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Quote by Arnold Hauser

“The latent conflict between the intellectual and the economic upper class is nowhere openly engaged as yet, least of all by the artists, who, with their less developed social consciousness, react more slowly than their humanistic masters. But the problem, even if it is un-admitted and unexpressed is present all the time and in all places, and the whole intelligenstsia, both literary and artistic, is threatened by the danger of developing either into an uprooted, "unbourgeois", and envious class of bohemians or into a conservative, passive cringing class of academics. The humanists escape from from this alternative into their ivory tower, and finally succumb to both the dangers which they had intended to avoid.”

Quote by Arnold Hauser

Work

The Social History of Art: Volume 2: Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque

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Arnold Hauser

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“Naturally, the single individual can be wrecked by old institutions just as much as he can be destroyed by the representatives of a new world. A class, however, that believes in its ultimate victory, will regard its sacrifices as the price of victory, whereas the other class, that feels the approach of its own inevitable ruin, sees in the tragic destiny of its heroes a sign of the coming end of the world and a twilight of the gods. The destructive blows of blind fate offer no satisfaction to the optimistic middle class which believes in the victory of its cause; only the dying classes of tragic ages find comfort in the thought that in this world all great and noble things are doomed to destruction and wish to place this destruction in a transfiguring light. Perhaps the romantic philosophy of tragedy, with its apotheosis of the self-sacrificing hero, is already a sign of the decadence of the bourgeoisie. The middle class will, at any rate, not produce a tragic drama in which fate is resignedly accepted until it feels threatened with the loss of its very life; then, for the first time, it will see, as happens in Ibsen’s play, fate knocking at the door in the menacing shape of triumphant youth.”

“It is unlikely those who signed the [US.] Constitution were 100 percent oblivious to how remarkable it was that they managed to set aside regional ambitions and affirm the value of forming a sustainable union of alliances... Faith and trust in each other was a lot harder to come by than faith and trust in individual religions or ideology. Yet they managed to balance any inclinations towards either by incorporating into the Constitution ideas concerning individual rights, the separation of governmental powers, and popular sovereignty, at the time considered fresh by some and dangerous by others…”

“Ради сугубой ясности позвольте добавить, что Маркс назвал бы Флобера буржуа в политэкономическом смысле, а Флобер Маркса — в духовном; и оба не ошиблись бы, поскольку Флобер был состоятельным человеком, а Маркс — мещанином во взглядах на искусство.”

“Il faut découvrir le visage de cette bourgeoisie française dont Le Jour et Gringoire ont été, pendant la crise, les porte-paroles. Il ne s'agit plus, avec elle, de soumission inconsciente. Très lucidement, bien qu'ils se couvrent encore de formes bienséantes, ils admirent. Bourgeois, ils admirent la puissance et le succès. Décadents, ils frémissent sous les manières brutales. Petits-bourgeois par le coeur, ils s'extasient sur les alignements, la pompe, la parade, sur ce comédien mystique qui devant cent mille hommes, quand les dieux le saisissent, pousse un bouton pour faire converger sur lui une batterie de propriétaires en alarmes, ils voient dans ces masses compactes, dans cette police insinuée jusqu'aux ramures de la vie privée, dans cet ordre de fer, la garde prétorienne qu'ils n'osent demander aux démocraties contre les menaces "du communisme". Toute leur pensée internationale s'est épuisée à creuser une ligne Maginot en marge des dynamismes européens. Toute leur pensée politique se réduit à préparer, avec un béton humain, une ligne Maginot inviolable contre les dynamismes révolutionnaires. Ils se trompent sans doute radicalement sur le sens des fascismes, qui n'utilisent la force bourgeoise que comme une plaque tournante. Mais ils pensent avec celui d'entre eux qui disait il y a 50 ans se sentir plus près d'un hobereau prussien que d'un ouvrier français. On ne comprendra rien au comportement de cette fraction de la bourgeoisie française si on ne l'entend murmurer à mi-voix : « Plutôt Hitler que Blum ». Une bourgeoisie aux abois ; une politique sans foi ni loi ; un peuple usé de déceptions et de divertissements, voilà les responsables de la démission de la France. Puisque ce n'est pas la première fois que nous prenons position sur le problème qui lui a offert l'occasion, il nous faut maintenant montrer où elle a pu s'inscrire.”

“it was Marx who declared that the whole idea of Communism could be summed up in a single formula—the abolition of private property; that the state of the future must take over the centralized management of the means of production, and that the abolition of capital meant the abolition of wage-labour. There was nothing flagrantly illogical in deducing from this that the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and the nationalization of industry and agriculture would bring about the general emancipation of mankind.”

“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his 'natural superiors,' and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, callous 'cash payment.' It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation. The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers. The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.”

“Imperialism was born when the ruling class in capitalist production came up against national limitations to its economic expansion. The bourgeoisie turned to politics out of economic necessity; for if it did not want to give up the capitalist system whose inherent law is constant economic growth, it had to impose this law upon its home governments and to proclaim expansion to be an ultimate political goal of foreign policy.”