Marcuse and the Frankfurt School: Understanding the Function of Critique and His Critique of Society (original) (raw)

Reviews Herbert Marcuse's Thoughts On Critical Theory

European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine, 2021

Critical theory was one of the most phenomenal philosophical discussions of the late 19th century. The critical theory was initiated by the Frankfurt School with one of its characters being Herbert Marcuse. Marcuse analyzed various social inequalities due to the industrialization of technology capitalism. This research will review Herbert Marcuse's thoughts on critical theories. This research uses a philosophical short article, which is to study Herbert Marcuse's thinking in an ideal state. Data used in secondary data and analyzed descriptively qualitatively. The results showed that Herbert Marcuse was an inspiration for the 'new left' movement and the first generation of the Frankfurt School. Marcuse's doctrine of the political system and social system was very radical from orthodox communists. Capitalism society was the source of Herbert Marcuse's study, which was regarded as a modern society. Herbert Marcuse criticized the capitalist society that gave rise to a One Dimensional Society that was largely drugged by various false and pseudo interests. Social democracy was also criticized by Marcuse. Ideally, social democracy contains humanitarian values that uphold equality, justice, and freedom.

Marcuse: A Critic in Counterrevolutionary Times

2016

As a critique of neoliberalism, this article considers Marcuse’s formulations on “paralysis of criticism” presented in his seminal text One-Dimensional Man. This is not a pessimistic perspective. Rather, the author promotes a social diagnosis on political struggles, considering the new challenges of advanced industrial societies to radical subjective experiences of emancipation. The article centers upon, it is important to note, a frequent question in Marcuse’s inquiries: How do we think critically in counterrevolutionary times? This is a question that mobilizes dialectics to revolutionary trends as it expresses an effort to re-think traditional categories of Critical Theory in their “obsolescence.” In a world of “no alternatives,” obsolescent categories are symptom of its diseases. Such obsolescence contrasts immediate relations of status quo with “radical” mediations of social forces. It mobilizes criticism in “catalytic” processes to emancipate “centrifugal social forces” from below, a qualitative leap to social changes able to face counterrevolutionary times.

What is Immanent Critique? Marcuse's Critical Theory of Society

The Marcusean Mind, 2025

For many scholars today, immanent critique refers to criticism that seeks to improve existing society by showing how it fails to live up to its own standards. For Herbert Marcuse, by contrast, immanent critique is the method of a critical theory of society. It does not, for him, seek to illuminate strategic action but rather endeavors to expose a dynamic that points beyond itself: to the realizable “ought” immanent in the “is.” In other words, Marcuse’s immanent critique forms the basis of a critical theory that necessarily aims at an emancipated society beyond capitalism. This essay recovers Marcuse’s theory of immanent critique to highlight its importance for emancipatory theory and praxis today. I show that, for him, the standpoint of critique is immanent to its object; that critique is grounded in the contradictory character of our society; and that it seeks society’s historical negation. I unfold five major pillars of immanent critique in his work: (i) the categories of critique are an indictment of the totality of existing society; (ii) the indictment of society is not found in moralistic language but in the method of critique; (iii) the categories of critique do not terminate in existing order but seek its negation; (iv) critique must seek to abolish its own object of analysis; and (v) even the descriptive moments of critique aim at a new form of society because its ultimate, if not immediate, goal is emancipation. In other words, I argue, the categories of immanent critique, for Marcuse, are used to address themselves to a truth that can only be had through the abolition of capitalist society.

Herbert Marcuse's Critical Refusals

Radical Philosophy Review, 2013

Recent years have witnessed a revival of interest in Marcuse's critical theory. This can be partly ascribed to Marcuse's interdisciplinary approach to humanities and social sciences. Many of Marcuse's ideas and concepts are tacitly present in contemporary social and ecological movements. Contemporary literature on Marcuse is positively inclined to his theory while the critique of Marcuse dates back to the '70s, and remains largely unimpaired. This fact poses significant challenges to the revival of Marcuse's critical theory. This study sets out to report on current interest in Marcuse's critical theory trying to correct "past injustices" by responding to negative criticism. The main flaw of such criticismas we see itis in failing to perceive interdisciplinary character of Marcuse's critical theory. Marcuse's renaissance cannot be complete without, to use dialectical term, sublating the history of negative criticism.

Utopian Thinker: Marcuse on Utopia and the Possibilities for Social Change

SABTON: Multidisciplinary Research Journal , 2019

In a world that denigrates and wards off the power of imagination in effecting social change, Marcuse stands as one of the most enduring intellectuals whose utopian character remains relevant today. He rejects the finality of the existing society and believes in the possibilities for social change. Interestingly, his strong conviction toward imagining alternatives to the existing society earned him a reputation for being a utopian thinker. Along these lines, this paper will then focus on Marcuse as a utopian thinker by exploring the notion of utopia and its relation to possibilities for social change. I argue, following Marcuse, that one's ability to imagine could further evoke possibilities for social change. Indeed, Marcuse was not only critical of advanced industrial society, but he was also imaginative of what it could still become. Alternatively, one could say that he was critical of the intolerable social conditions precisely because he was imaginative of a better world in the first place.

Inklings of the Great Refusal: Echoes of Marcuse’s post technological rationality today

In A. Lamas, T. Wolfson, & P. Funke (Eds.), The great refusal: Herbert Marcuse and contemporary social movements (pp. 258-282). Philadelphia: Temple Univesity Press, 2017

My principal aim in this chapter is to reclaim Marcuse’s vision for a politics of refusal and social transformation for contemporary radical left practices seeking alternative socioeconomic and organizational realities. In the process, I implicitly suggest the efficaciousness of Marcuse’s Critical Theory of technology for radical alternatives that struggle against an ocean of neoliberal values and practices while forging new islands of another technological and social reality. The first part of the chapter briefly maps out what I view to be key elements of Marcuse’s politics of refusal. In the second part, I illustrate a few contemporary echoes of Marcuse’s politics of refusal via three moments of alternative social and economic arrangements that have been emerging from out of the crises and contradictions of neoliberalism: (1) alternative community economies, (2) radical education initiatives, and (3) recuperated spaces of production. They are illustrative inklings, I ultimately suggest, of Marcuse’s Great Refusal today.