Soviet Philosophy by John Somerville

Author:John Somerville [Somerville, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2013-10-10T00:00:00+00:00

ART AND LABOR

It would repay us to examine Gorky’s application of this last thought to the field of literary art on one occasion: 65

“The role of the labor processes, which have converted a two-legged animal into man and created the basic elements of culture has never been investigated as deeply and thoroughly as it deserves....

“The historians of primitive culture have completely waived the clear evidence of materialist thought, to which the processes of labor and the sum total of phenomena in the social life of ancient man inevitably gave rise. These evidences have come down to us in the shape of fables and myths in which we hear the echo of work done in the taming of animals, in the discovery of healing herbs, in the invention of implements of labor. Even in remote antiquity man dreamed of being able to fly in the air, as can be seen from the legend about Phaeton, about Daedalus and his son Icarus, and also from the fable of the ‘magic carpet.’ Men dreamed of speedier movement over the earth—hence the fable of the ‘seven league boots.’ ... All the myths and legends of ancient times find their consummation, as it were, in the Tantalus myth. Tantalus stands up to his neck in water, he is racked by thirst, but unable to allay it—there you have ancient man amid the phenomena of the outer world, which he has not yet learned to know.

“I do not doubt that you are familiar with ancient legends, tales and myths, but I should like their fundamental meaning to be more deeply comprehended. And their meaning is the aspiration of ancient working people to lighten their toil, increase its productiveness, to aim against four footed and two footed foes, and also by the power of words, by the device of ‘exorcism’ and ‘incantation,’ to gain an influence over the elemental phenomena of nature which are hostile to men. The last named is particularly important, as it betokens how deeply men believed in the power of the word, and this belief is accounted for by the obvious and very real service of speech in organizing the social relations and labor processes of men.”

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