of view is by no means negligible, although the early Socialists hardly understood the value of the comparison.
Whenever we consider questions relative to industrial progress, we are led to consider art as an anticipation of the highest and technically most perfect forms of production, although the artist, with his caprices, often seems to be at the antipodes of the modern worker.[1] This analogy is justified by the fact that the artist dislikes reproducing accepted types; the inexhaustibly inventive turn of his mind distinguishes him from the ordinary artisan, who is mainly successful in the unending reproduction of models which are not his own. The inventor is an artist who wears himself out in pursuing the realisation of ends which practical people generally declare absurd; and who, if he has made any important discovery is often supposed to be mad; practical people thus resemble artisans. One could cite in every industry important improvements which originated in small changes made by workmen endowed with the artist's taste for innovation.
This state of mind is, moreover, exactly that which was found in the first armies which carried on the wars of Liberty and that possessed by the propagandists of the general strike. This passionate individualism is entirely wanting in the working classes who have been educated by politicians; all they are fit for is to change their masters. These bad shepherds[2] sincerely hope that it
- ↑ When we speak of the educative value of art, we often forget that the habits of life of the modern artist, founded on an imitation of those of a jovial aristocracy, are in no way necessary, and are derived from a tradition which has been fatal to many fine talents. Lafargue appears to believe that the Parisian jeweller might find it necessary to dress elegantly, to eat oysters, and run after women in order to be able to keep up the artistic quality of his work (i.e. in order to keep his mind active; the artistic quality of his work, destroyed by the wear of daily life in the workshop, will be reconstituted by the gay life he leads outside) (Journal des économistes, September 1884, p. 386). He gives no reasons to support this paradox; we might moreover point out that the mentality of Marx's son-in-law is always obsessed by aristocratic prejudices.
- ↑ [This is an allusion to a play by Octave Mirbeau with that title.—Trans.]
