History is the ceaseless dissolution of reified social forms for Lukács

Evidence

The book’s title indicated the red thread running through the various essays. History' stood for the process by which the apparently rigid, natural, reified elements of social structures were dissolved. The nature of history is precisely that every definition degenerates into an illusion: history is the history of the unceasing overthrow of the objective forms that shape the life of man.’ Class consciousness' stood for the discovery of the subject of historical totality, which ought to be in a position to re-establish non-reified relations between man and man and between man and nature’. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 320

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Lukács’s titular concepts: History as dissolution of reified forms, Class Consciousness as discovery of the subject of totality.
• XREF: connects to: Narrative, for Lukács, is the formal sign of access to social totality. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 406; Lukács saw rationalization as reification caused by commodity fetishism — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 379; Traditional social structures and orders can disintegrate over time (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Lukács saw rationalization as reification caused by commodity fetishism #expands (0.85) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 379
• Traditional social structures and orders can disintegrate over time #exemplifies (0.80)
• Lukács located revolutionary agency in workers’ self-awareness as commodities #expands (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 66
• Attempted revivals of past traditions accelerate their decay #exemplifies (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1454