devonreardon

A nice addition to Marcuse's Eros and Civilization, One-Dimensional Man presents Marcuse's devastating characterization of advanced capitalist society as totalitarian. As in his previous work, Marcuse here follows in the footsteps of Marx (tied together with Freud, actually) in criticizing the furtherance of repression in societies with highly advanced technologies--he calls for a re-appraisal of this mode of existence (which he calls domination) and a restructuring of 'work' into 'play' (following his sketches of the concept in Eros and Civilization), claiming that the level of technology enjoyed by advanced industrial countries makes possible an existence (more or less never before experienced, at least in a non-discriminatory, universal way) in which all can labor much less than the interests of domination (corporations, the State) have compelled them--through both coercion and indoctrination--to do. He criticizes the disappearance of 'multidimensionality' in such societies, claiming that the economic 'goods' afforded by advanced capitalism (as in, eg, the economic boom of the 1950s and 60s, or the present day) has led the ordinary person to valorize the current mode of society, thus leading to the collapse of oppositional social elements and the resulting 'one-dimensional' man and society. Marcuse takes issue with a great deal of linguistical reality in advanced industrial society--he warns that prevailing conceptions of x and y in this society are shaped largely by dominant interests, and the result, he finds, is a betrayal of aspirations for human liberation. He uses the examples of 'freedom' and 'democracy' centrally here (positing that the presence or absence of democracy is not to be determined by competitive elections, etc., alone, and that the market, instead of promoting 'freedom,' really enslaves). Marcuse's account here, as an uncompromising defense of individuality and human liberation, is a crucially needed one. Its implications tend toward anarchism, though I wonder if his endorsement of liberation as possible only in the most highly advanced capitalist societies (as with Marx) reflects a lack of concern with ecological matters. I think he answers this to a certain degree in Eros and Civilization, where he claims that the artistic mode of existence made possible through revolutionary processes of human liberation would result in a rather new relationship between humanity and nature--one characterized not by domination or exploitation but beauty and respect. In any case, though, more people should read Marcuse.

2022-11-14 16:59