The Significance of the Avant-Garde for Contemporary Aesthetics: a Reply to Jürgen Habermas

Home , Aestheticism

The Significance of the Avant-Garde for Contemporary Aesthetics: A Reply to Jürgen Habermas Author(s): Peter Bürger, Andreas Huyssen and Jack Zipes Source: New German Critique, No. 22, Special Issue on Modernism (Winter, 1981), pp. 19-22 Published by: New German Critique Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/487861 . Accessed: 14/01/2014 13:22

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

New German Critique and Duke University Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to New German Critique.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.59.129.186 on Tue, 14 Jan 2014 13:22:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Significanceof theAvant-Garde for ContemporaryAesthetics: A Reply to JiirgenHabermas

by Peter Biirger

Ever since the appearance of his firstbooks publishedduring the early 1960s, JiirgenHabermas has devoted his effortsmore thanany othercon- temporary philosopher toward making the traditionof the European Enlightenmentfruitful for the thoughtand practice of the present. In Strukturwandelder Offentlichkeit*he uncoveredthe socio-historicalcondi- tions which contributedto the decay of that major politicalcategory of bourgeois society.Then in Theorieund Praxis**he examinedthe changing relationship between science and social action. In both works he was concerned with locating the possibilitiesand limitationsin regard to a contemporarycontinuation of the project of the Enlightenmentwhich Kant had described with the concept Miindigkeit,the coming of age. Throughouthis studiesHabermas has never lost sightof the factthat the effortsto salvage the hopes of the Enlightenmentcan only be successful today to the extentthat these endeavors include a critiqueof bourgeois society. It has always been self-evidentfor Habermas thatMarx's analysis of capitalismmust not only be taken into consideration,but mustalso be checked and correctedin lightof historicalexperience since theend of the 19thcentury.' Habermas's speech "Modernity versus Postmodernity,"which was given in Frankfurtwhen he was awarded theAdorno prize,2testifies to the continuityof his thought. He takes a decisive stand to maintain the "project of modernity,"and he is just as decisive in his oppositionto the coalition of various typesof conservatismwhich he examineswith timely diagnostic precision. Withinthis frameworkhe develops his culturaland

* The StructuralTransformation of the Public Sphere (1962). Not availablein English. For a summarysee JiurgenHabermas, "The PublicSphere," New German Critique. 3 (Fall 1974),49-55. ** Theoryand Practice(1963). 1. The factthat I mustexplicitly stress this point to counter subtle and not so subtleattacks in WestGermany on Habermas'salleged dogmatism is itselfa commentaryon "academic freedom"in thatcountry. 2. See "Die Modemrne:Ein unvollendetesProject," Die Zeit,Nr. 39, (American edition Nr. 39, September26, 1980). 19

This content downloaded from 128.59.129.186 on Tue, 14 Jan 2014 13:22:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 20 Biurger theoreticalreflections which point to a wayout of the increasingesotericism of art (Esoterisierungder Kunst),and he elaborateswhat a non-specialized reception of art would look like. I should like to discuss Habermas's Frankfurtthesis in a criticalway, but I want to make it clear thatI am in basic agreementwith the social and scientificgoals whichhe has formu- lated. I am also consciousof the extentto whichmy own workis indebted to Habermas. Stimulated by his re-examinationof Max Weber's works Habermas sees the developmentof the modernage as "the differentiation(Ausdif- ferenzierung)of the value spheresof science, morality,and art," and he characterizesthe project of modernityas the endeavor to develop the spheres "in theirrespective inherent logic" (Eigensinn)while at thesame time using theirpotential "for a reasonable (verniinftig)organization of everydaylife." In thisway he can emphasizethe continuityof his cultural and theoretical reflectionswith the modernistproject by stressingthe necessityof a specialized elaborationof artisticproblems while at thesame time envisioninga type of receptionwhich "uses" aestheticexperience "explorativelyfor the illuminationof a life-historicalsituation." Habermas's argumentis quite convincingand consistentwith his thoughtto the extent that it suggestsan outline for overcomingthe aporias of contemporary culture, an outline derived preciselyfrom the traditionof the European modernizationprocess. However, I ask myselfwhether this consistency of argumentdoes not demand too higha prize: thesmoothing out of ruptures in the developmentof culture. Ruptures,after all, can be key pointsof knowledgebecause theyreveal the contradictionsof culture.I should like to summarizemy ideas in the followingthree paragraphs. 1. I am not certainwhether one can talk about a paralleldevelopment of the three"spheres" (science, morality,and art) as Habermasdoes when he posits sublation claims (Aufhebungsansprciche)in the spheresof theoretical knowledgeand moralitywhich would parallel the sublationclaim of the avant-garde.Habermas neglectsthe fact that there are structural differencesbetween the respectivespheres and thatthe spheres themselves differin socialstatus. While autonomous art carries with it theidea of its self-transcendencethis cannot be said to be true of science in the same way. And morality,contrary to autonomous art, has always claimed to guide human practice.This then focusesattention on what the Weberian differentiationmodel conceals: the differentimpact potential of the separate spheres and theirinterdependence. Here it seems to me thatthe primacyof science visa vis theother two realmsis a centralproblem within the social modernizationprocess. When autonomousart constituteditself at the end of the 18thcentury, this was also an attemptto counterthe advance of empiricalscientific processes in the treatmentof nature. 2. Both sides of what Habermas calls the project of modernity(the developmentof the separate spheresaccording to theirown logic and the use of theirpotential for a reasonable organizationof everydaylife) have

This content downloaded from 128.59.129.186 on Tue, 14 Jan 2014 13:22:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Avant-gardeand ContemporaryAestletics 21 manifestedthemselves, at leastin therealm of literature,not as partsof a uniformproject but ratheras a historicalmovement of conflictingand antagonistictendencies. Against courtly divertissement and theculture of representationthe Enlightenment developed a conceptof literature which declaredthe reasonableorganization of everydaylife as its goal. The notionof practicaluse becamethe guiding principle of literary production and reception.It was underconditions of decisively new historical experi- ences- theloss of validity of religiousworld views, the fragmentation of humanactivities, and thediscernment of thenegative consequences of a rapidlyexpanding profit-oriented book market- that art constituted itselfas autonomousat theend of the 18th century. There was an insistence on theinternal logic (Eigensinn) of the artistic sphere which from that time on rejectedthe Enlightenment's aesthetics of impactby sharply opposing thenotion that art had to fulfill practical needs of everyday life.3 Ever since theaesthetics of autonomywas institutionalized,attempts to linkup with the Enlightenment'sconcept of literatureand to includecognitive and moralquestions in arthave been foughtby writers and critics(examples would be the rejectionof Zola's naturalismand of Sartre'slittirature engagde).Only in the fieldof commercialand popularliterature is a receptionfrom the perspectiveof individuallife historyallowed and therebyimplicitly denigrated. In fullydeveloped bourgeois society "autonomy"and "use" of arthave increasingly come to opposeeach other, they will not be so easilyreconciled as Habermas'construction of modernity suggests. 3. Habermasis correctin arguing that late 19-century aestheticism holds a keyposition for an understandingofthe development of art in bourgeois society.The processtoward ever more radical autonomy reaches its high pointin aestheticismwhere the demand for autonomy becomes effective and manifeston thelevel of artistic content. But this means - andhere I disagreewith Habermas - thatthe developmentof artaccording to its internallogic gives rise to a problem:the danger of a semanticatrophy of the works.The avant-garde'srevolt responds to aestheticism'sradical claim forautonomy with an attemptwhich is no less radical.It is the attemptto sublatethe autonomyclaims and to reintegrateart intothe practiceof everydaylife.

Habermasuses the terms"modernity" and "avant-garde"as syno- nyms,following Adorno's usage. This terminology,however, veils the historicalachievements of the avant-gardemovements. Insofar as they producedworks which are recognizedtoday, they are integratedinto the movementof modernity.But theirradical demand to reintegrateart into everydaylife is rejectedas a falsesublation. Here Habermasis just as

3. See Aufkliirungund literarische Offentlichkeit, ed. by Christa Birger, Peter Birger, and JochenSchulte-Sasse (Frankfurt am Main, 1980).

This content downloaded from 128.59.129.186 on Tue, 14 Jan 2014 13:22:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 22 Bi'irger explicitas Adorno: "Nothingremains from a desublimatedmeaning or a destructuredform; an emancipatoryeffect does notfollow." As a resultwe are leftwith a question: what does the failureof the sublationclaims of avant-gardemovements mean? Habermas recognizesthat the demand for sublation carries a legitimateprotest against a world in whichhappiness evidentlyis neitherprovided nor anticipated.He neverthelesscondemns it unrelentingly.If the outlined historicalargument is correct(the avant- gardist revolt as an answer to aestheticism'sradical demand for autonomy), then the avant-gardeattack on the autonomousstatus of art results from the logic of artisticdevelopments in bourgeoissociety. This attack then containsthe same contradictionsas aestheticism,but it resolvedthem in an opposite direction;it is extremelyimportant to understandthis if we are to comprehendthe meaningof art in our society. Even the failureof the demand forsublation should not be regardedas a mistakewithout results. On the contrary.If it is possible today to think about freeproductivity for everyone, then it is certainlydue to thefact that the avant-gardistsquestioned the legitimacyof the term"great art work." The &critureautomatique still contains possibilities for the developmentof a free productivitywhich goes farbeyond the surrealists'own endeavors. Finally, withoutthe avant-gardistnotion of montagenumerous realms of contemporaryaesthetic experience would be inaccessible. To sum up. The unsuccessfulattack on the autonomousstatus of art is thatevent in thedevelopment of artwhich first broke with the aesthetics of autonomy,and it has providedus withthe possibilityfor overcoming the latter's limitations.Even Habermas's and Wellmer's idea that aesthetic experiencecan be used to illuminatelife-historical situations and to change cognitiveinterpretations and normativeorientations - even thisreliance on pre-autonomous(enlightened) aesthetics is unthinkablewithout the avant-gardistassault whichshook up the aestheticsof autonomy.Without denyingthe importancewhich a theoryof continuityholds foran under- standingof the modernizationprocess, I would insistthat a contemporary theoryof culture cannot do withouta dialecticalcomprehension of ruptures,especially because it is importantto preventthis important historical categoryfrom becoming a pawn in the theoriesof the Young Conserva- tives.

Translatedby Andreas Huyssenand JackZipes

This content downloaded from 128.59.129.186 on Tue, 14 Jan 2014 13:22:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions