Berlin-Alexanderplatz

Political alienation can be much worse than apolitical alienation – Antonioni as an ally in political fight for cultural resurrection (the comment on Henry Giroux’s article “Apolitical Alienation in 'The Passenger'”, TV Multiversity, Nov, 30, 2010)

I was born and lived almost half of my life in Soviet Russia – a country that has grown from political revolution and the psychology of revolutionaries who were conscious about their “right to participate in their own history” (Henry Giroux). I saw that this revolution against inequality, exploitation and cruelty ended with inequality, exploitation and even more cruelty. I remember how Communist elite behaved in the same manner as American corporate leadership and conservative politicians. Does it mean that all revolutions will fail? - Of course, not. But when I see today in US that fight for socio-economic progress is understood only in a political and not in cultural (“poetic” – Giroux) terms, it reminds me of the failure of humanism in Russia.

I have a feeling that Antonioni understands that political protest without spiritual suffering and psychological maturity, without a psychological sensitivity toward inhumane values and norms of life is absurd and doomed to fail. 

I am afraid that the cultural stance of American labor (and groups fighting for particular rights) is destroyed (actually, never developed) by petit-bourgeoisization of the Americans on the level of their psychology, and that they have already been in advance check-mated into fighting exclusively on economic front – the same battlefield where the American rich two percents of the population (with their legalistic and physical bodyguards) fight for their absolute domination with clenched teeth and fists.

Of course, the fight of the rich for their interests is egoistic and psychotic while fight of the poor is justified as a matter of the right to feel self-respect and dignity for our existence – but it is exclusion of the “poetic” spirituality what puts the both groups on the same battlefield and can endanger the fight for the more humane future. When people’s consciousness is alienated from “the background of social, economic and political interconnections” (Giroux), it is, no doubt, part of the problem. But when people’s consciousness is not alienated from this “background”, but instead is alienated from the spiritual psychological reservoir (philosophical culture, historical competence, serious art) it is, as history demonstrates, also a problem.

Democratic culture in US has failed because liberals were liberal enough to provide people with “Welfare, Medicare and job training” (and many necessary and helpful social programs), but not liberal enough to provide for people free humanistic education against the will and fury of conservative Tyrannosauruses.

Antonioni is our, progressives’ political/poetical ally making our fight more emotionally sublimated and spiritually and culturally rooted. Or have we rather say that we, the people with a politically humane (democratic) agenda, are allies of Antonioni in his politically artistic fight for the enlightenment of our souls and hearts?

Please, visit: www.actingoutpolitics.com to read essays about the paintings of Picasso, Beckmann, Matisse, Manet, Nolde, Schiele, Ernst, de Chirico, Grosz, Brancusi, Hopper, etc., about films by Bergman, Godard, Resnais, Bunuel, Bresson, Kurosawa, Fassbinder, Pasolini, Antonioni, Cavani, Tanner, and Mizrahi (with analysis of shots from films), and also articles that sociologically and psychologically analyze the aspects of the difference between democracy and totalitarianism.

By Victor Enyutin