Arts Studies and Criticism

Early Lukács's theoretical framework primarily unfolds along “two dimensions”: one dimension focuses on the critique of capitalist society, while the other explores potential revolutionary pathways. Through dialectical analysis of totality, Lukács demonstrates that with the fundamental contradiction between the rationalization of total life and irrational living conditions, humans, as subjects of life and history, will inevitably transform their self-consciousness into class consciousness. This class consciousness emerges as an inevitable consequence of capitalist development logic. Within a specific historical and spatial context, the revolutionary significance inherent in these "two dimensions" lies in their exposure of capitalist exploitation and their confidence in future development.