Unhappy consciousness, one-dimensionality, and the possibility of social transformation (original) (raw)
Related papers
Consciência infeliz, unidimensionalidade e a possibilidade de transformação social
2018
The present article departs from concepts and ideas thoroughly developed by Herbert Marcuse. As such, it deals with his approach concerning the possibility of social transformation, looking to problematize the obstacles and hardships associated to the ongoing forms of social domination. To take this through, central works such as Eros and civilization and One-dimensional man are taken up, along with a number of lesser known texts and posthumously published reflections. Asserting the influence of Hegel, Marx and Freud, it is considered possible to criticize some of the existing contradictions that mark capitalist relations, interpreting them dialectically and immanently to unveil the potentials for social change through democratic attunement.The present article departs from concepts and ideas thoroughly developed by Herbert Marcuse. As such, it deals with his approach concerning the possibility of social transformation, looking to problematize the obstacles and hardships associated t...
Social and Political Philosophy of Herbert Marcuse: "One-Dimensional Man" MSP -ESHT 3 RD Years
Herbert Marcuse (of the Frankfurt School) examines the situation of advanced industrial society under capitalism in his 1964 book "One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society." Marcuse defines the "one-dimensional man" as someone who is subjugated to a new sort of authoritarianism in the guise of consumerist and technological capitalism. Capitalism is "softly enslaving us," not via brutal tyranny, but rather by pleasant persuasion. This strategy encourages compliance and is intended to prevent resistance. Thus, a revolutionary philosopher articulated his expectations that human freedom and happiness may be substantially enlarged beyond the controlled thought and conduct typical in established society. His work quickly became an ideological handbook for the growing New Left (Great Refusal). On the other hand, Marcuse's call to war endangered the fundamental foundations of society,
Reflections on Herbert Marcuse on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Publication of One-Dimensional Man
Radical Philosophy Review, 2016
In investigating the origins and genesis of modern societies, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels developed a new materialist theory of history and society, introducing the concepts of the mode of production, forces and relations of production, division of labor, ideology, and class struggle as keys to understanding society and history. They also produced a conception of history as a succession of modes of production, charting the emergence of modern bourgeois society and its future transition to a communist society. The Marxist vision of society and history was presented in the 1848 "Communist Manifesto" in dramatic narrative form, sketching out the rise of capitalism and bourgeois society and its revolutionary overthrow by the industrial proletariat. Capital and other classical Marxian texts developed a critical theory of capitalism, a model of socialism, and a project of revolution in a theory of modernity and globalization combining political economy, social theory, philosophy, history, and revolutionary politics that provoked both fervent adherence and passionate opposition. Marx and Engels saw history as a process that moved through negation of old forms of life and the production of new ones. Modern capitalist societies in particular generated change, innovation, and development as their very mode of social reproduction. For classical Marxism, once the energies of modern industrial capitalism were unleashed, vigorous development of the means of production, the destruction of the old and the creation of the new, all constantly update and transform bourgeois society: "Constantly revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind" (Marx and Engels, Vol. 6: 487). Many different versions of Marxism emerged after the deaths of Marx and Engels. While the first generation of Marxist theorists and activists tended to focus on the economy and politics, later generations of Western Marxists appeared in Europe after the Russian revolution and developed Marxian theories of culture, the state, social institutions, psychology, and other thematics not systematically engaged by the first generation of Marxism and attempted to update the Marxian theory to account for developments in the contemporary era. Many 20 th century Marxian theorists ranging from
The Oxford Handbook of Classics in Contemporary Political Theory, ed. Jacob T. Levy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017
In his widely read classic One-Dimensional Man (ODM), Herbert Marcuse offers a political anthropology of twentieth-century liberal democracy which is deeply pessimistic and yet has been read in the 1960s and 1970s as a call to transformative action in the fields of politics and everyday life. The chapter begins by addressing the concepts introduced by Marcuse to explain why transformative political action is unlikely to succeed: manipulation, false needs, repressive desublimation. It then considers Marcuse's search for agents of change who are nevertheless able to undermine or circumvent the total power of contemporary society, as well as his normative vision of a libidinal democracy based on an implicit concept of positive freedom. Finally, the chapter assesses both the limitations of ODM and its continuing, if unacknowledged, influence among contemporary theorists who attempt to move beyond liberal theories of justice.
The main construens inheritance of One-Dimensional Man is to leave open the chance for a radical change in the possible continuation of our civilization towards a two-dimensional society, and this may be possible thanks to the level of development reached by current technology. Indeed, there is already a two-dimensional society in our past that Marcuse defines as led by the pre-technological culture. This seems to be a paradox and a contradiction: how to realize a two-dimensional society through and thanks to advanced technology, if the only example we have of such two-dimensionality is given by the pre-technological culture? One-Dimensional Man is the work through which Marcuse carries on the critique of Western society, already begun with Eros and Civilization but now stressing new topics in such a way that a possible subtitle for the book could be: technology and civilization. A book that does not absolutely define a hopeless landscape. To settle this issue it should already be sufficient to remember the information given to the reader: the book «will vacillate throughout between two contradictory hypotheses: (1) that advanced industrial society is capable of containing qualitative change for the foreseeable future; (2) that forces and tendencies exist which may break this containment and explode the society» [H. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man. Studies in the Ideology of the Advanced Industrial Society, Beacon Press, Boston, 1964, p. xlv]. Or, in other words, «rather than conceptualizing contemporary societies as closed monoliths of domination, they should be analyzed as system of contradictions, tensions, and conflicts which oscillate from stasis to change, from oppression and domination to struggle and resistance, and from stability and containment to conflict and crisis» [D. Kellner, Introduction to the Second Edition, in H. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, cit., p. xxxiv]. On the contrary, the book is a harsh criticism of the industrial advanced society that not for this reason is depicted as a black monolith. In fact, inside it, fractures, possible breaking points are identified. «Philosophical project […] pertains to a specific stage and level of the societal development, and the critical philosophic concepts refer (no matter how indirectly!) to alternative possibilities of this development» [H. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, cit., p. 222]. Some year after his famous book of 1964, in works such as An Essay on Liberation and The end of utopia, Marcuse tried to expand the liberating and alternative tendencies still present into the one-dimensional society, and even when, at the end of his life, he did not find social forces that seem able to apply for them, as in The Aesthetic Dimension, he never negated that, in spite of the absence of a social subject that may realize them, those tendencies are still present. To dwell these tendencies, trying to widen them, is precisely the purpose of that criticism. Exactly for this reason a very important pars construens, sometimes underestimated, is present in the book, where the author leaves open the chance for a radical change in the possible future development of our civilization, towards a two-dimensional society. The latter is finally possible thanks to the current level of intellectual and material development reached by the industrial advanced society. Consequently, technology plays a crucial role in this possibility. But there is already a two-dimensional society in our past that Marcuse defines as led by the pre-technological culture. It is followed by the technological culture, who Marcuse introduces in these terms: «our society distinguishes itself by conquering the centrifugal social forces with Technology rather than terror, on the dual basis of an overwhelming efficiency and an increasing standard of living.» [Ibid., p. xl.] This seems to be a paradox and a contradiction. The two pillars of any Critical Theory of society, as Marcuse characterized it, are «1. The judgment that human life is worth living (…) 2. The judgment that, in a given society, specific possibilities exist for the amelioration of human life and specific ways and means of realizing these possibilities.» [Ibid., p. xli.] Still, how to realize a two-dimensional society through and thanks to advanced technology, if the only example we have of this two-dimensionality is given by the pre-technological culture? Nevertheless, for the American/German philosopher a solution is definitely handy, handy because historical: «the “possibilities” must be within the reach of the respective society: they must be definable goals of practice.» [Ibid., p. xlii.] The solution lies in the fact that Marcuse points towards and opens to a new kind of two-dimensional society, in which, «by virtue of the rigorously historical character of the transcendence», [ibid., pp. xli-xlii] art and higher culture guarantee for it and technology permits its concrete realization. This kind of social setting has its ground in a post-technological culture. Where post- does not mean a refusing and/or a deleting of technology as such, but its absorption in and subjection to another form of Reason (evidently, not instrumental). This point definitely subtracts Marcuse to any kind of conservative reading, as if he had criticized technology as such instead of a certain kind of relation that individuals are accustomed to have with it, showing and confirming the continuous progressivism of his thought. Moreover, throughout this point it is also possible to overcome some Marxist-orthodox views, and to establish an interesting comparison with the Hegelian master-slave dialectic.
The principle ill of capitalist development is the growing alienation it imposes upon the people it affects, to the extent that a truly just society results unthinkable to them. Thus, a revolutionary theory must address the roots of the alienating processes and counter them. Such intents have been made in the work of Herbert Marcuse, and specific revisions that mirror the contemporary state of capitalism, i.e. its evolution into biocapitalism that however have not changed its essential configuration, of his work could lead to a revolutionary theory suitable to present day society. Building upon certain key concepts and notions of Marcuse’s work, Preslav Tabakov examines the different forms the alienation takes in the developed world and their consequences, while at the same time engages critically views that justify or mystify these forms of alienation. The Marcusean concept of “false needs” may well be extended to other types of embodiment such as labour, corporality and abilities, and those likewise appear as false, i.e. repressive to the individuals but beneficial to the capitalist society as a whole. After determining that the confluence of such alienating attacks produces human bodies that are inherently repressed, repressive to others and to any resistance, thus useless bodies, Tabakov goes on to propose various measures of counter-alienating tactics building upon another Marcusean concept, that of the “radical acts”. The principal finding results to be that very often the very process of alienation presents the possibilities for its subversion. This fact provides for the sketching of a more generalized revolutionary strategy that intents to not only restore the productive capacities to the individuals, but create new capacities and thus found the productive (or economic) base for a socialist society. Methodologically, Tabakov employs a variety of approaches apart from critical theory, such as Marxist analysis, phenomenology and world-systems theory, but the guiding principle is the methodological suspicion that the alienation of the individuals is not somehow a by-product of capitalist development, a certain irrationality, but its primal engine of accumulation of value.
Further Reflections on Work, Alienation, and Freedom in Marcuse and Marx
Canadian Journal of Political Science, 1973
Le socialisme tel que décrit par Marx donnerait-il naissance à un « homo ludens » ou à un « homo faber » ? Cette question a fait l'objet d'une vigoureuse controverse entre les critiques de l'œuvre de Marx depuis plus d'une décade, controverse qui portait principalement sur les premières œuvres de Marx dont l'absence de rigueur philosophique pouvait accréditer les interprétations les plus diverses. Une lecture attentive du Grundrisse de Marx, écrit dont on a peu fait cas jusqu'à tout récemment, permet de résoudre la controverse. Le présent article analyse le concept de travail chez Marx, tel qu'exposé dans le Grundrisse, et établit un rapport d'identité entre ce concept et la notion marcusienne de « loisir » (play). Il appert que Marx et Marcuse partagent la même opinion sur la nécessité de l'abolition du travail tel que nous l'avons connu jusqu'à présent, de même que sur les postulats ayant trait à la domination que l'homme est appelé ...
2018
For Herbert Marcuse, the terrifying specter of communism at the end of the 1960s served the interests of counterrevolution in discrediting revolutionary aims and legitimizing all necessary repressive counter-measures against emancipatory programs. Slavoj Žižek adds a second function, namely, that during the Cold War the specter of communism also served to humanize Western liberal democracy, necessitating strong social welfare measures and thus forming capitalism with a human face. But with the fall of the Eastern Bloc the threat to this system has become more spectral than ever, because any mild deviations from a neoliberal vision of free market capitalism now bring with them charges of totalitarianism. In the face of such formidable obstacles, Marcuse and Žižek argue that the nature and means of emancipation necessarily remain indeterminate. Hence, the emancipatory possibilities that they do sketch out remain overwhelmingly negative and spectral. This raises the question of whether...