PHILOSOPHY OF PRAXIS | DO1 10.1168/is69206x-12341550 15 consciousness becomes a completely passive observer moving in obedi- ence to laws which it can never control. In the other it regards itself asa power which is able of its own — subjective — volition to master the es- sentially meaningless motion of objects. (as quoted on p.95) In short, Lukdcs is aware that a vast array of views and subjective attitudes, some better and some worse, can exist within the contemplative stance. The concept is really a way of exposing the antinomic structure of reified life and thought. So, the neoliberal subject can be seen as an intensification and puri- fication of the contemplative attitude, commensurate with the deeper com- modification of life.25 Following this, Rehmann asks how Lukdcs could explain fundamental social change and proletarian revolution, given that he “... tended to bury people’s actual social practices under the weight of reification.” After summarising the workplace experience which accounts for a basic class-consciousness, he ar- gues that the further development of the proletariat into a revolutionary sub- ject is ‘detached” from ‘actual experience in the workplace, in organisations, struggle and daily-life cultures’. He suggests, instead, that such a transforma- tion seems to take place as an ‘event’ which breaks forth in a ‘quasi-eschato- logical way: Following this, he says, the emergence of class-consciousness ‘seems to take place in the realm of pure thought’2° disagreement with it, Feenberg is extraordinary clear that ical project is not messianic, mythological or idealist. The basic class-consciousness, generated on the basis of experience in production, ‘opens up a process of mediation whereby the proletariat may rise, through increasingly concrete and political steps, to become the subject-object of his- tory and praxis. For Lukeics, class-consciousness must be articulated and ac- tualised via trade-unions, parties, and in a complex social struggle that takes cognisance of every aspect of the totality. Thus Feenberg quotes Lukacs stating that ‘the process of the revolution is - on a historical scale - synonymous with 26 While Lukdcs himself did not explore the problems of everyday life it isstrange to think he was unaware of them, given the influence of Georg Simmel on his work. Moreover, the notion of reification and the idea of the contemplative stance, as Henri Lefebvre’ early ng in particular has demonstrated, have considerable scope to aelelress these prob- Jems, Also, the work of Agnes Heller — notwithstanding her differences with her teacher |. Guterman and Lefebvre 1933; Heller 1984. 27 Rehman 20x p.8 28 — Rehman 201g, p. &2. Rehmann’s summary is rather reminiscent of 2iek’s voluntaristic and decisionistic interpretation of Lukies. Zizek 2000. 29 Rehman amg, p.82. comes to HISTORICAL MATERIALISM (2018) 1-26