Socialism And Postmodern Culture

With the popularity of postmodern culture,social crisis has been deepened in the capitalist countries.Since the 1980 s,Eagleton,the representative figure of British cultural Marxism,has criticized postmodernism in the West World and exposed its cultural nature and contradiction.In his postmodern criticism,Eagleton not only criticizes the forms and content of culture on theoretical level,but also develops the meaning and practical significance of cultural criticism on social level,reflecting his exploration of social ideology,problems,contradictions and conflicts.Making a clear distinction with postmodernism,he reveals the capitalist nature of its contradictions,and takes the establishment of socialist system and the building of socialist common culture as the direction of his culture theory.This dissertation analyzes Eagleton?s postmodern criticism theory with his reflections from political,idea and aesthetic perspectives,hoping to provide theoretic reference to socialist culture construction in China.Based on political criticism,Eagleton,in his postmodern cultural theory,analyzes the ideological reason of the arising of postmodernism from the angle of historical development,and criticizes its political nature in avoiding social main issues and conspiring with capitalism based on Marxist theory of material basis and political stand.He sees the political compromise of postmodernism through its radical veil,reveals the political reasons for postmodern conflict,emphasizes the significant role of socialist revolution in eliminating postmodern illusions,and proposes the cultural theory based on socialist politics,thus playing an important role in the process of criticizing capitalist system,promoting socialist society and enriching social culture as a whole.Eagleton?s postmodern cultural theory is the criticism of cultural ideas as well.In Culture(2016),from the perspectives of culture and nature,culture and essence,and cultural war,Eagleton criticizes pluralism and “culturism” of postmodern culture,and reveals the root of its contradictoriness and crisis.The combination of pluralism,differences,hybridity,marginality and exclusivity makes the contradictions among specific forms of postmodern culture stand out.Eagleton believes that the culture in crisis exists on national and international levels,and is developing into geopolitical conflict.To solve it,he proposes the idea of socialist common culture,believing that the united socialism is the only approach to eliminating postmodern cultural crisis,and is the systematic guarantee of real plural cultures,and thus fully demonstrates his defense of Marxist theory and his insistence on and confidence of socialist culture.As a determined Marxist,he regards socialism as his ultimate ideal,believing that it is the final means of solving capitalist confrontations.His conception of socialist common culture provides a theoretical reference to our country in avoiding postmodern harm,caring vulnerable groups,realizing socialist solidarity and justice,and thus constructing socialist culture.Eagleton?s criticism goes beyond the superficial features of postmodern culture.At the beginning of this century,Eagleton pioneered a new perspective of culture criticism,that is,practical issues of beliefs and values,and explored the causes of social turmoil and confrontation led by postmodern excessiveness.In his book,Culture and the Death of God(2014),he discusses the topic whether religion can be replaced by culture,trying to discover the historical cause of belief deficiency of contemporary capitalism.His criticism of capitalism involves new perspectives of cultural ethics and cultural religion.He proposes the idea of belief with reason,and highly praises socialist belief and value.This provides theoretical ground for the construction of socialist core values as the soul of common culture to resist negative influence of postmodern culture,change the systematic chaos of social values and promote social harmony and stability.On the basis of ideological theory,Eagleton analyzes the ideological and aesthetic features of postmodernism,trying to confront the popular postmodern culture with the return of aesthetics.He criticizes the end of ideology of postmodern theory,pointing out that ideology as the characteristic of postmodernism is the main cause of capitalist conflicts.From the perspective of aesthetic discourse,he criticizes the subject deconstruction theory of postmodernism,emphasizes the significance of socialist subject reconstruction,and tries to link aesthetics with human practice.He develops the role of aesthetic culture,which originates in life,in promoting life,and hopes to unite common values of the people and cultivate socialist new men through the construction of socialist literature and art.He takes the subject cultivation rooted in people?s life as his practical method of cultural cultivation of people and provides reference to fostering Chinese contemporary core values “centered on the people” and promoting socialist advanced culture.As the synthesis of three perspectives based on socialism,Eagleton?s postmodern culture criticism not only remains on philosophical level,simply criticizing its various culture forms and content,but also bears deeper political significance,as he reveals the commodity and consumption nature of late capitalism hidden by the complicated cultural theories and phenomena.In the context of postmodern culture,Eagleton insists on Marxism theory,highlights social and political roles of cultural criticism,emphasizes the relationship between cultural theory and practice based on socialism,reflects on the approach to cultivating socialist new men with culture,and thus forms his unique methods of cultural criticism.