Australian Left Review
Article Title
Towards a Revolutionary Culture
Abstract
In Australia there is a peculiar division between politics, economics, life, work and culture. Strangely enough, this phenomenon is also to be observed in most socialist or leftist thinking. You would imagine that people who consciously strive for political and social revolution would also strive for the integration and change of the arts. But this is not so. The high degree of specialization of function in industrial society is the cause. Role demarcation marked the end of pre-literate society just as the destruction of such demarcation underlies communism with the vision of men and women able to escape the regimentation of the assembly line and to live a whole and varied existence. The strength of capitalism lies in its increasing divisions of functions, tending to make the individual a sum of a number of partial relationships within his/her workplace, home and recreational organization rather than a fully integrated person.