So, in the previous part of the article, we found out that the structure of modern society and the economic mechanisms functioning in it contribute to the formation of certain psychological characteristics in a significant part of the people of such a society.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the working class was on the rise, which allowed it to put forward a powerful communist party as its vanguard. Now we see the decline of the working class, and accordingly the decline of its vanguard. What features of the situation at that time contributed to the struggle of workers for their rights?
- industrialization
- high social tension
- complication of management in work
- the presence of close-knit work teams
Therefore, a worker at the beginning of the 20th century:
- worked hard
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- acutely understood class contradictions
- raised the level of education and developed logical thinking for managing complex systems and mechanisms
- was a collectivist
A similar situation directly arose due to rapid industrialization, when the bourgeoisie was forced to develop the proletariat itself. It is on this occasion that Marx and Engels said in the Communist Manifesto:
“Wage labor rests solely on the competition of workers among themselves. The progress of industry, the involuntary bearer of which is the bourgeoisie, powerless to resist, replaces the division of the workers by competition by their revolutionary unification through association. Thus, with the development of large-scale industry from under the feet of the bourgeoisie, the very foundation on which it produces and appropriates products is being pulled out. It produces primarily its own gravediggers. Its death and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable."
As already described in the previous section, now, due to de-industrialization and changes in the class structure of society, we have a different situation. The most rapidly developing class is the petty bourgeoisie, which also changed the nature of the protest. The peculiarities of the character and worldview of the modern consumer, who is guided by the petty-bourgeois values of society, are in all respects the opposite of those of the worker at the beginning of the 20th century.
Consumer at the beginning of the XXI century:
- lives in contentment and prosperity
- has clip thinking
- suffers from narcissism
- believes that work is for fools
Of course, the protest, as well as its ideology, for such a person will also be fundamentally different from that of a worker at the beginning of the 20th century. With the development of the consumer society, one could personally observe the change in the nature of the protest. In addition to objective changes in the structure of society, the pseudo-Marxists from the Frankfurt School made an ideological sabotage. It was prepared by applying modern cultural and psychological research with the aim of destroying the communist movement and transferring protest sentiments into a channel harmless for the bourgeoisie. heroes of the new culture of the consumer society:
“If in Prometheus we find the cultural hero of hard work, productivity and progress through repression, then the symbols of a different principle of reality should be sought at the opposite pole. Such figures, representing a completely different reality, we see in Orpheus and Narcissus (which are related to Dionysus: the antagonist of the god who sanctions the logic of domination and the kingdom of reason). They did not become cultural heroes of the Western world, but turned into images of joy and satisfaction: a voice that does not utter commands, but sings; a gesture that offers and accepts; an act that leads to peace and stops the labor of subjugation; liberation from time, which connects man with God and with nature."
Thus, the rejection of progress, the value of labor was proclaimed, and it was also said that narcissism and an unrestrained thirst for pleasure should be cultivated in society. With the help of subtle propaganda manipulations of public consciousness, such values have penetrated the cultural space and are now, in fact, broadcast from all sides. Although people rarely think about it, this state of affairs has become so familiar. With the help of propaganda of such values, a powerful blow was struck at the communist movement, its very foundations were undermined. As a result, instead of a powerful organized workers' protest, the bourgeoisie received a helpless slime that understands nothing, loves only itself and unwilling to work to build a new just society.
What forms "protest" takes in the consumer society will be discussed in the next part.
