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Title: One Dimensional Man: Studies in Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society by Herbert Marcuse ISBN: 0-8070-1417-6 Publisher: Beacon Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (7 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Prophet of the New Left
Comment: Leftist thinking underwent a dramatic change during the Sixties. After fifteen years of unprecedented prosperity, the class issues that had bedeviled the old left seemed moot. The working class, instead of being immiserated and ripe for revolution, was now contendedly (seemingly) partaking in the general boom and as far from revolution as one could imagine. Already by 1950 C. Wright Mills had coined the term "liberal-labor establishment" to disparage the conservative turn in the labor movement (specifically, the CIO). This seeming repudiation of Marx's predictions fostered a great deal of thinking by members of the Frankfurt School, which included Marcuse, about how marxism should be revised and where it went wrong. One Dimensional Man is Marcuse's brilliant attempt to answer this question.
Why is Marcuse so upset about prosperity? Following in the foot steps of Marx, Marcuse is not simply worried about economic exploitation. His basic concern is liberation--a liberation he sees receeding ever further into the distance as modern industrial society (both capitalist and communist) buys off almost all potential opponents through increased abundance. He views modern society as a treadmill where workers are kept enslaved to their jobs by the desire to purchase newer and ever more products produced by their labor. Rather than seeking for liberation, workers willingly put up with the indignities of working for their capitalist (and socialist) masters in hopes of greater material, as oppossed to spritual abundance.
Yet this society is, at its core, irrational, according Marcuse. Written at during the height of the Cold War, Marcuse views the prepartions for World War III as especially telling of the insanity of the current system.
In the first four chapters Marcuse shows how modern society is able to contain and absorb its contradictions. Marcuse is in despair that the "machine" seems to be inescapeable. With the demise of working class opposition, the "machine" seems capable of carrying on indefinitely; unless, of course, it anihilates itself in a nuclear holocaust. Readers may find chapter 3 especially interesting for its Freudian analysis of modern society.
The next four chapters are devoted to philosophy. Marcuse seeks to show how modern scientific thinking (which made modern society possible) is part of a "historical project" aimed at "domination." As opposed to this "positive thinking" (i.e., postivist) Marcuse proposes "negative thinking," i.e. dialectical thinking which includes the contradictions and negations of the thesis in the form of the antithesis. These chapters can be some rough sledding at points, but Marcuse explicates his ideas well enough that most readers will be able grasp his basic argument.
Finally, after a chapter discussing why liberation is still possible, and how it might be achieved, he wraps up in a conclusion that would seem to be a manifesto for the New Left. Having given up on the working class, Marcuse invests his hopes for revolution in people of color, whether in the U.S. or in the third world.
For understanding why the left took the turn it did during the sixties this book, along with the Port Huron Statement, is a necessity. Before plunging into One Dimensioal Man, however, the reader might do well to first read Reisman's _Lonely Crowd_ and Whyte's _Organization Man_. These books form an essential backdrop to Marcuse's thinking. (He mentions his debt to these works in his preface.)
Rating: 4
Summary: Still relevant today
Comment: Marcuse was very perceptive about the nature of our technological society.Some of his ideas still have relevance today. He saw how the state and power elites were using technology to control people's lives. This has created a new form of totalitarianism. People are massively controlled and manipulated by technology.Our freedom today is to simply to walk about in our cages and choose the wallpaper. Marcuse points out that inner freedom or private space has been invaded and whittled down by technology reality. The media is especially at fault, and things are much worse than when he wrote in 1964. False needs are so pervasive that most people are not aware of the situation. Marcuse also shows how ideas and thinking processes are being used to limit our perceptions. Marcuse is heavy going, but he has many challenging ideas. My criticism of Marcuse is that he was a materialist himself, therefore could not offer a viable way out. He did not see that the real problem was a moral collapse, and this is destroying our materialist system from the inside.If Marcuse had a spiritual outlook, he would have found the answers in a new set of non-material values.
Rating: 5
Summary: Valuable historical document
Comment: Marcuse's most celebrated book has long been surrounded with misconceptions. It is not social science, but a prophetic text which needs to be seen in the context of late 60's radicalism and the emergence of what Guy Debord called the society of the spectacle. Ostensibly a "Marxist", Marcuse was, perhaps, the last left Hegelian, who departs from Marx not just in particular prognoses but basic epistemological tenets. Marcuse's immense popularity on campus led to much resentment, hence the numerous false stories circulating about him by contemporaries ....
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