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July 31, 2004
Trevor
I understand your appeal to Medlin in terms of the dualism of modernity. This dualism is interrelatedas we have an unrestrained, irrational subjectivity interrelated with a hyper objectivity of abstract reason.
The modern form the concrete and the qualititative---the modern form of subjectivity-- is romanticism, by which is meant subjective expression that aesthetizices objects. Romantics seek out objects and situations as occassions for the expression of their subjective feelings. This romanticism has latent irrationality. Romanticism both celebrates the concrete and particualrity and infuses the technologically disenchanted world of modernity with meaning and value.
This is not a historical argument. It has relevance in terms of the
expressly individual romantic sensibilities of aestheticism, which has come to be the spiritual link between the individuals of the industrialized world, the shape of our ethical life. We now equate a meaningful life to the pursuit of unique experiences. These individual experiences are all given an aesthetic twist by which is meant beautiful.
The romantic movement performs a dangerous form of poetization and aesthetization. Though there is nothing wrong with aesthetics qua aesthetics, provided it remains within its own sphere, what romanticism does is to aestheticize everything.
Medlin stands for a political romanticism. This is left wing revolutionary action that views history as the univeralsing of Enlightenment values. It is intervention into, and control over history, through revolution, It is also the counter-revolutionary notion of history as the organic development of a people to block a leftist revolution.
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