Three Political Aesthetics

ABOUT

Three Political Aesthetics compares three distinct political aesthetics, operating at present: liberal, Marxist, and late fascist. A political aesthetic is defined either as a normative theory for how artworks or aesthetic strategies should be used to serve political ends, or an embodiment of this theory in practice. Liberal aesthetics involves the claim that artworks can make individuals more sympathetic citizens, via a process of empathetic identification, and is associated with liberal philosophers Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty. Contemporary Marxist aesthetics is embodied in a new wave of speculative fiction of an explicitly socialist bent—that is, when artworks are not newly rejected as a possible instigator of social change. Late fascist aesthetics can be found most notably in the QAnon conspiracy: a collective writing project, which successfully developed a new narrative about power in the United States, with major political effects. By comparing these three strategies, the book suggests that the success of fascist aesthetics should prompt us to rethink some premises about the relationship between aesthetics and political transformation.