МАСОВНАТА КУЛТУРА
И ИНДИВИДУАЛНОСТА ВО БРОХОВИТЕ ДОЦНИ ТРУДОВИ
Part
One. Some theoretical considerations of mass culture and individuality: Broch
as a theorist of masses
6. Discussion of the role of ‘negative universalism’ in Broch’s thought
…Kiss asserts that a specific negativity of attitude emerges from the conditions that might be likened in Adorno’s ‘negative dialectic’. His interpretation suggests that the outcome of the negativity would not be necessarily positive and pre-determined. This is of interest, for it indicates that Broch believes human existence to be incomplete in some way. In comparison to Hegel’s idea that existence is moving towards the unity of all opposites, Kiss seems to suggest that negative universalism may lead humanity toward an unknown state of being.
In my view, an important aspect of Broch’s new human condition (which is not discussed by Kiss) is its association with the sleepwalking state. Lutzeler describes the new existential state as ‘Verdummtheit’, which might be translated as ‘being made stupid’. His description suggest that as a result of their new human condition, people behave as though they are anaesthetized in some way, and are unable to think clearly, or fully control their actions. They are ‘sleepwalkers’.
In similar vein, Dominick LaCapra suggests that ‘negative universalism’ may be linked to ‘Anomie’, the sociological term used by French sociologist Emile Durkheim, in setting out social causes of suicide, in 1897 book Le Suicide. His research demonstrates the extent to which social orders permeate thinking, attitude and conduct of the individual. Durkheim cites reduction of standards or values and the sensation of alienation and purposelessness as being social causes of suicide. He considers the occurrence of significant economic changes and discrepancy between the ideal values of a society and what might be achieved in everyday life to contribute to the state of anomie. It is not only the rigid nature of some societies that tends to produce anomic individuals, but also the existence of multiple value systems which provide a bewildering experience for the individual, and give rise to the state of Anomie.
Anomie, together with the Absurd, has become associated with existentialism. In neither condition is there a defined mode of conduct, only the sense of having lost clear values. For example, in Camus’ The outsider, Meursault’s crime seems not to be that he has killed another man, but that he does not demonstrate grief at his mother’s funeral. Similarly, the characters in Broch’s ‘Sleepwalkers’, particularly Esch, sense that defined values no longer prevail, but are unable to locate when precisely those values declined: they have only their emotional response to their situation. Both examples correspond to Broch’s idea of ‘new loneliness’, for although certain values may still prevail, they no longer have validity for those affected new the new condition. For Durkheim, the foundation for the shared values sought by the anomic individual lies within traditional religions, a view not dissimilar to Broch’s theory that culture is rooted in religion. For Broch, affected individuals search for means of expressing their spiritual experiences. They search for truth, but find that it cannot be found. In this respect I disagree with Kiss view that the ‘new loneliness is neither a new phenomenon, nor a political condition, ant it cannot be addressed through either of these spheres – it is meta-political and meta-religious’. I believe that the condition is a manifestation of the search for spiritual meaning in Modernity.
Whilst Broch
does not see to have associated directly the members of the
The subject of the ‘authoritarian syndrome’ observed by Adorno adjusts socially by taking pleasure in obedience and subordination. This adjustment seems to be based in Freudian theory. As we have seen, Freud maintains that human beings are constantly trying to create a balance between the aggressive and libidinal drives. When these drives are suppressed, as might occur in totalitarian regime, the individual is unable to balance the opposing drives and aggression of the individual is redirected. For Adorno, this syndrome may be linked to a sadomasochistic resolution of the Oedipus complex. He writes:
In the psychodynamics of the “authoritarian
character”, part of the preceding aggressiveness is absorbed and turned into
masochism, while another part is left over as sadism, which seeks an outlet in
those with whom the subject does not identify himself: ultimately the
out-group.
An individual representative of the ‘authoritarian syndrome’ tends to vent his feelings against the members of the ‘out-group’. In the imagination of the authoritarian ‘out-group’ individual, the out-group assumes the quality against which subjects protested in their fathers: practicality, coldness, dominant personality, and sexual rivalry. Adorno observes ambivalence in this character type, demonstrated by unflinching belief in authority and preparedness to attack those deemed to be weak or the victims of society. Stereotypy becomes a means of social identification and a means by which the libidinous energy can be channelled by the excessive demands of the superego.
Some similarity may be seen here between Adorno’s theory and that of Broch, in that the individual experiences two psychologically opposing drives. Adorno’s description of stereotypy as means of a state of social identification may also be linked to Broch’s idea that a mass consists of a group with shared psychological values. As we have seen, for Broch, in the absence of firm values, the fearful individual is in a ‘sleepwalking state’, and is prepared to indulge in value in order to escape the impending fear of death. Affected individuals are already in state of pre-panic and therefore prepared to follow a leader who appears to have the potential to lead away from panic. However, those in state of pre-panic may be exploited by those in authority: Broch notes the tendency towards regarding a person as a physical thing. As Marcuse observes, Modernity has witnessed increasing reification (“Verdinglichung”) of humanity in the Western world.
According to Adorno’s theory, such sleepwalking would cause a group that identifies with strength, and displays an authoritarian personality, to reject ‘everything that is ‘down’. He asserts that this attitude is extended even to those situations where social conditions are acknowledged as being the reason for the demise of a group: the authoritarian type understands the circumstances to be a deserved form of punishment for that group. This type insists on maintaining distance from ‘close physical contacts’, and identifies with the in-group structure, as a means of imposing authoritarian discipline upon itself. For Adorno, it is in this way that the fascist personality evolves in industrial society.
Much may be found in common between Adron’s concept of the authoritarian personality and the sleepwalking state observed by Broch. The negativity experienced, by those who are unable to identify with any particular group, fosters the emergence of Broch’s new human condition. The negativity may render those individuals susceptible to participation in mass behavior, for they are in sleepwalking state. For some, however, the awareness of ‘looking back in loneliness’ is sufficiently strong to enable a rise above twilight consciousness. For Broch, there seems to be a factor that lies beyond societal influences, which causes certain individuals to take action in response to the experience of negativity. Of importance here is the idea of difference, the feeling that drives a person to take action in order to achieve a sense of freedom. Broch’e new ‘human condition’ demonstrates that out of the realization that values are declining, something positive emerges, ‘a lively and existential negativity of values’. The positive forces are generated by the individual’s recognition of the negativity, in which they are immersed.
This response might be illustrated in the twenty-first century by the considerable number of people of all denomination, including agnostic and atheist, who are drown to religious activity even though they feel that they are unable to identify with religious worship. Many express the opinion that certain values, such as caring for environment, are being eroded, whilst feeling at the same time that the possibility of making a difference as an individual seems unlikely. Nevertheless, There is an observable trend towards voluntary ethical action, which might be likened to the developments emerging from ‘I’-consciousness, discussed earlier: affected individuals feel that it is necessary to take action. New human initiatives such as the “’Green’ movement” could be said to have emerged from the negativity of isolation, whilst technological advances assists in bringing isolated individuals together. What remains unclear is whether the outcome of the positive response would contribute to the resolution of opposites and thereon to the discovery of a pre-existing whole, or whether it would show that existence is incomplete. Broch nevertheless draws attention to an observable phenomenon, which does not quite match previously established human conditions. Derived from recognition of loss of life experience, it may be termed ‘negative universalism’ in that it negates a previous state of universalism, and also points toward particular form of individualism in that it only affect those who are able to rise above twilight consciousness. In my view, Broch points to a new spiritual experience in Modernity, of which more may be uncovered through textual analysis of the Virgil novel.
To summarize the part One of the thesis, we have sent that, as a cultural critic, Broch engaged with the work of thinkers throughout the ages, and that his ideas regarding the individual and the mass were wide ranging. Influenced by Neo-Kantian thought, he was interested in ideas concerning value. He regarded the mass as being not necessarily a physical phenomenon; its main characteristic, in his view, is that it connects individual human beings who share particular values or a psychological state. He observed that since the onset of Modernity, there has been an increasing tendency towards aestheticism within Western culture, as a means of representing the world in general and the individual in particular.
His works indicates that he believed ideas about individuality to have changed over time and to be continuing to do so. This development is accompanied, in Broch view, by growing concern with physicality at the expense of consideration of spiritual existence. He asserts that Christianity, the value system that prevailed in the Western world until the medieval period, disintegrates, human beings increasingly fear death, the ultimate non-value. They participate in cultural activities to overcome their existential fear. Cultural participation, he asserts, can contribute to both expansion and the reduction of the ego, but extensive ego-reduction tends to render individuals as being susceptible to participation in mass activity of a totalitarian nature, in regimes in which aestheticism prevails. He was deeply anti-totalitarian and antislavery in outlook.
Broch sets out a structure of ego in his theoretical essays, suggesting that the individual ego may develop in response to experience, and progress towards an increasingly ethical outlook. He observes the incidence of a ‘twilight state’, in which individuals experience a reduced level of consciousness, which renders them particularly susceptible to the influence of a leader. He also points towards the emergence of a new condition humane, ‘negative universalism’, which affects those who can withstand ‘twilight consciousness’. Those subject to this condition undergo a sense of loss of life experience (‘negative universalism’), described by Broch as ‘looking back in loneliness’.
As our attention shifts from consideration of Broch’s theoretical writing upon individuality and the masses toward interpretative analysis of these ideas in his fictional work The Death of Vergil, key themes that should be borne in mind are his observations upon aestheticism and value; existential fear, twilight consciousness and the emergence of a new condition humane; and changing individuality.
7. Introduction to Part Two of the Thesis
(MASS CULTURE AND INDIVIDUALITY IN HERMANN BROCH’S LATE WORKS - Janet Pearson, A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement of the University of Sunderland for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy; April 2015.)
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