The tensions still exist in the movement, between the activists and the traders but more often than previously these are creative rather than destructive. The concept of the Co-operative Commonwealth survives, though dismissed as 'utopian ' by many marxists. With marxism's feet of clay becoming more and moire exposed, however, the duty of the idea is becoming more attractive and, more importantly, practicable. It is used to refer to those 'great' authors, poets, architects, painters, sculptors, composers, etc., who revolutionised their art during the last hundred years. If we consider the threads that connect such diverse people as James Joyce,T. S. Elliot, Corbusier, Chagal, Moore and Bartok, we may find the basis for recognising 'modernism' within the art of politics.
Modernism struggles with silence.
Like the great Eastern mystics, it is what cannot be said, represented, played or built that is most important. In literature, Modernism pushes language to its asymptote, attempting to express the unsayable. Musical pieces have been written using a single note, or a set length of silence. Group psychotherapy makes much of silence, and our fear of it. Amongst anarchists, there is always a tension between those who do, and keep very quiet about it, and those who communi- cate, but rarely about what they do.