Marcuse, Herbert

One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society

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Trenchant social critique
A surprisingly disappointing book
Lacking any kind of perspective.
When We Dead Awake
Is our society one-dimensional?

One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
Herbert Marcuse
Manufacturer: Beacon Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0807014176

Book Description

Originally published in 1964, One-Dimensional Man quickly became one of the most important texts in the ensuing decade of radical political change. This second edition, newly introduced by Marcuse scholar Douglas Kellner, presents Marcuse's best-selling work to another generation of readers in the context of contemporary events. "Marcuse shows himself to be one of the most radical and forceful thinkers of this time." -The Nation

Customer Reviews:

Trenchant social critique.......2006-11-03

I first read this in college, and it is still one of my favorite books, full of perceptive, although not positive insights into western society

A surprisingly disappointing book.......2006-04-08

This is Marcuse's most famous work and one that was a major influence on and during the student revolts all over the European continent of 1968. Many of the catchphrases of that time, such as "repressive tolerance" and the like, are derived directly from Marcuse. He has since lost much of his popularity and audience, and in my view, quite deservedly so.

His main thesis is that modern man has become one-dimensional due to the totalitarian, all-encompassing exercise of power by the entrenched capitalist class. While this of itself is not such a bad idea, though certainly romanticizing and exaggerating reality, his approach to explaining and attacking it leaves very much to be desired. Marcuse overuses empty or unexplained phrases endlessly (like "cutting off perspectives through an overwhelming ossified concreteness of imagery" and similar things) while at the same time hardly making use of any prior thought or philosophy on the subject at all. This makes the impression of much ranting and little content. Even worse is his general laziness as a thinker - he never actually bothers to explain why such a full-spectrum dominance has occurred or how he wants to prove its existence, he merely asserts it and then goes on about the manifold bad effects it has.
Rather bizarre in this context, and perhaps even nihilistic, is his general dislike of what he perceives as "rationality". He only uses this word in negative contexts (particularly in the context of industrial expansion) and seems to consider it the primary form of "one-dimensional thinking", affected by the symbolism of capitalism. Now it is one thing to say that the fashionable concept of rationalism is false and ill-founded, but to reject relying on rational processes altogether as he seems to do is a bit too much.

To put it bluntly, everything Marcuse has written in this book has also been written in, say, Debord's "The Society of the Spectacle", and then in half as many words and quite more philosophically coherent. The early Marcuse (of Eros and Civilization) was much better; this book warrants no more interest than a purely antiquarian historical one.

Lacking any kind of perspective........2006-03-01

The idea that modern life is administered and that we could only begin to be happy if the government provided us with food, clothing and shelter is foolish naivety. In his pampered life of academia his absurd ramblings missed the mark in enumerable ways. Marcuse has a total lack of historical or psychological perspective - he understands nothing about mankind. The middle ages was far more administered than the late twentieth century. We currently have access to any and all information but in the Middle Ages the only input for the average person was the from the church.
His idea that life would be much improved if men did not have to prove themselves in the marketplace is really intellectual absurdity to the Nth degree. While he sucked his living off the very people that had proved themselves in the market place - he wrote this trash.

When We Dead Awake.......2005-06-09

By pure chance I found an old, tattered copy of this in a used book shop many years ago. I still recall the bizarre sensation of realizing that someone else, much older than me and way ahead of my own experiences, had expressed so accurately, so vividly, a view of society that I understood, and suspect is resonant among many, but perplexing to articulate in a way that isn't flippantly dismissed outright by those who gauge the intrinsic worth of human existence by a poisoned belief structure's merits.

Marcuse's book is a damning examination of the dynamics of 'democratic unfreedom;' technological servitude in the guise of liberty. I remember how the notion struck me, that if such societal/institutional analysis was on target in the early 1960s, just how indoctrinated and delusional must the situation be in our currently perceived time? Precisely.

Thankfully there are a few truly aware pockets of critical thought to be found, but by and large, the Few Big easily control the UNcritical masses through a constant barrage of institutional, cultural and media propaganda(entertainment equals indoctrination)and the strategically manufactured 'values' and exhaulted social practices of this UNreality are then impressed upon one person to the other as the herd 'polices' and indoctrinates via familiarity, example and ostrcism, making opposition to greed and superficiality appear absurd, futile.

Marcuse discusses artistic alienation, how the inherent properties of truth and protest found in artistic expression were defanged:
"The absorbent power of society depletes the artistic dimension by assimilating its antagonistic contents. In the realm of culture, the new totalitarianism manifests itself precisely in a harmonizing pluralism, where the most contradictory works and truths peacefully coexist in indifference. Prior to the advent of this cultural reconciliation, literature and art were essentially alienation, sustaining and protecting the contradiction-the unhappy consciousness of the divided world, the defeated possibilities, the hopes unfulfilled, and the promises betrayed. They were a rational, cognitive force, revealing a dimension of man and nature which was repressed and repelled in reality. Their truth was in the illusion evoked, in the insistence on creating a world in which the terror of life was called up and suspended-mastered by recognition. This is the miracle of the chefd'oeuvre; it is the tragedy, sustained to the last, and the end of tragedy-its impossible solution. To live one's love and hatred, to live that which one *is* means defeat, resignation, and death. The crimes of society, the hell that man has made for man become the actual unconquerable cosmic forces."

It's fascinating when observing various societal/cultural trends, tendencies and practices, to go back and see how it corresponds with Marcuse's prophetic warning...and yes, that is meant quite literally: this book is no less prophetic than Orwell's 1984, and what's more, is far more chilling in its range and scope due to it's realistic exploration of cultural indoctrination, mass delusion and mass denial. In Orwell's novel, 1984, Winston Smith's world is controlled through ideology, yes, but the Big Stick of state violence looms above perpetually, ensuring the perpetuation of an automatized populace.

Marcuse's book, on the other hand, is an irrefutable postulation of the Big Lie, the comfortably horrific ease in which society has become fatally entangled within a stupor of brainwashed self deception, welcomed, enthusiastic exploitation, zombie consumerism run amok, repression and lunatic militarism.

He uses words in a manner of stark clarification, refusing to allow modern society to slip the proverbial noose, and find comfortable, convenient excuses, denials and justifications. As the "Newsweek" review quoted on the cover appropriately exclaims: "A bitter cry of social protest, fortified by uncommon erudition and rationality."

What honest chance for our civilization, for our species, remains in such endless cycles of lunacy? Your hair would stand on end if you knew how many times we've come seconds close to accidental nuclear holocaust. That is reality, and to passively ignore it is to do so at our own peril. I wonder just how few people can actually comprehend that?...what is says about us.

The corporations and the 'Few Big' dominate the globe, and next they want the full militaristic dominance of outer space with their astonishingly psychotic "Star Wars" missle defense plan, which naturally has NOTHING to do with defense and everything to do with parting ways with long standing non proliferation treaties, and of course, global domination. Billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars are pathologically spent on nuclear weapons every year...gee, with the Soviet Union gone, who or what do ya s'pose they're gearing up for when they've already amassed enough weapons to implement race suicide a hundred times over?

This is the crucial point Marcuse is making: the populace is strategically marginalized into apathy and indifference, out and away from the concerns of policy making decisions by vested interests who strive to make huge profits by 'dumbing down' standards of humanity, tricking the public into subsidizing high end military technology, and appealing to base attractions and distractions(greed, superficiality, apathy)in order to secure the compliance of a mass of stunningly indifferent, dumb people who are actively participating in their own degredation and ultimate demise, if only by their inability and/or unwillingness to acknowledge what should be flagrantly obvious. We're all guilty of this to some degree. People tend to talk about what matters to them most...or, what they've been conditioned and programmed to care about most, right? So when you *don't* hear many around you discussing these common sense issues, life and death issues, think of the potential consequences for our species. Encourage those around you to read Marcuse's book, it outlines a lot of basic groundwork for what we, if we're to be honest, face today.

Is our society one-dimensional?.......2005-02-13

Marcuse aims with this work to construct a critique of society and seeks to tease out the dialectical relations between two hypotheses to show that our society is one-dimensional. On the one hand, that `society is capable of containing qualitative change' (p. xlvii). On the other, the idea that `forces and tendencies exist which may break which may break this containment and explode the society' (ibid.). To achieve his critique Marcuse uses two criteria, namely, that human life is worth living (in the Kantian sense) and that there exist opportunities for betterment and to improve human life. In consequence discusses the one-dimensional society, next the one-dimensional thought followed by the chances of alternatives.

As far as one-dimensional society is concerned, Marcuse aims at showing that plural social praxis tends to be eroded. If the ultimate aim of freedom of enterprise has been the exertion of autonomy and competition in the sense of constantly proving one self, Marcuse aims at pushing this logic to the point where such need is no longer required. Technology does have a crucial role in this respect as it can release `individual energy into a yet uncharted realm of freedom beyond necessity' (p. 2).

But to reach such a point (if at all) one needs to become aware of the current societal realities. In particular, not the disappearance of class, but rather, their amalgamation in that they all share a drive to preserving the establishment. Marcuse explains this phenomenon by means of the concept of "introjection" which denotes the tendency of replicating societal forms of control at the individual level.

The prevailing societal forms of control are technological in the sense of an instrumentality of reason that qualifies social production in a vicious cycle that encloses dual identities in a pure form of servitude. This is on grounds that the `progress of technological rationality is liquidating the oppositional and transcending elements of culture ... as they succumb to the process of desublimation' (p. 56). For Marcuse technological reality limits the scope of sublimation as well as the need for it by upsetting the channeling of socially unacceptable impulses towards (aesthetic) activities regarded as more socially acceptable. Under such conditions one is preconditioned for the spontaneous acceptance of whatever is offered thereby contributing to the acceptance of established general repression. Ultimately, as he puts it, `an unfree society makes for a happy consciousness which facilitates acceptance of the misdeeds of this society. It is the token of declining autonomy and comprehension' (p76).

Language and its manipulation under the guise of unified functionality seems to have exacerbated the phenomenon because it is `irreconcilably anti-critical ... anti-dialectical ... and anti-historical' (pp. 97-98), considering that critical thought and language are essentially judgmental.

Concerning one-dimensional thought, Marcuse attempts to show that plural thinking tends to be undermined. In particular, he brings forth the contrast between formal and dialectical logic, the former being based on the unified functionality of language that fixes meaning in its attempt to construct quantitatively objective descriptions of the world. In arguing that `the objective world, left equipped only with quantifiable qualities, comes to be more and more dependent in its objectivity on the subject' (p. 148), Marcuse argues in favor of a dialectical logic since it is able to undo the abstractions of formal logic.

What is at stake here is `preserving and protecting the right, the need to think and speak in terms other than those of common usage' (p. 178), which is, for Marcuse, the main task of philosophy - but not of analytic philosophy.

Finally, Marcuse offers some indication on how the alternatives mentioned in the previous two sections need to be considered with an overall focus on plurality, in particular linguistic and aesthetic in a technological rationale pushed to its extreme.

Overall a powerful book that has lost none of its appeal and relevance to contemporary societal issues, whether political, economic, cultural or technological, despite the fact that some aspects of the discussion have evolved since. One-dimensionality is here with us!

Eros and Civilization : A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud

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interesting parallels
Interesting predecessor to Deleuze and Guattari
Essential reading for all Freudo-skeptics
Indispensable reading
savage teenagers in the sixties

Eros and Civilization : A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud
Herbert Marcuse
Manufacturer: Beacon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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ASIN: 0807015555

Book Description

A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud "A philosophical critique of psychoanalysis that takes psychoanalysis seriously but not as unchallengeable dogma. . . . The most significant general treatment of psychoanalytic theory since Freud himself ceased publication." -Clyde Kluckhohn, The New York Time

Customer Reviews:

interesting parallels.......2005-12-31

I read this book perhaps 20 years ago then came across a copy again quite recently. For those interested in an anthropological approach to psychology-as-myth (the chapter on 'Origin of Repressive Civilization' is especially interesting not least because it is so very clearly wrong!) that more or less parallels a similar approach to myth and culture in the (somewhat contested) spirit of Frazer, De Santillana, Graves or even Weston this book will be of interest -- although I must say that anyone familiar with those authors will almost certainly be familiar with this one.

Interesting predecessor to Deleuze and Guattari.......2003-08-21

The most annoying feature of this book is the the continual use of the Freudian concepts of ego, Es, and so on... in the first part. To accept that, you really need to believe in the orthodox psychoanalytical theory, which maybe is a bit hard these days.
But Marcuse trascends the boundaries of psychoanalytical theory, and develops a range of arguments that stand on their own.
He thinks that society throughout History ha s been one huge repressive endeavour, accepted by the individuals because it allowed them to survive, even though it deprived them of the possibility of happiness.
But nowadays, we should have reached the stage where everyone's basic needs can be satisfied with a minimal amount of work; in fact, penury subsists only because those detaining power create it in order to justify their domination.
If everyone could free their libido, the Death instinct would disappear, because it exists only on the basis of the "Nirvana principle"(we desire destruction because death equalls with the quiet of complete satisfaction).
A porttrait of a society where everyone wouold be free to apply their libido to everyone else, and to engage in work in a way more akin to playing follows.
This sounds bit distressing, especially the concept of "jolly work", if I dare name it so. The most interesting parts are in fact the "asides", where Marcuse explains how we imagine "complete satisfaction" always to reside in a past which our memory conserves as a token both of the oppression of the individual and of the human species, how art is limited by form, the existence of which defines it as something incapable of influence on reality, the way that philosophy since Plato has cooperated with oncoming Christianity to define "Nirvana" as finding itself substantially "beyond" our world etc..
And of course, the parts where he speaks of libido applied to everyone and everything reccalls our friends Deleuze and Guatari's "desire" tracing its rhyzomatic paths.

Essential reading for all Freudo-skeptics.......2002-07-19

Marcuse's "Eros and Civilization" lays the foundations for a major critique of the fundamental tenets of Freud's theory of the mind. The German philosopher demonstrates how Freud transformed what was essentially a psychology of society into a sociology of the mind. ('Freud's "biologism" is social theory in a depth dimension"'). For Marcuse Freud's mistake was to see the repression of istincts not as a historically situated pheomenon due to particular (and therefore mutable) social conditions, but as an absolute given indispensable to the growth of civilization. Perhaps for reasons of expediency(Freud's ideas might have been still too influential in 1956 for an overt attack), Marcuse elaborates his counterargument that a non-repressive society IS possible within a Freudian framework. But the damage is done: once you read this book Freud's idea that repression is salutary and necessary for psychic development will look a lot more like what it was(late Victorian moralism) and much less like what it wasn't (science). For more along these lines try Rieff, Freud: the Mind and the Moralist.

Indispensable reading.......2000-12-27

Marcuse's attempt to combine Marx and Freud, and his vision of a non-repressive civilization (as well as his views on phantasies, art, myths and even perversions as anticipiations of such a society) is one of the masterpieces of utopian thought. After reading it your daydreams will never be the same again. It is not an easy text: the first part is certainly dry at times, and presupposes some familiarity with Freud (it is useful to read his Civilization and its discontents along with Marcuse's text). But the second part is truly of masterpiece. Anybody intesested in art, sexual liberation, ecology or psychoanalysis will find this essential reading. Far from being a rehash of Fromm, Marcuse accuses Fromm et. al. of removing the truly subversive elements from Freud. But read it, anf find out for yourself.

savage teenagers in the sixties.......2000-04-06

In my opinion this is a book written for teenagers. It seems that we are reading Erich Fromm. If you want to read Marcuse, try One Dimensional Man, that is one of his best books. It's impossible a comparison between this book and Christopher Lasch's "Culture of narcisism". To know the real Frankfurt ideas try Adorno or even the founding father of that school Walter Benjamin.

Essential Marcuse: Selected Writings of Philosopher and Social Critic Herbert Marcuse

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Essential Marcuse: Selected Writings of Philosopher and Social Critic Herbert Marcuse

Manufacturer: Beacon Press
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ASIN: 0807014338

Book Description

The Essential Marcuse provides an overview of Herbert Marcuse's political and philosophical writing over four decades, with excerpts from his major books as well as essays from various academic journals. Marcuse's writings are noteworthy for their uncompromising opposition to both capitalism and communism. His words are as relevant to today's society as they were at the time they were written.

Hegel's Ontology and the Theory of Historicity (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)

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Hegel's Ontology and the Theory of Historicity (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Herbert Marcuse
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0262132214

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This was Herbert Marcuse's first book on Hegel, written in the early 1930s when he was under the strong influence of Martin Heidegger. It provides a still unequaled Heideggerian reading of Hegel's thought that seeks the defining characteristics of "historicity" - what it means to say that a historical event happens. These ideas were foundational for Marcuse; they express a tradition known as "phenomenological Marxism," subsequently represented by Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty and by some members of the Praxis group in Yugoslavia.

The book is in two parts. The first analyzes Hegel's Logic in order to identify its ontological problematic or theory of being; by focusing on Hegel's Early Theological Writings and the Phenomenology of Spirit, the second part argues that the concept of Life in its historicity was in fact the original foundation of Hegelian ontology. Clearly this is a "purer" form of philosophizing than Marcuse was to pursue after he joined the Institut für Sozialforschung, discovered Freud, and distanced himself from Heidegger's philosophy. But there is a definite connection between his analysis of historicity in this important early work and his later attempts to understand the underlying dynamic of contemporary history and society in such books as One-Dimensional Man and Eros and Civilization.

Hegel's Ontology and the Theory of Historicity is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy,

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Eros and Civilization - A Philosophical Inquiry Into Freud
Herbert Marcuse
Manufacturer: Vintage Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Art and Liberation: Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse

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Art and Liberation: Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse
H. Marcuse
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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H. Marcuse= A modern Day H.D. Thoreau
Everybody should read this.

An Essay on Liberation
Herbert Marcuse
Manufacturer: Beacon Press
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Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

H. Marcuse= A modern Day H.D. Thoreau.......2003-04-15

A RESPONSE TO "Liberation from the Affluent Society"

My first impression of Herbert Marcuse' speech was the title. Upon reading it I thought why would anyone want to be liberated from an affluent society? It seemed rather odd to me that anyone would want to be freed from prosperity. However, upon further and deeper reading I soon learned exactly what the author meant by his title. Marcuse sees western society as an enslaving system which crushes its members into a life of bondage towards gain. Marcuse sees a need to fight against the society and to not be a normal citizen while society dictates so much in its members' lives. I believe that although Marcuse has a place in awakening the reader against the drudgery of life, overall Marcuse is a man who is too revolutionary to ever be content in the modern state of mass society.
I realized how much in common Marcuse had with the great Nineteenth Century Transcendentalist Henry Thoreau. Both men are radicals of their time. On that basis both unhesitatingly confronted the contemporary world, however shocking or bizarre their claims might seem to the conformist consensus of the establishment. Just as Thoreau challenged the government's moral decision in the Mexican War and his opposition to social conformity due the drudgery of life, Marcuse also pitted himself against the War in Vietnam and his opposition to mass society due to his position of seeing the great limitations of capitalism. Both men have basically the same struggle and that struggle is against the enslavement of society. However, they differ in the sense that Thoreau does not advocate a new social order just a method of passive resistance, whereas Marcuse in another essay advocates a Utopian alternative to the restraints of capitalism.
The central question of Marcuse's thought appears clearly in this short speech. The question being from what standpoint can society be judged now that it has succeeded in feeding its members? Recognizing the arbitrariness of mere moral outrage, Marx measured capitalism by reference to an immanent criterion, the unsatisfied needs of the population. But that approach collapses as soon as capitalism proves itself capable of delivering the goods. Then the fulfilled needs of the individuals legitimate the established system. However, Marcuse' radicalism means opposition, not just to the failures and deficiencies of that system, but to its very successes. Marcuse sees that this affluent society has ruined its members by the very nature of gain in capitalism. In his discussion of the divisions of the hippies he commends the sector that goes beyond the norm to radically oppose capitalism for its inability to bring true fulfilled in life.
It is viewed that the conflict between rationalism and irrationalism was a major division in the main thinkers of the modern era. However, Marcuse wants to go beyond that to redefine rationalism. He believes that collectively in society we have become irrational-rationales who define rationalism only as efficiency. The same efficiency was used by the Nazis to slaughter millions of Jews, but would we define that as rational? I think not. Marcuse' only real solution to this irrationality is education.
I believe overall men such as Marcuse and Thoreau have an important place because in a sense these men are like mirrors. They help the reader to step back from the chaos of life rethink our motives as to why we behave the way we do and whether or not this behavior is for our benefit.

Everybody should read this........2002-08-21

Well, the book is about 30 years old but so far it is probably one of the best observations of the forces behind the scenes which are running the western culture. It does not offer any clear conclusion but it definitely raises the level of consciousness and what is also funnier it makes visible to many social mechanisms around in the present time. Definitely a good reading, written in a good normal language which is easy to understand... Enjoy.

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Eros and Civilization - A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud
Herbert Marcuse
Manufacturer: Beacon Press, Boston
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H3T434

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An addendum written in the midst of decline

Counterrevolution and Revolt
Herbert Marcuse
Manufacturer: Beacon Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0807015334

Customer Reviews:

An addendum written in the midst of decline.......2001-03-03

Marcuse's short work Counterrevolution and Revolt, written in 1972, has four sections: "The Left Under the Counterrevolution," "Nature and Revolution," "Art and Revolution" and "Conclusion." One must imagine the political situation to which Marcuse addresses the work: the New Left, whose advances and promises were so recently great, has suffered a quick decline for two key reasons. The first was that the adaptability of the capitalist-consumer system to convert "the entire individual-body and mind-into an instrument, or even part of an instrument: active or passive, productive or receptive, in working time and free time," all for service of the system (14). Commodification had become universal; culture, even "high" culture was available in commodity form. The proletariat no longer exists as the negation of the capitalist system, but rather, as an absorbed part of it through commodity accumulation. Individual identity resides in commodity and one's job. Counter institutions, such as those the New Left desired, were difficult, if not impossible, to establish in a fashion that could gain popular support. In fact, the New Left itself had dissension and division that was the other key reason for its decline. Marcuse admonishes the New Left for its concretion of Marxian theory, he cites the difficulty of a critical language's ability to stay negative of that which it opposes without being absorbed by it. Drawing form the difficulties of the New Left, Marcuse proclaims "While it is true that people must liberate themselves from their servitude, it is also true that they must first free themselves from what has been made of them in the society in which they live. This primary liberation cannot be 'spontaneous' because such spontaneity would only express the values and goals derived from the established system. Self-liberation is self-education but as such it presupposes education by others" (46-47), revealing the "authoritarian tendencies among the New Left" (47). Much of Marcuse's arguments here draw from his seminal work One-Dimensional Man (1964, highly recommeded), which was considered as a type of bible for certain members of the New Left. Also of interest from Marcuse are his An Essay on Liberation (1969, like CRR, may be considered an addendum to One-Dimensional Man) and Negations (a collection of essays originally written in German 1934-38, trans. 1968). As for others, Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle (1967), Jean Baudrillard's Symbolic Exchange and Death (1976) and Simulacra and Simulation (1981), and much of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology. Certainly, other Frankfurt School (Critical Theory) figures such as Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin (esp. his "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" in Illuminations).

Eros and Civilization (A Philisophical Inquiry into Freud)

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Eros and Civilization (A Philisophical Inquiry into Freud)
Herbert Marcuse
Manufacturer: The Beacon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000EVEAU6

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