Each mode of production generates its own historically specific forms of cultural meaning

Evidence

Breton does not seem to have been aware of the degree to which the very possibility of the Surrealist image is historically conditioned, although he was well aware of the historical character of its raw material: “The marvelous,” he tells us, “is not identical at all moments in history; it obscurely participates in a kind of general revelation the detail of which alone is handed down to us: romantic ruins, the modern mannequin, or any other symbol apt at stirring human sensibility for a time….” … Henceforth, in what we may call postindustrial capitalism, the products with which we are furnished are utterly without depth: their plastic content is totally incapable of serving as a conductor of psychic energy, if we may express ourselves that way. All libidinal investment in such objects is precluded from the outset, and we may well ask ourselves, if it is true that our object universe is henceforth unable to yield any “symbol apt at stirring human sensibility,” whether we are not here in the presence of a cultural transformation of signal proportions, a historical break of an unexpectedly absolute kind. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 209

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the Frankfurt-school argument (Adorno/Horkheimer on the culture industry, Lukacs’s reification) into a theory of postindustrial objects as depthless. — connects to: Human cultures historically vary with their material or productive basis — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 861; Religion represents the superstructural projection of earlier modes of production — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 6154; Marx held that production methods determine an epoch’s culture — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2845 (+2 more)
• DEFINE: The mannequin as emblem — the Surrealist image made possible by small-shop/counter commodity culture, versus the depthless pop-art product of postindustrial capitalism.
• QUESTION: Jameson claims the postindustrial object ‘cannot serve as a conductor of psychic energy’ — does that mean the very category of the surreal/marvelous is now unavailable to us, or just transformed?

Broader Connections

• Human cultures historically vary with their material or productive basis #corroborates (0.95) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 861
• Marx held that production methods determine an epoch’s culture #corroborates (0.85) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2845
• Religion represents the superstructural projection of earlier modes of production #corroborates (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 6154
• In late capitalism the economic base generates its cultural superstructures directly #exemplifies (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 32