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THE RADICAL PRAXIS OF TEACHING FOR A JUST COMMUNITY: MARCUSE AND KRISTEVA ON LIBERATING THE SUBJECT

Tanya Loughead

1. Introduction

This chapter locates itself within the bold proclamation of Herbert Marcuse in his book, The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics (1978). In this, his final book, Marcuse criticizes Marxism (and most Marx- ists) for taking a too narrow approach to revolution and not seeing the ways in which civilization moves or progresses—thus, not able to grasp the various ways of revolution that would make sense and promote liberation and the just community of a “new world order.” Marxists, he claims, have largely ignored the individual and the emotional life of the individual, thus ignoring a large possible site of revolution. This is perhaps their greatest fault and blind-spot in desiring revolution. He writes:

The subjectivity of individuals, their own consciousness and uncons- cious tends to be dissolved into class conscious. Thereby, a major prere- quisite of revolution is minimized, namely the fact that the need for rad- ical change must be rooted in individuals themselves, in their intelli- gence and their passions, their drives and their goals (ibid., pp. 3–4).

When we seek a just community, we must at the same time discuss indi- viduals and their oppressors. From this foundation based on Marcuse’s ideas, I move to the argument of Julia Kristeva in “Psychoanalysis and Freedom,” from her book Intimate Revolt: The Powers and Limits of Psychoanalysis (2002). Therein, she describes the process of analysis as an act of liberating the individual. But, as we will see, this liberation is not freedom from the community, but freedom to engage. This chapter follows the path of Kristeva’s argument, all the while dis- secting the process, not of analysis, but of radical teaching. Overall, it defends two positions, the first inspired by Kristeva and the second by Marcuse: (1) that radical teaching is an act of freeing the individual; and (2) that just com- munities can be sought by liberated individuals, who are in a continual state of revolution/revolutionizing. 74 TANYA LOUGHEAD

2. Marcuse

My chapter begins from the end, basing the majority of my argument founda- tionally and primarily upon the last work that Marcuse wrote, The Aesthetic Dimension. I will add only a few references from Marcuse’s work on Sig- mund Freud, Eros and Civilization (1966), that will lead us to Kristeva’s comments on revolution and psychoanalysis. The Aesthetic Dimension is a fascinating (and to my mind, damning and accurate) description of the kinds of liberation we now need and how they might arise. Marcuse’s main point, with which I heartily agree, is that revolu- tion has been framed only in terms of large-scale social movements— typically in or against government. The French Revolution is held up as the epitome of this kind of revolution: an entire people rise up together to fight a system that takes no account of their interests. I argue, with Marcuse, that this is a far too narrow definition of revolution. It is not the kind of revolution that is likely to bring about the kinds of changes that we need in our current society. Marcuse clearly and absolutely links art with revolution. Marxists, he claims, have largely ignored the individual and the emotional life of the indi- vidual, thus ignoring a large possible site of revolution. This is perhaps Marx- ism’s greatest fault and blind-spot in desiring revolution: “It is all too easy to relegate love and hate, joy and sorrow, hope and despair, to the domain of psychology, thereby removing them from the concerns of radical praxis” (Marcuse, 1978, p. 5). In this line of criticism, he writes:

The subjectivity of individuals, their own consciousness and uncons- cious tends to be dissolved into class conscious. Thereby, a major prere- quisite of revolution is minimized, namely the fact that the need for rad- ical change must be rooted in individuals themselves, in their intelli- gence and their passions, their drives and their goals. (Ibid., pp. 3–4)

In Marxism, he writes, “subjectivity became an atom of objectivity”; whereas what Marcuse hopes for is the “rebirth of the rebellious subjectivity” (ibid., pp. 4, 7). Art is invaluable in this rebirth. The work of art, “re-presents reality while accusing it,” and “stands under the law of the given while transgressing this law” and has the “power to break the monopoly of established reality” (ibid., pp. 8, 11, 9). Charles Reitz, in his book Art, Alienation and the Humanities, claims that in The Aesthetic Dimension:

there is a turn in Marcuse’s theorizing, almost a reversal,” away from the “militant activist positions” of his earlier works “to an explicit reas- sertion of certain of the most contemplative values and assumptions of classical European aesthetics” (2000, p. 195).