In the post-Fordist societies of contemporary Europe we are constantly being asked to achieve more, increase our productivity, display our abilities; in short we are asked to perform.
In this module we will take the multiple meanings of performance seriously and trace the journey of representational methods first developed by anti-capitalist theatre practitioners such as Bertolt Brecht and Augusto Boal into the very sphere these authors and playwrights often critiqued — the world of big business - and back again.
In part one of the module we examine the development of Meyerhold's biomechanics and Brecht's Gestus and the V-effekt in the early twentieth century when 'Oil, inflation, war, social struggles, […] wheat, the meat market, all became subjects for theatrical representation' Bertolt Brecht. Issue Section:. You do not currently have access to this article. Download all slides. Sign in Don't already have an Oxford Academic account? You could not be signed in.
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He now lived in Dublin and his new book "Philosophy and Mystification" had just been published by Routledge. Robinson's main point was that modern philosophy evolved in order to meet the needs of the rising bourgeoisie. It aspires to be universal but conceals the very particular and historical needs of the class which was coming to power in the age of Descartes.
One of the purposes of Marxism is to make this connection and expose the class bias of bourgeois philosophy. One of the schools of thought that Marxism vies with in this project is post-structuralism or postmodernism. The pomos are also interested in showing that the claims of universality are specious. Robinson described the pomos in pithy terms, as "hunters of zeitgeists," who try to capture historical trends as if they were animal specimens to pin on the wall like trophies.
In the process of debunking "universality," the pomos also trash history. This is where Marxists and pomos part company, as well as on the issue of class. Marxism has an entirely different agenda. Robinson says that a plain way of describing its mission is to clarify things that we already know.
Marx's description of this project is found in the preface to the German Ideology:. They have arranged their relationships according to their ideas of God, of normal man, etc. The phantoms of their brains have got out of their hands. They, the creators, have bowed down before their creations. Let us liberate them from the chimeras, the ideas, dogmas, imaginary beings under the yoke of which they are pining away.
Let us revolt against the rule of thoughts. Let us teach men, says one, to exchange these imaginations for thoughts which correspond to the essence of man; says the second, to take up a critical attitude to them; says the third, to knock them out of their heads; and - existing reality will collapse. Robinson gave an example of the clarifying function of Marxism. He said that the term "Artificial Intelligence" is a bourgeois mystification. It presumes that there is some sort of distinction between machines and intelligence, when in reality all machines exhibit some sort of intelligence.
The source of it is the human labor which invests intelligence in the artifact to begin with. Positing some sort of duality between machine and intelligence is only possible in a society where a deep state of alienation exists between labor and the products of our labor. Robinson then proceeded to knock bourgeois philosophy off its pedestal. Its whole purpose was to sanctify private property and the pursuit of profit.
In order to do this, it was necessary to conduct ideological warfare against the feudal world view. John Locke's philosophy revolved around this project, especially in its promotion of the idea of the "social contract. Without rationality and individual rights, capitalist property relations could not be safeguarded. In order to diminish the role of the Church and the feudal aristocracy, a totally new view of the universe had to be constructed.
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