From Salvation To Revolution

Modernity originates from enlightenment.There are three main judgments in western academic circles,namely,time consciousness,unfinished design and capitalist spirit.However,no matter how we understand modernity,the basic spirit of modernity is essentially the spirit of enlightenment,and modernity is the product of enlightenment.Under the guidance of the spirit of enlightenment,modernity is characterized by secularization,positive progressivism and instrumental rationalism.Such characteristics also indicate that modernity will inevitably go to crisis with the enlightenment,which is embodied in the individual sense of meaninglessness,the one-way degree of social life and political absolutism.Lukacs,who grew up in this era,has a profound understanding of modernity.His own ideological transformation is closely related to his understanding of modernity.Whether Lukacs’ early research on drama theory and novel theory,or the Materialization Theory and proletarian revolution theory put forward by Marxism,or even the late ontology of social existence,all reflect his changes in his understanding of the crisis and outlet of modernity at different stages.Lukacs’ critique of modernity in his early literary theory.Lukacs’ theoretical achievements in this period mainly appeal to the theme of salvation,which is manifested in tragedy theory and novel theory.Lukacs’ tragedy theory mainly has two levels of connotation,that is,on the one hand,tragedy makes the audience see a meaningful world because of the group effect and tragic inevitability of the audience brought by its internal tragic story materials;On the other hand,the creation of tragedy originates from the innate desire of human soul,which will inevitably make the works created from it maintain the criticism of empirical life.At the same time,due to the gradual formation of its own style separated from life,especially modern tragedy,it will eventually become a pure "should" and judge life in a supreme position.In this way,the tragedy loses the power to change reality.Lukacs’ novel theory attempts to express the irony of empirical life through the author’s problematic personal journey,and catch a glimpse of the whole behind that life,but the premise of the construction of the novel is that the whole cannot be realized.Therefore,the novel can only become a post station of the soul and can not shoulder the important task of completely surpassing modernity.However,the magic of the protagonist of the novel highlights a kind of Messianism.Driven by the October Revolution,this kind of Messianism prompted Lukacs to start a new journey of criticizing modernity from "Saul" to "Paul".This also means that Lukacs moved towards Marxism ideologically.Lukacs’ theoretical achievements in this period mainly appeal to the theme of revolution,which is manifested in Materialization Theory and class consciousness theory.Lukacs’ Materialization Theory also has two connotations: on the one hand,it criticizes the formation mechanism,form and essence of materialization;On the other hand,the theoretical expression of materialization is the antinomy of bourgeois thought.The greatness and tragedy of German classical philosophy are also reflected in: on the one hand,the epistemological dilemma reflected by Kant’s concept of "thing in itself" perfectly interprets the essence of this materialization in theory;On the other hand,the development of German classical philosophy from Kant,Fichte,Schiller to Hegel expressed the continuous attempt to solve this problem.Although Hegel finally realized the end of the problem of "thing in itself" in the cunning of Hegel’s rationality,Hegel pushed the historical subject into the myth of concept,and plunged the road beyond modernity into fog for a time.Lukacs’ theory of class consciousness is an attempt to implement the subject and object of historical identity in practical practice,in order to sublate materialization through the proletarian revolution.Influenced by Hegel’s thought,Lukacs equated the proletarian revolution with the revolution of consciousness and fell into the utopianism of the Savior.Influenced by Lenin’s criticism and his revolutionary theory,Lukacs began to realize the importance of social existence by paying attention to the revolutionary reality.This laid the foundation for Lukacs to move towards historical materialism in his later years.In his later years,Lukacs developed his new understanding of historical materialism based on the reflection of ontology,practical concept and theoretical logic.This new understanding shows that Lukacs began to enter Marx in a real sense in his later years.Lukacs’ critical theory of modernity in his later years is a view of alienation based on the ontology of social existence.This alienation view mainly believes that the root of the problem of modernity lies in the conflict between human personality and its ability.This conflict can be completely solved only when human society moves from class in themselves to self-contained class.Before that,we cannot wait the transcendence of modernity passively,but should realize it in the revolution.In his later years,Lukacs no longer understood this revolution as a sharp violent revolution,but implemented it into the ideological struggle of daily life.The basic theoretical method of this struggle is historical materialism,because only when people master historical materialism can they get out of the ideological illusion of capitalist society,so as to have an insight into the inevitable trend of historical development,and then realize the transcendence of alienation and even modernity.Through the special discussion on the relationship between Lukacs’ thought and modernity,it is good for better understanding Lukacs’ ideological transformation and the uniqueness of his own thought,and start the discussion on the relationship between Lukacs and Neo Kantism,Messianism,Hegelism,Marxism and so on.In addition,from the perspective of Lukacs’ own ideological transformation,Neo Kantism and other thoughts are difficult to point out the way out for the transcendence of modernity.Only "real Marxism is the only way out".