Baudelaire Contra Benjamin: A Critique of Politicized Aesthetics and Cultural Marxism [Hardcover]

This book offers the first sustained argument against the philosophy of Walter Benjamin and his readings of Charles Baudelaire. More broadly, it is also a critique of politicized aesthetics and cultural Marxism, of which Benjamin is a pioneering and emblematic figure. Cristaudo and Beibei argue that Baudelaire was not mistaken in refusing to subject aesthetics to morality and politics. Baudelaires refusal was based on the recognition that existential matters, such as sickness, evil, death, sexual longing, melancholy, and beauty itselfall themes at the center of his poetryare by nature intrinsically supra-political. By contrast, Benjamins faith in political redemption, while breaking with the enlightenments faith in progress, nevertheless conforms to another core element of faith of the enlightenment, via faith in the ability of morals and politics to liberate humanity. The authors make the case that Benjamins understanding of politics is severely deficient because it is not sufficiently versed in an understanding of economics or the nature of class interests, and that Marxs own theory of economics is fundamentally deficient and creates an insurmountable problem for those deferring to a future industrial society free from capitalism.

Beibei Guan assistant professor of English at Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen.

Wayne Cristaudo is professor of political science at Charles Darwin University.

The authors show how the politicized approach to literature that dominates the academy today, bolstered by Walter Benjamin as tutelary genius, strips the mind and heart of their deepest and most necessary resources (starting from empathy) for understanding literature and human affairs in general. Unquestioning belief in ones own idea of what is right  in a political ideology rather than in humanity and its unfathomable complexity  demonstrably leads to the gulags and genocides that have blighted contemporary history since Benjamin. On the basis ofl!