukacs' _Destruction of Reason_ and considers the
question of "negative apologetics" and the aquiesence this leads to, ie: 

>'You could make a revolution,
> but it will only make things worse', instead of 'why make a revolution,
everything's rosy.

> If, on the other hand, alienation is a condition specific to capitalist
> society, then it is not unaleterable, but can be overcome with the
> overcoming of that society.
> ...
> As to H&CC, ...[and here I must admit to speaking from
> memory] his discussion of reification seems vague on where he locates
> the origins of such reification, allowing the 'man is alienated'
> interpretation to creep in.

Now I'd like to consider the last point further, and  raise some further
issues on alienation in general.

I'll concentrate on 'Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat',
where Lukacs firmly roots reification in the commodity form and states
quite uncategorically that both are features specific to capitalism.
"Reification requires that a society should learn to satisfy all its needs
in terms of commodity exchange" (HCC p91). 
He identifies oppression and exploitation in earlier social forms, but
states that in commodity producing societies, the state of the worker
becomes the fate of society as a whole. Furthermore the commodity from,
entails a 'Taylorisation' of production, ie a rationalisation and
fragmentation of the productive process.Consequently, this fragmentation of
the object leads to a fragmentation of the subject and "the structure of
reification sinks more deeply, more fatefully and more definitely into the
consciousness of man." (HCC p93).

Lukacs solution to this is well known: the proletariat must become the
identical subject-object of history. He states that the reified structures
of existence can be overcome only by constantly renewed efforts to overcome
them and he seems to suggest that this is achieved withi the consciousness
of this dual subject-object proletariat. At this notion his detractors have
had a field day and Lukacs himself admits the error of trying to out-Hegel
Hegel in the 1967 Preface. 
What is usually ignored by Lukacs' critics is the stress on praxis.
Reification Lukacs states,  cannot be overcome in one blow , for only
praxis, not the consciousness of the proletariat, can change reality.
Proletarian thought is practical thought, but in the first place it is
merely a theory of praxis. It only becomes a practical force for changing
the world gradually and spasmodically. Even the seizure of power and the
the organisation of the state and  the economy on socialist lines are but
stages. (HCC 197-208)

In the 1967 Preface Lukacs states that only socialism would abolish
alienation- but its irreducible presence in class society and its basis in
philosophy has made it appear as the human condition. Now Lukacs states
that 'objectification' (ie, the externalisation of an object in practice),
_is_ a universal human phenomena. But, only when objectification acquires
functions that bring the essence of man into conflict with his existence,
subjugating, crippling and deforming his nature, can we speak of an
objective societal condition of alienation and with it all the marks of
internal alienation. This duality he states, was not acknowledged in HCC
and furthermore he admits to conflating alienation with reification.(HCC
xxiv-xxv)

Now what I'd like to raise is this- surely such a dream of overcoming
alienation is just that, a dream? Notwithstanding James' comments on the
negative apologetics, isn't the notion of such a total overcoming of
alienation purely utopian, or am I becoming contaminated with some sort of
quasi Heideggerian-Existentialist dispair?


Yours in a stripey T-Shirt and beret...,

Russ.





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