The famous motto

The famous motto coined by Gramsci while imprisoned by the Fascists is still resonant: “Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” A few years ago, however, Fredric Jameson offered this necessary revision: “Cynicism of the intellect, utopianism of the will.” Such utopianism is what art needs now because it is what we all need now. The goal of this utopianism is simply this: to destroy capitalism before it destroys us. Since capitalism is the primary agent of the collapse of the environment, and because its repair must be both cooperative and international, the future state must be socialist. Indeed, we will require an entire federation of socialist states in order to tax the super-rich, to turn fossil-fuel corporations into public utilities that spearhead carbon removal, to eliminate deforestation, to undertake rewilding wherever possible, to limit meat production and consumption, to govern destructive patterns of trade, to limit air travel, to extend mass transit, to mandate green architecture, and so on. Such states will also be needed to carry out the requisite projects of infrastructure and geoengineering across the planet (to reduce greenhouse effects, the rising of the seas, the bleaching of coral reefs, etc.). It would be a wondrous ruse of history if the Trumpist “deconstruction of the administrative state” prepared the way for its reconstruction along these socialist lines. In any case, we must be prepared to make such a dialectical leap of faith, for the old ultimatum of “Socialism or Barbarism,” delivered by Rosa Luxemburg also from prison in 1915, is back with us. Above all other tasks, artists must assist in this renewed project of socialism in any way they deem to be appropriate and possible.