The old left’s deafness to culture let the new right claim modernisation
Evidence
If this project was something of a tragic failure, it was a consequence, not of the shortcomings in Hall’s approach, but of the intransigence of the old left, its deafness to the desires and anxieties being expressed in culture. Ever since Hall fell under the spell of Miles Davis in the 1950s, he dreamed of somehow commensurating the libidinal modernity he encountered in popular music with the progressive political project of the organised left. Yet the authoritarian left was unable to tune into this ambition, allowing itself to be outflanked by a new right which soon claimed modernisation for itself, and consigned the left to the past. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1379
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to critiques of the authoritarian left in the Frankfurt School corpus and Fisher’s wider analysis in Capitalist Realism. — connects to: The New Left expanded rather than collapsed the definition of culture and politics; The modern right operates on a culture-first political strategy — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 444; In news discourse ‘modernise’ now means ‘privatise and neoliberalise’. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1652 (+3 more)
- STORYSTEM: The image of a left that would not tune into the libidinal modernity of pop music until a new right seized modernisation is ripe for dramatising in fiction set in late-twentieth-century political milieux.
Broader Connections
- The New Left expanded rather than collapsed the definition of culture and politics
#contradicts(0.90) - The modern right operates on a culture-first political strategy
#expands(0.75) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 444 - In news discourse ‘modernise’ now means ‘privatise and neoliberalise’.
#qualifies(0.75) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1652