I found this on the bottom of a piece of paper I’d been taking notes on about Walter Benjamin, and I thought it might prove entertaining. I didn’t bother to ink it, just scanned it, darkened it slightly to make it more readable (the original was in pencil) and uploaded it. Therefore I will transcribe the dialogue below:
Em: Say Karl, do you really believe artists have no free will?
Karl Marx: No, I just see profit as an overwhelming motive.
Em: Well I mean, does that make something “not art”? Can’t art have a lot of reasons for its creation?
KM: My point is more that because of substructural problems, photography and film cause superstructural problems.
So there you go.
Karl Heinrich Marx was really the beardiest philosopher ever. I don’t think I really did him justice. But then, I was drawing him from memory.
When Marx says “substructure” he means “economy,” and when he says “superstructure” he means “culture.” And when he says, “You Bet Your Life,” it means you have to say a special word to win a hundred dollars from a duck.
Marx died in 1883 and the first movie camera was invented in 1888, so he probably didn’t have much opinion about film. But this is how I think through things sometimes.
Well, this romp has been a bit more shallow than it appeared to be on the surface. That’s okay. I’m leaving for Thailand in a few days, so I’m taking a little time to relax. I’ve been trying to come up with New Years resolutions, but mostly I’m glad that 2012 is ending. It has been I think the most stressful year of my life.
Every time I sign onto WordPress I see I have more spam comments. Anyone want to leave a real one? Let me know: What’s your New Years resolution? Did you make one? Or are you perfect just the way you are?
