Culture and Resistance

Culture as the collective consciousness of a society, exists not simply in the realm of the amorphous, the transcendental, but rather has its origin in the reality of the material conditions of its production. The economic structure of a society (arising out of the relations of production) directly determines the culture it produces in the form of ideas (which are the ideas of the class in power who also have control over the economic production). It is through the domain of ‘culture’ that the dominant class seeks to maintain and propagate itself making it into a site of power struggle. The role of art and literature in the cultural reproduction and its social and political significance is not a minor one. The political nature of art or literature is determined by its relationship with the relations of production or with the dominant power structure. It can either stand for resistance by opposing the forms of power (or ideology) or be the tool for reification by reinforcing the ideas that maintains the status quo and existing social institutions. The mainstream cultural art forms of fiction, television, film, all produced for and consumed by the larger market often functions as apparatuses of capitalist ideology. The negation of the critical space it seems to achieve on individual consciousness, if not challenged, becomes the prerequisite condition for fascism to take root and prosper.

Popular culture as the mass produced, mass consumed forms of art, literature, films have had a profound impact on the dissemination of ideas in society on a larger spectrum. While the mechanical reproduction of art is responsible for blurring the distinction between ‘high art’ and ‘low art’ or ‘high culture’ and ‘low culture’ it has also achieved in making art accessible to the common masses who were otherwise devoid to experience the same. This poses two possibilities; that is, the democratic distribution of art made easily accessible to the masses can be used for imbibing revolutionary consciousness in them to challenge the dominant ideology or culture. Or, popular culture itself (through its various art forms) can be used for the proliferation of ideas that runs contrary to the said progressive movements. Hence, popular culture becomes the site of contradictions, between the power class that produces them and the larger masses who consumes them. The question that arises then is that who controls the production of ideas or who controls the capital? In a capitalist system it is ruling class that has power over both the economic and thus ideological production in society. The power of the capital of the ruling class wins the consent of the masses through what Antonio Gramsci calls cultural hegemony. Capitalist ideology influences popular culture in all aspects; economically, politically and intellectually, that renders it powerful and makes resistance to it a deeper challenge.

This discourse of popular culture influences in the way a society think, feel and organizes itself. The cultural hegemony of the dominant class presented through popular culture often wants a one sided, particular worldview to perpetuate in society. The “Culture Industry” in reducing art to merely forms of pleasure or leisure takes away its radical potentialities for social transformation while at the same time ensuring the political passivity of the working class. The uncritical acceptance of existing ideas presented in the form of popular entertainment through television, novels, pop songs, feature films, function as the ideological state apparatus that achieves its goal of ideological interpellation. Such popular culture intends to take away individual consciousness and manufacture a mass consensus. Walter Benjamin postulates that the emancipation of art from the cult of high culture (by demystifying its alienating aura through mechanical reproduction) must necessarily be followed with the individual’s direct critical, rational engagement with it and not merely a pas

sive reception of the same. The progressive character of art, literature or films is in its social significance and in its ability to merge criticism with enjoyment.

Modern popular culture with its production of art forms that although lobbying a mass reach is often complacent with the ideas they propagate which can be seen reactionary. The depoliticization of art, alienating the individual from themselves and society has a far greater social consequence. “The logical outcome of fascism is the aestheticization of political life”, writes Benjamin. Fascism is a mass movement that is reactionary which has its influence and support at the grass roots level achieved through the dissemination of fascist ideas through the appropriation of culture while at the same time maintaining the existing social relations. Throughout history ‘culture’ has been the site of contention by those in power. The connection between Italian fascism and futurism as an artistic movement which sought to imbibe in them the values and notions of the new nationalist ideology is well known. Similarly for the Bolsheviks the formation of a socialist society as a possible alternative reality was incomplete with taking ownership over the means of production alone without also taking control over at the same time of its cultural production. The movement to politically unite the Proletariat and create a working class culture through the creation of new art forms took shape in the early years of the revolution and was later consolidated into State machinery. Many experimental Soviet Artistic movements including the Proletkult tried to create a Proletarian culture by rejecting the earlier forms of works which they saw as bourgeois and thus reactionary to the working class cause and socialist realism became the dominant narrative technique.

It is the political necessity of the fascist regime to create a society that does not have the political or historical consciousness in order for it to first influence them and then establish itself. Fascism combining with capitalism tries to achieve its project of ideological, intellectual, cultural subjugation of the larger masses. Hence for fascism to successfully implement itself it is not only important that the dissenting voices of Kalburgis, Pansares and Dabholkars in society be silenced but also to directly control the centers of cultural and intellectual production. The controversy regarding the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan to the Film and Television Institute of India and the police crackdown at the student politics of Jawaharlal Nehru University all points to this. The answer to the ‘aestheticization of politics’ necessary for fascism is what Benjamin articulates to be the ‘politicization of art’, that is the conception of art for the purpose of social transformation that is progressive (socialist). Resistance to fascist tendencies should not only come from the realm of the political but also from the social, the cultural through the form of art, literature and films.