Page 28 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 28
Ideology in the 20th Century: studies of literary and social discourses and practices
Classical literature, with its critical function, is increasingly losing its
relevance and becoming more of a preaching to (an increasingly smaller)
choir and a status symbol. Milan Kundera exemplifies this in the Art of
the Novel by contrasting the novel as a form of continuity as opposed to
the spirit of modernity, which “reduces time to the present moment only”
and erases the diachronic dimension. In such an ecosystem, says Kunde-
ra, the novel is “only one current event among many, a gesture with no to-
morrow” (Kundera 1988, 27), and the blind belief that everything new
must also be good only an act of the worst conformism:
Once upon a time I too thought that the future was the only competent
judge of our works and actions. Later on I understood that chasing after
the future is the worst conformism of all, a craven flattery of the mighty.
28 For the future is always mightier than the present. It will pass judgment on
us, of course. And without any competence (Kundera 1988, 27).
In this sense, the novel represents a distinctive product of the culture
of writing with its beginning, culmination and end; its decline is also
the decline of a specific form of civilization, a specific worldview. At the
same time, critical engagement is also emerging in an increasingly boom-
ing popular culture (as ‘subversive affirmation’, ‘subversive appropria-
tion’ etc.), but only in the function of commodity and as a simulacrum,
through which Benjamin’s demand for politicization of art spontaneous-
ly changes, through the logic of the technological interface, into an aes-
theticization of politics perhaps most evident today in the phenomenon
of hipsters and their ‘lifestyle’, which replaces the former notion of sub-
culture (see also Babić). The Enlightenment ideal of democracy and the
active citizen has thus been replaced with the new model of corporate
conformism, many times falsely based on a ‘spiritual’ component, ‘in-
timism’ and the like.
Future Technological and Cultural Development
The process of advancement to secondary orality is not yet complete: this
text, for example, completely ignores the new environments of comput-
er games (and the associated social process of gamification) and virtu-
al reality, which represent the new dominant cultural forms. In the case
of genres more closely related to classical literature, I wanted to show the
direction of the development of this technological ecosystem, in which
printed literary genres, along with a specific worldview, are becoming in-
creasingly marginalised. This, of course, does not represent the end of lit-
erary discourse, which continues to remediate into new forms that carry
Classical literature, with its critical function, is increasingly losing its
relevance and becoming more of a preaching to (an increasingly smaller)
choir and a status symbol. Milan Kundera exemplifies this in the Art of
the Novel by contrasting the novel as a form of continuity as opposed to
the spirit of modernity, which “reduces time to the present moment only”
and erases the diachronic dimension. In such an ecosystem, says Kunde-
ra, the novel is “only one current event among many, a gesture with no to-
morrow” (Kundera 1988, 27), and the blind belief that everything new
must also be good only an act of the worst conformism:
Once upon a time I too thought that the future was the only competent
judge of our works and actions. Later on I understood that chasing after
the future is the worst conformism of all, a craven flattery of the mighty.
28 For the future is always mightier than the present. It will pass judgment on
us, of course. And without any competence (Kundera 1988, 27).
In this sense, the novel represents a distinctive product of the culture
of writing with its beginning, culmination and end; its decline is also
the decline of a specific form of civilization, a specific worldview. At the
same time, critical engagement is also emerging in an increasingly boom-
ing popular culture (as ‘subversive affirmation’, ‘subversive appropria-
tion’ etc.), but only in the function of commodity and as a simulacrum,
through which Benjamin’s demand for politicization of art spontaneous-
ly changes, through the logic of the technological interface, into an aes-
theticization of politics perhaps most evident today in the phenomenon
of hipsters and their ‘lifestyle’, which replaces the former notion of sub-
culture (see also Babić). The Enlightenment ideal of democracy and the
active citizen has thus been replaced with the new model of corporate
conformism, many times falsely based on a ‘spiritual’ component, ‘in-
timism’ and the like.
Future Technological and Cultural Development
The process of advancement to secondary orality is not yet complete: this
text, for example, completely ignores the new environments of comput-
er games (and the associated social process of gamification) and virtu-
al reality, which represent the new dominant cultural forms. In the case
of genres more closely related to classical literature, I wanted to show the
direction of the development of this technological ecosystem, in which
printed literary genres, along with a specific worldview, are becoming in-
creasingly marginalised. This, of course, does not represent the end of lit-
erary discourse, which continues to remediate into new forms that carry
