Aesthetics & Alienation

A complete and original theory of aesthetics based on Marx and Althusser in the modernist Marxist tradition (Brecht, Althusser, Benjamin, Adorno). The main concepts that arise from this work are: the aesthetic level of practice, aesthetic state apparatuses, aesthetic interpellation, and pseudo dialectics, all of which are used to understand the role of aesthetic experience and its place in everyday life. This book looks at feelings, affections, dispositions, sensibilities and sensuality, and their social role in art, tradition, ritual, and taboo. With the classic Marxist concepts of base and superstructure divided into economic, ideological, and political levels, the aesthetic level of practice is the area that has traditionally been missing or misrepresented for political reasons. This aesthetic level of practice fuels and supports the media, or as Althusser described it the traffic between base and superstructure. From this vantage point, the aesthetic state apparatuses can be analysed both in the past, for example in art history, and today, in contemporary politics. What role do art, feelings and alienation play in our culture?