那天羅文樂與許煜關於文化工業的對談中,許煜拿出恰是我這blog早前提到這對談扯到的scott lash的global culture industry一書,我才猛醒許煜也讀goldsmith,有機會跟lash上堂,真羨慕.
lash是否哲學家,社會學家,這些問題不過就是現代知識分工的小問題,大問題是現代性問題不是這些學科可以獨立解答.但lash一直被學界忽視,我看正是因其重視現代性中的美學而被對此頂多點到即止的學界所忽視.最後還是要靠postmodernism出點名,就真夠諷刺,

近日我又在公共圖書館找到本Polity出的書,覺得比lash少點文化哲學,卻對於理解現代性問題如劉小楓以現代性社會理論進路,一樣提供了相當不錯的導介,是本很值一讀的基本參考書.書名是 Art and Social Theory (2004),作者是Austin Harrington (1970-).出自leeds的社會學系.不過說到文化與藝術,其不單分了界線,還會以為:

from a normative point of view, we may assert that there can be no 'profession of art'. Art is not
business, and art cannot be reconciled with business. From a normative point of view, we may suggest that there can be no such thing as
'cultural capital'. Culture is not capital, and culture cannot be reconciled with capital.

針對藝術,其以為:

modernity's normative idea of artistic protest has not
fundamentally changed since the rise of postmodernism. Artistic protest has only changed in some of its modes, strategies and sites of expression. Under contemporary conditions of capitalistic globalization, new media technologies
make possible a certain global diffusion and global integration of sites of artistic protest against oppression and injustice. Today some of the very facilitating technologies of captialist expansion are open to being turned against the system by artistic action.In the world today,

artists have a role to play as witness to suffering and exploitation in forgotten corners of the globe;

as catalysts and canalizers of non-violent anarchic energies from peripheries to centres;

as champions of carnival, contestation and defiance against imperialism and militarism;

as keepers of hope, imagination, courage and trust that 'another world is possible'.

另也容我最後引其一末章一句給那些以為後現代可以消解現代性問題的朋友:

If postmodernism is the beauty, capitalistic globalization is the beast.

(上文引自頁205-206.而其前一頁對於文化工業的一些論述,由於扯到另一我不認識的另些傢伙,我分開另一則遲些再說.)