When did Marxism Become Such a Bourgeois Argument?

The first thing that struck me about Benjamin’s “The Arcades Project” was the flat tone delivering such bold phrases- “revolutionary terrorism,” “instrument of domination,” etc. He certainly has the prospect view, both over time and urban spaces, sort of disinterestedly alighting on selected moments in the history of architecture, art, and revolutions. I actually thought of Baudelaire, so when he came to his section on the poet it all made sense: This is why Baudelaire didn’t write essays. The stronger parts of Benjamin’s argument seem to lie in the places where he is less poet and more historian. When he talks about iron, for example, and how this very first of artificial building materials began the dialectic between practical engineers and aesthetically motivated architects- the first in his series of pragmatic/expressionistic dichotomies: Photography and paint; passions mecanistes and cabalistes; fashion and utility; etc. His poetic angst, clearly informed by his strong Marxist dispositions has some artful moments, but it sometimes obscures his argument, for example: Topic sentence: “In the flaneur, the intelligentsia sets foot in the marketplace.” Conclusion: “Baudelaire’s poetry draws its strength from the rebellious pathos of this class. He sides with the asocial. He realizes his only sexual communion with a whore” (10). He drops the big W as if “asocial” were code for prostitution. The asocial element of the city is made clear, but is there some sort of sexual gratification happening in the arcades? “Whore” is a pretty loaded word-choice. He backs off in the next paragraph, but his connections are still not very clear: “Such an image is afforded b the commodity per se: as fetish. Such an image is presented by the arcades, which are house no less than street. Such an image is the prostitute- seller and sold in one” (10). Here comes the poet again. In one way, it actually reminds me of Dickens’ ironic adjective catalogs. Sir Leicester, for example, is “honourable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely prejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man,” connecting incongruous descriptions in the context of a list. (22). Similarly, Benjamin’s anaphora drops these rhythmic condemnations of the flaneur to create an association between concepts we otherwise might not make, between those of commodity, arcade, and prostitution. Is shopping postitution? If so, of what? What is Benjamin suggesting as being sold in the commercial exchange of the arcade? The crux of this seems lost in the poetry, forwarding only his bitter distaste for all things flaneur. Ironically, or hypocritically, he comes down pretty hard on the intelligentsia and the boheme, when his only hope of being clearly understood would be with someone who’d just read Les Fleurs du mal. There are, however, moments where Benjamin’s poetic flare for dramatic imagery is both subtle and effective. One is his presentation of Daguerre and the birth of the Daguerotype. Here, a more complete history would appear tangential and distracting, but the poetic truth of the event fits perfectly into Benjamin’s argument that the practical and expressionistic commodities were not only conversing but competing with one another as well. The rise of the photograph is a complicated history, but here positioning is more important than some comprehensive listing of events might be, for example: the parallel positioning of the burning down of Daguerre’s panorama and his invention of the Daguerrotype, each in the same year (6). It is the language of myth, of the phoenix, of the old giving way to the new in violent exchanges.