WHICH ARE THE SIGNIFICANCES OF THE CHANGE OF LABOUR CODE OF A EUROPEAN PERIPHERAL COUNTRY?

Ana Bazac

CONFRONTING THE AUSTERITY: SIGNIFICANCES OF THE WEAK CLASS STRUGGLE AND SOME PROBLEMS OF THE LEFT

Ana BAZAC

Abstract

By describing some aspects of the relations of force in the post-1989 Romania and especially in the present world crisis, the paper aims at a more general perspective: to put the problem of the future ending of the relations of force. The first part theorise some questions of the tactics of the left, but the lagged-behind level of a country like Romania is interesting not only for this kind of countries. The contradictory standpoint of the official left concerning the austerity measures from 2010 and the suggestion to support left-wing goals, not clichés, are framing the logic of this part.

The second part dots the importance to have in view the social structure, and the existing and missing conditions of a radical change of capitalism. The problems of moral judgements over capitalism and economic growth as criteria of the analysis of the behaviour of the left are better lightening the urgency of the constitution of a world consistent left.

WHAT FELT? REMARKS ON THE ONTOLOGY OF COMMUNISM

Ana Bazac

Professor

Politehnica University

The paper, only an introduction to the theme, intends to make out some different discourses about communism in order to suggest its ontology. But this one means a structure of concepts related to both the static and dynamic (principles) of communism, as well as to its position in space and time, and to its realisation. Ontology of communism appears in this way to be challenged by the intertwined and complex levels of practice.

However, ontology itself is a discourse: concepts as possibility, readiness, necessity, conjunctures, identity, forms, essence, transformation, accidents, universals and particulars, factors and forces of communism issue from discourses as active positions of the transmitters (including from their desire to form reality according to theirs representations about it). Thusly, the relationship between discourses and existence is not one of exteriority, but of inclusion of the former into the given reality. Even the given character of reality is the result of interferences between discourses (and the intertwining of many types of discourses) and existence: in this way, discourses could exclude elements of the existence, or construct new ones, generally alternative virtual existences.

The remarks in this paper are made in a traditional philosophical view: not starting from practice which does criticise itself, so deducing ontological properties of communism from this critique (as I should be tempted to do), but going from some concepts to reality, for grasping how and if they are reciprocally fit. In other words: I suggest the questioning of the theoretical representation that the concepts would be a Procrustean bed for the communist ‘reality’ (as process and discourses), just researching the framework of concepts and somehow postponing the problem of the pressure of ‘reality’, issuing from its ontological essence, for new interpretations (discourses).

The rhetorical lecture of some discourses about communism sends to an ideological one. The paper gives some definitions of the presuppositions used here: rhetorical lecture, ideology, ideological lecture. The discursive theory appears to be not an alternative to the ideological one, but a part, also an antecedent of this one.

Therefore, after an introduction about the above-mentioned aspects, the paper summarises the logic of Marx’s and Lenin’s theory on communism from the standpoint of some of the above-mentioned concepts of ontology. The same outlook is affected to the concept of communism as revolution in Lenin and Trotsky and some Trotskyites. By this token, the problems: the correspondence of the discursive properties of communism and the real process, and the essential and accidental features of ‘communism’ remain open. As a consequence, a non-conformist opinion concerning what felt is suggested.

Günter Mayer

FROM MUSIC IN THE MEDIA TO MUSIC FOR THE MEDIA

Towards an Aesthetics of “Radiogenic” Music

“We have also sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds and their genera­tion. We have harmonies, which you have not … divers instruments likewise to you un­known, … strange and artificial echoes reflect­ing the voice many times, and as it were toss­ing it, … also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes in strange lines and distances”.

(Roger Bacon, The New Atlantis)

The emergence of modern audiovisual media and the power they have unfurled are part of a very real, advancing process of socialization. The media are one fea­ture of the many processes of social and political transformation which also ex­ert increasing influence on the liberation movement and its development in the former colonial and oppressed countries of the Third World. The development of the record industry (not to mention film) the development of the big, industrially organized public institutions in radio and television , and the influence of the various branches within the media industry (especially leisure electronics) have brought about a deep, worldwide change in the historically inherited insti­tution of music, in the functions and structures of old and new music alike.

The latest revolution in the media, the introduction of cable and satellite technology and new peripheral technologies, is changing the way in which millions of people live and work, thus causing further changes in the mode of exist­ence of music, that is, in the social processes of production and reproduction of musical occurrences, of their distribution and exchange, and of their appropri­ation by recipients.

Popular Music in the GDR

Günter Mayer

Internationally the German Democratic Republic is very well known for its high standard of music culture, especially in the realm of classical music. Classical music has long traditions which were followed and improved in the last decades.

Composers such as Heinrich Schütz, Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Handel, Philip Telemann, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Richard Wagner were born in or lived within the territory which became the GDR in 1949. In 1985 Dresden, Leipzig and Halle will be celebrating the anniversaries of the 400th birthday of Schutz and the 300th birthdays of Bach and Handel respec­tively. The heritage of German classical music (including Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert) is an important part of the programs of concert halls, opera houses, radio transmissions and record produc­tions. VEB Deutsche Schallplatten, for instance, released the world’s first complete edition of Beethoven including more than 120 records.

Mass-Culture in different Marxist concepts

Günter Mayer

1. Term of culture

a.)

 — not very precisely used in history of concepts on culture