Russell Jacoby: Culture

Russell Jacoby is American historian. Explore interesting quotes on culture.

Russell Jacoby: 100 quotes0 likes

“The left once dismissed the market as exploitative; it now honors the market as rational and humane. The left once disdained mass culture as exploitative; now it celebrates it as rebellious. The left once honored independent intellectuals as courageous; now it sneers at them as elitist.”

Source: The End of Utopia (1999), pp. 10-11

“The disdain for culture expressed by Johst and Fanon is not identical, however. Both despise the deceit of culture, but for opposite reasons. For Johst, culture is in itself a fraud, the cheap talk of weaklings; for Fanon, culture deceives by reneging on its promises. Johst and the Nazis hated culture itself; Fanon hated its hypocrisy, a very different notion.”

Source: The End of Utopia (1999), p. 35

“Over the years and against conventional wisdom, utopians sustained a vision of life beyond the market. … Georg Lukács set forth a theory of the “old and new culture” in which he argued that the socialist economy was not the goal; it was simply a precondition for humanity to advance to a new and humane culture. Most radicals do not understand that political power and economic reorganization is not the end-all, stated Lukács. The goal is not a new economic order, but freedom from an obsession with economics.”

Source: The End of Utopia (1999), p. 27

“David Bromwich has wondered whether intellectuals today would oppose an economic slavery if it lacked any racial or cultural dimension.”

Source: The End of Utopia (1999), p. 40

“Multiculturalism relies on an intellectual rout, the refusal or inability to address what makes up a culture.”

Source: The End of Utopia (1999), p. 39

“What does cultural pluralism signify in the absence of economic pluralism? Perhaps the question seems meaningless. Yet the apparent lack of meaning signals the intellectual retreat. The economic structure of society—call it advanced industrial society or capitalism or the market economy—stands as the invariant; few can imagine a different economic project. The silent agreement says much about multiculturalism. No divergent political or economic vision animates cultural diversity. From the most militant Afrocentrism to the most ardent feminists, all quarters subscribe to very similar beliefs about work, equality and success. The secret of cultural diversity is its political and economic uniformity. The future looks like the present with more options. Multiculturalism spells the end of utopia.”

Source: The End of Utopia (1999), pp. 39-40

“Endless discussions of multiculturalism proceed from the unsubstantiated assumption that numerous distinct “cultures” constitute American society. Only a few historians or observers even consider the possibility that the opposite may be true: that the world and the United States are relentlessly becoming more culturally uniform, not diverse.”

Source: The End of Utopia (1999), pp. 47-48