DEBRA A. CASTILLO Georg Lukacs: Forms of Longing For Georg Lukes, Marsiam represented! not only politics an an economics, but also a morality, anaesthetics, and even ifthe word Is ‘ied. guardedly, an erates, On the fst and. mont obvious level, [ars i a form giving pinelple—its “scenic” method allowing him to impose order and harmony oa a Sid realy and to fudge the Implications of moder developments through a cles, sable perspec tie. Underying the surface form of Marast thought however, the reader will discern second stratim-that of longing-—vwhich rejects formalism and which undercuts the formalisic certainties withthe ‘vaguer yearnings of an unfullled, unfulélable hope. Lkice ert ‘am has long impliedly acknowledged this subterranean strain inthe Marist writer, and the recurrence of specific words, phases, and metaphors inthe wetings of admirers and cites alike cates ast ing pattern in the exegeses of the great Hungatan ct, Thus, writers 4 various and as distinct as Fredte Jameson, Michael Holzman, Mic fhael.Sprinker, David Forgacs, Andrew Arato and Paul Brlnes among others, point to the “nostalgia” inherent in Lakéc’ vision, hestalgiarelaie to his “impulse to be everywhere at home in the World." The impulse t be everywhere at home ls, of course, rel land in a sense of being truly at home nowhere; in his works, asin Ins Ue, Lakdes is frequently uprooted or uprootshisel, Haunted By potentialities, at home (however defined), he sill yearns (another re rent word in Lukdcs studies) for another home elsewhere, la a totter time, Both desperately dislocated and firmly altuated at the same sme, Lukdcs’ passionate adoption of the Marxist stance i not {Oat ofthe single-minded revolutionary, but that ofthe thinking man ‘whose desire for order is precisely that a yearning for that which ean never be flly achieved. "Every significant person has only. one ‘Sought wrote Lukics, and the Idea of form, which he identifies ot the thought of Leé Popper Is cental to him ae wel, Yet following de ‘Man, we might add that each person's single thought is pce with |ypleal misconception ofthat thought which together fren a hiden Aishotomy that fuels insights and provokes blinness in a writer and his rites The implicit anlinomies of Lukfcsan thovght ae, then, those of form and longing: the longing fora form that will complete Heat i a fture te, he form of longing tat tees the very pos ity of compete form, ‘Copyright ©1986 by Wayne State Univenty Press, Deri, Michigan 45202,%” Georg Luks “The privileged status of form is particulary evden inthe essay. As Lukes notes in his early work, Soul and Form (1910), "Form Is realy in the writings of the tics" thus eotablishing an implicit equation between the onfologial status of the essay form and that of poetic mage a8 parallel projections of mesningfal structure onto reality. The essayist, however, in his concentration on form, abenions images as the central structure drawing together being and reality instead, he ‘uddrestes the facts of ie as he perceives them or as these fats are ‘Conveyed in thelr just representation in another piece of writing, His Srrangement of these ertetial forms of reality in a coherent and ‘eaningal structure i the focus of the essay. Objective realty, Li ice implies, isnot at ies, Indeed, in his best writings, consders- Hons of objective reality ae apt o be Tet 0 one side that valicity land coherence of form take precedence over objecive truth valve Selection and arrangement rather than mimesis are the cra issues Said is correc, therefore, in signalling the problematic of pce as er fl tothe dscasson ofthe form of the essay. He observes that place “involves relations the crite fashions vith the texs he addresses [spproacy and the audience he addresses intention} it leo involves the dynamic Haking place of his own text ab Ht produces isel” At {question then i this asmption ofa place congruent with his cho en form (Sid's, Ler or mine) isthe problem of whether anes fay is best considered a "text, an intervention between texts, 8 intensfeston ofthe notion of textually, ora dspersion of language fway from 2 contingent page to occasion, tendencies, curents of ‘movements in sn for history"? In these words the force and the limit of Luks’ thought ae sug- gested. IF form i realty, Ikewise realty i frm. Furthermore, as Ta ‘or notes, "To form is therfore ot oly to represent Ife It also to Judge I." Luger’ longing to recuperste the ontological status of form involues an ideology and a movalty which Implitly negate ‘both that being. and that sesumption of reality. The essayist may ‘eam ofa destiny in the word, but his destiny, his condemtation, to the aesthetics of the word, Thus, the young Lukes consciously thandons his longing for a fe with Tema Seidler out ofa “étead of the destructive influence of happiness”? which would distract len from his work and from Life In his chosen area of an intllectally rigorous inguiy into form, As he writes in an easly easay "Certainly ‘most men live without Life and ate unaware of i Thie lives are ierely social. Indoed, for them the fling of responsibilities s the only poste means of enhancing their lives... These men ean Debra A Cstlo o never get beyond themselves fr their contact with others is at best a prychological Interpretation, while the force of responsibility gives thei lives a firm and secure If shallow, form.”* The nostalgia 40 of ten noted in Luks’ Involves a ruthlessly repressed longing for life a8 ll as a Life his extremely suggestive unmailod leter to Leman ‘Once again the ‘ce age" has begun for me, complete loneliness, ‘cenplete separation from life and every human community" stongly indeates his desire for wholeness despite 2 nid theorcticl ‘Separation of “ie” and "work?" As the two longing, for Me and fee Life, conflict, $0 too the sedimentation of these longings in hs chosen work reslis n an ambiguous relationship to form as sell. For Jn Lukes the provisionally ofthe essay form-By definition an exer cle oF trying out of ideas—ie suppressed in a fonging for an Ideal form, The issue, already implicit im his early work, ts never filly re sclved For Lukes the essay becomes search fr andthe intermitent vs uwlization ofan order anda center of universal convergence. As such, tis an objecifying and stabilizing force converting the flux of be coming into concrete being, ongoing praxis Into «ingle form held fim (a solid possession”) 1 only momentarily. The “theoretical ‘overtotalzation” (Sala's phrase) ofthese early esaystic efforts fl lows Lakes into his ater life as vrll- Cornel West, refering to Lu ls lfelong obsession with ontological investigation, asks, "Why thon did Lukies—the greatest Marset thinker of this centary—pur- sue such a ftile projee?” And he answers his own question: “Ie remained in search of certainty... He had i find «secre ground Ing for his belief in the ebjective possibilty of wholeness and life. -msaning’ petty Ives andiongings become a Life close! and whole, ‘become an deal Life, rounded with significance, "AS a Marxist, Lukécs refuses, of course, the Christian nation of a transcendental state of perfect being, But hls implicit aim in the ter restrial sphere often seems curiously similar. Demet finds that "is eic's concept of type rejoins the theological tradition’ through its emphasis on the prophetic nature of the typical characies” statement which i tue not only forthe concept of type but for his toretical reflections on the essay form in general, Through his e= says, Lukics attempts to fx the incessant flu of history in a discrete prnent moment orn a vison of earhly uanscendence, Ine fat tet feistence cannot be congealed into being dose not invalidate the ef for, but acts a a liting condition that must be acknowledged and laken into account. Tis longing that prevents frm fom flly achiev2 (Geog Laie dng ls object. For while “fore reflects its alliance withthe concepts ‘toner, hamony, realty, totally, scopation,necasly, and being, “longing” draws Yo luelttn opposing eto sigan: chaos, di sonaree, appearance, immediacy, disguise feedom, and becoming, Yeti ceain sense, “longing is alt rm i the iceion of 2 sively Marve cde like the Iter Lakiew The language of dare and pasonate aration Is pointedly absent fom the vocabulary ot Mant who wibes to bypat the concerns of he ody in favor ofthe Ststacions of scence Curiously enough however, this econ of the body tn favor of the mind involves another form of pasion sich isnot csr im exsence. The great mystic of the Church deny the ody and each out peste forte uth behind the age yet in their description of esta, the language of ert lve is the oly appropriate one to dese thei experienc, So oo in Ma (Gnd in Lakes) longing enters sstepsiionalytvoogh the impic. Sons ofthe chonn sete The operons of longing upon form are pertcly readin. Mans writings when he sys. oa, Father that converts every produc nt 3 social letoglyple" The rites apts owe won frm comer i a mag Sh objet of longing a myth, Subantitysaboumed in subject iy ands simple oct come Yo pak of ae onthe i word there “The young, pre-Marsst Likica also recognize the significance of the hieoplypi and paid bute foe evocative power “the tre pnts of yt lacked only forthe tro veaing of tel heme: they iter coud nor wished to check thir pragmatic realty. They ee these myths an tare, snyteious hieroglyphic which I wat hele train fo rea” (96,13), As fr Mary the products of a technlog. {al sey Jon the old tales and fgends as hieroglyph, st the ecpheable longings of slence unite withthe ofa The myths of the past tain ter vibrancy and the mths of the present gin hee ‘Ryser throug the subjective acon of longing upon substance. Tei contrary tothe mode of existence of the hieroglyph that it be deciphered, Desie can never be fll o Ue image loses vale Snd degenerates once agin into 9 simple product “all represent fon” aye David Carll, “ia conaituted by Both production snd Jone" is one ofthe great dilemmas of Luk? concept of oalty dow an unsolved prose inher, papa om Ne more sl ise youth. Carll Eoncre. "Ths he writes, “the abtat totality which the nove temps fo aoa on concrete fe can ony el Debes A. Canty %. the repeated assertion ofthe distance separating it from ie... "8 Disappearing in the distance, yet al the more presen, always gone, always within grasp: that whichis desired, which sis the emotions to their heights, i Both necessary asthe object of the ques, yet una tainable if not actually sory. Roland Bavihes, whose crtiea ifr: fences from Lukes are far more apparent than his silanes with him, nevertheless sees the scholaely endeavor terme that ae highly Pprinent tothe discussion ofthis author. He acutely observes that. "the witer or the ertic and Orpheus ae both under the same peo bitin which constitutes their ‘song’ the prohibition from turning badk toward what they love." Alienation from the (atopian) really ofthe work isthe destiny of the realise or daleccal writer as well {sis romantic counterpart. There isan unvemiting paradox in this formulation, of course: only that which arouses desire cin be known tall, bu in order for desire to be maintained the object cannot be Knew wll ‘On another level, the object of longing ie not mesely that which is fetiror to the writer and resists his efforts to penetrate i On the fomrary, the essential motivation of longing le not exterior Ge not In fe product itself) but interior (eg, inthe values thatthe individ: tual apples to it which invests withthe hieroglyphic quality). Thus Lbs is correct in his assertion that “tue longing is always turned Inward, however much is paths may lead across the external world” (SéF, 92), The discussion of a sient development or of 2 work of aris only ostensibly a discussion of the forms of really in an exte= Flor, verflable world. The ert, in evaluating work, ie remaking tha: work and that word in terms of his own vale syteny the es ‘senial core of "vealty” is constitated by this impli set of values. ‘Thus, the form of the essay sleo reveals the celtics narisatic long Ing come to terms with the conditions and nature of his own desire anda longing to conceptualize the estential verte of deste for oth fs what Congdon cals the "gnostic tyranny" of Lies ideology. ‘This attude, as Paul de Man suggests, reflects the Nicschean side of Luks, a leas in his use of shetow" the will out of wil to power that dreey confronts the necessarily open, altar form of the essay genre. The gnostic tyranny sal the more sty imposed Inthe face ofthe philosophical rebellion ofthe tyrants materiale If uke staat he esendal realy within hasely then inevstably an tyss opens between totality (frm, the monumental home) and the indvial (ite fre, will to power, nostalgic Fongag)- Thus the form ‘of te essay frustrate the longing that insplzes its creation, the longa Georg Luks ing tobe one with the object, Even what Rochlts calls “Yabandon de atitude eaayste"™ inthe laterworks (but did Re ever abandon this ‘ance? expreses no more oles than @ vse itensification ofthis Tonging for form inthe face of hls struggle with and fear ofthe neo- Kantian separation of walling subject and seriten objet. “The later, more programmatically Mandst Lukice rlegates these concerns to the background, but they are not entirely lost. In “the iter and the Critic” he observes that "he normal relationship be- tnveen writer and enc tobe found in ther encounter within his ‘inermediae zone in the cognition and grounding of objectivity in the creative process" Despite the emphasis on cognitive processes land objectivity inthis passage Wi clear that Lakées has Not abar- ‘oned the idea of the critic a the mediator between the system and the forme on one hand and a subjectively conceived toalty on the ther, In cantonting the lox of immediacy and making an effort 10 terive the essential forms, the Marist critic too is invalved In an un- Intentional distortion of reality though his longing to order it. The ‘ile sa mediator, but the form taken by his engagement with the terms ofthe dialectic isan ambivalent one his intentions are masked by fale assumption of extial distance. Lukics points fo the intensive ineshaustbility of man (the subjec) and the ebjective world encompassing him”, but warns that in @ fechnologiclly-orented modern society “fe moves relentlessly to ‘ward reducing the word tothe mechanical simplicity of a mere sgn” [QEC. II), Emphasis on the evolution offrms in ime notwithstan ing, Lukdes implcly recognizes that, without the component of longing, the form ofthe word (the Wend?) loses ts fecundity and de feneraes into a mere inferile commodity. Thus, i an ideal situation, the fen (isorical or fetal) becomes the eepresentative of Logos Incarnate os a postive produetve force. In moder society, however, there ls the cler danger that technology may subsume dhe meanings of history into cybernetic srictae incapable of producing new Ineanings or ew texts! the pure alienation of life which, as noted farle leo has a form, albeit «shallow one. In the exchanges of It- trary commerce, as Conrad notes in one of his leer, meaning and ‘Value are themssives ground into the machine ‘Thete ig a—Iet ws say-—a machine It evolved self (am severely scenic) out Of « chaor of scrape of lon and be hold knit, Cam homed atthe howrible work and sand {ppalied. I fee! i ought to embroider-—but goes on kal Deb A Castillo 98 ling... And dhe most withering thought is that the inf ‘moti thing ae made itself; made oa without thought, without conscience, without foresight, without eyes, without heart It isa uagle acident—and st happened. You can in teefere with it.The lst drop of bitemess isin the suspicion that you can't even smash i. In virtue ofthat truth one and lmmoral which Turks in the force that made it spring into ex fstence its what ite—and it indestructible Tekitsus nar i kits us out. thas Knitted time, epace, pain, death, corruption, despair and all the illisiont-and Fothing matters. Ill admit Rowever that 10 look at the re ‘ioscless proces is sometimes amusing" “The impersonal efficiency ofthe machine achieves its power and its tenor Because is a pare form fre from the exigencies of longing that ae required for progress. Through the nlhlsue offices of the machine, reality i reduced to code. As Lukics observes, with the asendency of machine over man, "the fragmentation ofthe object of production necesarily entails the fragmentation of ts subject” with the tesfying result tha in advanced industrial countries, "ime is tverything, man is nothing: he is at most the incaration of ime,”™ ofime kalted relenleily, remorseless into Conrad's machine ‘To ths epresion ofthe subject the human being responds by an upon of subjectivity, Turning to modernist writers, Luca notes thatthe subjecivization of time is reflected inthe uncritical stance of _nujor writers to thee cure: "the modernist writer identifies what i ‘ecesarlly a subjective experience with reality as such, shus giving 3 Aistoned pitare of reality asa whole," Writing from within the ‘mechine the amusement of Conrad, for example, becomes an exer {Ge in solipsise set indulgence presupposing (and diguising) an ‘underlying scarcely-recognized ethics and poliics. The ethic of & oncaption of me founded in the present moment i hedonistic in the extreme in that afiems the pleasures ofthe body’ or, what the loter side ofthe same coin, withdraws exclusively tothe pleasures of Uhemind. As a polis, the seecion of the future in favor ofa sce son of present instants implies the rejection of progress and tle ‘2gy- There is also a moral sue involved: the conversion of the body in a mere instrument of labor results in (to recall ou lit teminol 2gp) # dosacrlinton of tht body « mulation of man’s pout Tn a certain sense, the conteguences (and the conscience) of the radial formalism of industial society, on the ane hand, and the at-%6 erg ales tenuated longings of #subjectvizd vision, onthe other, ae reflected inthe preeminence ofthe ironic form in our Itertare “tis 9 subile tnd poignant irony,” says Lakes in Soa! and Form, "when the great ‘tie dreams our longing into early Florentine paintings... and Speaks of the atest achievements of scientific research, of new meth- ‘us and new facts” (SOF 12-13), Ant becomes kind of negative the ‘logy inthe reverence that shown ita everence that i a every point both acknowledged and undermined bythe ation ofthe eri Revertheless te irony of irony Js notin ite distanclation from the bbject under contemplation, but the submerged longing with which that object is endowed, a longing which x eemplised in the passion for piecing through susfacee tothe “essences” supposedly contained ‘nits dap, Mala captures the crux ofthis painful situation shen he observes in reference to contemporary at that “out modern mas- ters pain their pictures a the alts of ancien cuilization carved oF painted gods/'™ that le the denial of spit tanscendence is, nis Degation of fth, tse an expression of faith in the supreme values ota Cleary, however, the ironic form typical of the moder essay is subject to perversion in a bourgeois soclety. "This bourgeois way of ites onyta mash,” nays LokSce, “ana He all masks its negative: I is only the opposite of something, it acquires meaning solely through the energy with which itsays ‘No’ to something” (SSF, 86), The nt [ity of tn ron stance towards reality is perverted ito a negation Of that realty which mystifies rather than problematizes i Stl, La ics himeelf times wears @ version of one of his own masks. fn the fay, “Longing and Form.” he states that “great longing is abvays {alm and it always dlagolses self behind many diferent masks. ut the mask also represents the great two-fold struggle of if ie strggle fo be recognized and the struggle to remain disguised” (S8F, 92}, Asa enti, Lukiesimpersonaizes and lmpesons his long Ings behind the thetoric of indirection and the “scientific” modes of snelis appropriate to a Marist philosophy. Ther isa secret desire, ‘nly intermitetly revealed, that his works be appreciated in terms ‘thee than truth value. Tis shedding of the mask is partculaely ev Gent in his careful prefaces to the relsues of his eater works. Li ics sites in the preface to the 1968 edition of History and Class Consousnesr: "I most begin By confessing that having once dh Carded any of my works Temain indiferent to ther forthe whole of ny life" Goo. Similar statements made explicly in reference to ‘The Theory ofthe Novel and Seal and Farm, ae imposible to take at Det A Casilla ” face value In each cas, the autobiographical “I” can be revealed as a ‘ask, While each of these works represents a complex of phlosophi Gal altitudes which Lukdes found deficient, yet his own dingsed longing retums in his inability to renounce or wholly abandon them. He must repross his deep urge to find in the delimitation of his com plete works a single unified corpus. In this demonstration ofthe co fuary pull of fis desie, irony shows ‘both its faces! that of ‘dslandatin from the fort perceived, and that of longing fr a total form to bridge the gap, Tm his revisionary prefaces, Lukes must repress pure longing in hls longing for form for totality, On the one hand, each form is prs vented from achieving stability (dhe end of history, iony, longing) by perpetual postponement inherent in the concept of longing the Ieloved can never be possessed by the lover. On the other hand, there are in Lukies indications that the mechanism of longing at ties denies or ignores this deferral in an effort to grasp the whole in the present moment, When Lukes dlcussea the cxtegory of totality, he is then, not so much delimiting a form as desenbing. his owe Tonging for complete meaning In the Instant. Lukscs mediates for us the "totality" of his work, tha i, he gives it form, ’At these points in his arguments, Lukics ironic consciousness Is