Jameson’s three-fold stance divides taste, analysis, and political evaluation of art

Evidence

The purification of Western Marxism to the aesthetic and economic has, as things stand, been vindicated. The theory of postmodernism as the cultural logic of late capitalism is its dazzling issue. Yet at the same time, precisely here the forclusion of the political poses a paradox. Jameson construes the postmodern as that stage in capitalist development when culture becomes in effect coextensive with the economy. What is the appropriate stance, then, of the critic within this culture? Jameson’s answer rests on a three-fold distinction. There is taste, or opinion, that is a set of subjective preferences — in themselves of little interest — for particular works of art. Then there is analysis, or the objective study of ‘the historical conditions of possibility of specific forms’. Finally there is evaluation, which involves no aesthetic judgements in the traditional sense, but rather seeks to ‘interrogate the quality of social life by way of the text or individual work of art, or hazard an assessment of the political effects of cultural currents or movements with less utilitarianism and a greater sympathy for the dynamics of everyday life than the imprimaturs and indexes of earlier traditions’. — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 300

Categorization

• DEFINE: Anderson lays out Jameson’s tripartite critical stance — taste/analysis/evaluation — a reusable framework for reading Jameson’s own position within postmodern culture.
• XREF: connects to: Jameson’s totalization occupies the role the avant-garde once held — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 278; Jameson describes postmodern life but rarely calibrates the political effects of movements — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 301; Art expresses utopian harmony negatively by embodying contradictions unresolved — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 549

Broader Connections

• Art expresses utopian harmony negatively by embodying contradictions unresolved #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 549
• Jameson’s totalization occupies the role the avant-garde once held #expands (0.80) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 278
• Jameson describes postmodern life but rarely calibrates the political effects of movements #qualifies (0.75) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 301