isn't it romantic?

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

is this format better?

 

[was: RE: [PEN-L] Lisbon Earthquake 1755] 

 

CC wrote: >...Although, since "romantic" is such a slippery (and infinitely expansive) concept, it is equally true to say that it is neither the inspiration nor the cause of anything, but just the name of everything. It is at least arguable that marxism, modernism (Rilke, Pound, Proust), post-modernism, bauhaus architecture, revolt against bauhaus architecture, naturalism, are all just slightly different variations on "romanticism." What does it mean, anyhow, to say that the Nazis were "deeply rooted in the romantic." "Romanticism" can be made to explain so much that it explains nothing at all in particular.< 

 

I'm not into l*t-cr*t sh*t, but it seems to me that "romanticism" is a reaction to modernism/rationalism/empiricism/etc. Both are interpretations of capitalism, a real-world phenomenon (and not an ideology). Modernism said "hey, lookee there, we had (or are having) an industrial revolution in which rationality and science will improve everyone's lot, and will destroy theodicy, ignorance, superstition (including theism), etc., etc." 

 

In response, romantics said that the old ways weren't that bad; indeed, they were superior in many ways. We need community, which might require a bunch of superstition to stay together, etc. And look at that Satanic Mill that's destroying England's mountains green! A lot of the conservative critics of capitalism are romantics, pointing to the costs that the modernists ignored and wanting to return to a golden age of the past. 

 

Though he was quite critical of capitalism (no news here), Marx wasn't a romantic. I'd say that he agreed with the modernist view as far as capitalism creating the _potential_ for ending poverty, religion, ignorance, etc. But this potential wasn't being realized because of the class nature of society. That point might be seen as "romantic," but his view of pre-class society wasn't that it was superior. (It's quite different from the way that Rousseau saw the small town as ideal, etc.) Unlike the romantics, Marx looked forward_, seeing proletarian revolution as being the potential solution to capitalism's contradictions. To which the romantics would likely say "quelle horreur!" and join the modernists to defend the _status quo_. 

 

JD