"Such theoreticians in France, inside and outside the Communist Party, could have no idea of the value of art based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism. The purpose of these elements was to separate art and literature from politics and ideology, of course, proletarian politics and the Marxist ideology. They struggled to clear the way for the spread of bourgeois ideology and politics, for the development of decadent art, psychoanalysis, sexual and crime novels, so that the markets, bookshops, show-cases, theaters and cinemas would be filled with such works." - Enver Hoxha (Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism)
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”It is interesting to note that the "sexual revolution" was sometimes portrayed as a communal utopia, whereas in fact it was simply another stage in the historical rise of individualism. As the lovely word "household" suggests, the couple and the family would be the last bastion of primitive communism in liberal society. The sexual revolution was to destroy these intermediary communities, the last to separate the individual from the market. The destruction continues to this day.”
Michel Houellebecq, The Elementary Particles
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The only thing that kept this „ressentiment criticism‟2 from becoming cynical was its self-annulling aversion from practical life and power. This changes with second generation Kritische Theorie, in which the demoralizing self-interest in the rat race of career critics prevails over the cultivation of a feeling of injustice. (CCR xxxv-vi) The real object of Sloterdijk‟s diagnosis is therefore the pragmatic nihilism of a „pseudo-critique‟ which has wilfully lost its innocence and compensates for its own bad conscience with an ever higher level of reflectivity or artfulness. Its point of view remains that of unhappy consciousness, but its ressentiment is now „reflexively buffered‟ (CCR 5), such that, in the form of a cynical alliance of rationalism and ressentiment typical of „Christian-bourgeois-capitalist schizophrenias‟ (CCR 107), it effectively perverts the imperative of sapere aude: „Only in the form of derision and renunciation do references to the ideals of a humane culture still seem bearable. Cynicism, as enlightened false consciousness, has become a hard-boiled, shadowy cleverness that has split courage off from itself, holds anything positive to be fraud, and is intent only on somehow getting through life.‟3
Sloterdijk.
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