Hermeneutic interpretation recovers authentic hope from even the most regressive cultural forms.

Evidence

We are, in other words, still in the realm of philosophical judgment and not yet in that of hermeneutic interpretation. When we pass over into the latter, matters of truth and falsehood give way to techniques of conversion, to modes of recovering that which is authentic and instinct even within the most regressive forms, to a decipherment of the figures of hope beneath the immediate surface realities of despair or destiny. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 258

Categorization

• XREF: The distinction between critical judgment and hermeneutic interpretation maps onto the Frankfurt School division between critique and redemption — and Bloch’s ‘decipherment of hope’ prefigures Jameson’s own method of reading cultural texts for utopian content. — connects to: A successful hermene�tic must simultaneously demystify and restore lost meaning — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 238