The Basic Arguments of Marcuses One Dimensional Man Thesis - Essay Example

THE ONE-DIMENSIONAL MAN AND CONTEMPORARY CAPITALISM By and number Location While a member of the Institute of Societal Research in Frankfurt, Herbert Marcuse developed a model for critical social theory, created a theory of the new stage of state and monopoly capitalism, and described the relationships between philosophy, social theory, and cultural criticism. In his most influential work, One-Dimensional Man (1964), Marcuse argued that society under advanced capitalism is not “free,” as advertised, but inevitably repressive. Marcuse may be credited with one of the most important areas of study to social scientists of the twentieth century: “the calling attention to new forms of domination, repression and social control in advanced industrial societies” (Kellner, 1984: 5). Modern man, he contends, has become intellectually and spiritually complacent through his psychological dependence on the accoutrements of consumerism and the consumer society itself (repressive desublimation)—“key notions and images of literature and their fate [through the process of technological rationality [disposes of] oppositional and transcending elements in the "higher culture" (Marcuse, 1964, chapter 3: para. 1) Marcuse, equally critical of the Soviet system, offers a wide-range of criticism both of contemporary capitalism and the Soviet model of communism as it documents the parallel rise of new forms of social repression in both societies. "...totalitarian" is not only a terroristic political coordination of society, but also a non-terroristic economic-technical coordination which operates through the manipulation of needs by vested interests’ (Marcuse, 1964, chapter 1: para. 5). “Our [western] 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” which is not happiness, nor freedom, nor consistent with any social or political reality that, while the system appears reasonable is hardly so and in fact, profoundly irrational. However, it is western capitalism to which Marcuse directs his strongest and most pointed disapproval. “Herbert Marcus has displayed a prophetic vision that challenges the public to either comprehend the forces that shape their lives or limit their discourse and remain captured in a lesser dimension” (The Search for Freedom, 2001: para. 3). With the spread of capitalism through globalisation of economies, the work, ideas and arguments put forth in The One Dimensional Man are equally and perhaps more relevant, obvious and urgent today as they were in 1964. The Basic Arguments Advanced industrial society he argues, creates false needs by integrating individuals into the existing system of obsessive production and consumption by means of the mass media, advertising, industrial management, and contemporary modes of thought over which it has total control—a situation that necessarily results in a "one-dimensional" universe—a sameness of thought and behaviour in which aptitude and ability for critical thought and oppositional behaviour wither away. Marcuse believes a society can never be free under the current technological capitalist system and that true freedom can only be attained outside of its oppressive dictates. Marcuse writes: The rights and liberties which were such vital factors in the origins and earlier stages of industrial society yield to a higher stage of this society: they are losing their traditional rationale and content. Freedom of thought, speech, and conscience were-just as free enterprise, which they served to promote and protect--essentially critical ideas, designed to replace an obsolescent material and intellectual culture by a more productive and rational one. Once institutionalized, these rights and liberties shared the fate of the society of which they had become an integral part. The achievement cancels the premises. (Marcuse, 1964, chapter 1: para. 2) As example, people would only have to work as little as possible to provide for their needs, not an established amount of time. People can only truly determine what they really need and want and what makes them happy when free from a system that is continually telling them what that is, creating what he calls "false needs" (Marcuse, 1964: 4-5) These needs must be limited to the range of choices the economy and system wishes to provide, needs that essentially reinforce the social norms necessary for the perpetuation of its own existence. “...there is recurrent tendency in reading Marcuse to use “one dimensionality” as a totalizing concept [that] absorbs all opposition into a totalitarian, monolithic system” (Marcuse, 1964, Introduction: Kellner xxvi). Within this monolithic system the “...society may justly demand acceptance of its principles and institutions, and reduce the opposition [social or political] to the discussion and promotion of alternative policies within the status quo” (Marcuse, 1964, chapter 1, para. 3). Marcuse is highly critical of advanced [western] societies [welfare/warfare states] such as the U.K, which he describes thusly as the “...concentration of the national economy on the needs of the big corporations, with the government as a stimulating, supporting, and sometimes even controlling force; hitching of this economy to a world-wide system of military alliances, monetary arrangements...” ( (Marcuse, 1964, chapter 2: para. 1), an arrangement fostering the automatic assimilation of anyone not in power through a virtual “pre-established harmony between scholarship and the national purpose; invasion of the private household by the togetherness of public opinion; opening of the bedroom to the media of mass communication...” (para. 1) to further enforce the “norm” as surreptitiously dictated by the powers that be. In essence, free will and thought, then, are an illusion. Man is predestined to believe that he is experiencing is “best” and in essence, “the way it is and should be.” Welfare/Warfare states, he contends, restrict freedom because they limit free time, access to necessary goods and services, and citizens ability to realize true self-determination. As has been suggested by other social and political analysts, the warfare state or state continually fighting an “enemy” hinders true analysis of the actual workings of the society in which the individual lives, as they are forever focused, encouraged by the government and media, on this "enemy" instead of on the determination and resolution of internal social problems, many of which may be cited as their own inability to rest control of their daily lives from “big brother.” The one-dimensional trend tends also to solidify the industrial/military complex in one indistinguishable body of thought that “overrides competitive group interests,” (Marcuse, 1964, chapter 2: para. 2), eliminating independent thoughts and opinions contrary to the accepted belief system which allows for a smooth consensus regarding foreign policy and the making of war. Cautions regarding the dangers of the military/industrial complex were not indigenous to Marcuse alone. It was first described by President Eisenhower in his farewell address, where he warned of its irresponsible power. (UTube, Farewell Speech, 1961). Regarding intimidation and warmaking, Marcus draws a subtle distinction between Soviet totalitarian control and the Western version. “... advanced industrial society [as] a self-interested and perpetuating entity] becomes richer, bigger, and better as it perpetuates the danger [among the people]... 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 (Marcus, 1964: chapter 2: para. 2). Marcuse maintains that what is presented as reason in this arrangement is actually irrational from the Marcusean perspective. The advanced technological society is presented as rational in that in their subjugation individuals, banned together, present a greater largess. The society in its natural state of slave and master is transformed to a more “rational” arrangement that hypothetically benefits all. “The limits of this rationality, and its sinister force, appear in the progressive enslavement of man by productive apparatus which perpetuates the struggle for existence and extends it to a total international struggle which ruins the lives of those who build and use this apparatus...At this stage it becomes clear that something must be wrong with the rationality of the system itself” (Marcuse, 1964, 148) Marcuse, however, does not intimate that this situation is a complete child of capitalism. Hinman writes: Marcuse never says that one-dimensional society sprang fully clothed with the birth of capitalism. He clearly describes one-dimensional thought as an unfolding process, one which did not always dominate society. (Hinman citing Marcuse, ODM 43; para. 29) But Marcuse and critical theory in this respect has not resigned itself to the imperfect. Marcuse is merely being realistic from an historical sociological perspective in recognizing man’s progressive march toward one-dimensionality. Hinman writes: When critical theory seeks alternative consciousness in social forms which are not "capitalist social forms," it is not resigning in defeat, it is simply seeking to re-define the situation, which is the only way to escape a catch-22. After all, there are no "capitalist social forms," there is no "capitalist society," there are social forms in a society which has been commodified and subjugated by capitalist assumptions. Society must change the basic assumptions about life if it is ever to move beyond its present commodified state, and to circumvent the process of one-dimensionality which is gaining hegemony. (Hinman, para. 45) Regarding the structure of what might be considered norms in capitalist society, critical theory allows that its legitimacy or rationality is intrinsically tied to “claims of “rightness” and “correctness” then beyond the mere motivational justification for the belief, questions concerning the rationality of the belief can be raised” (Held, 1980: 330). In essence then, what man believes living under the capitalist system as practiced has much to do with his sense that it is reasonable and thereby acceptable to believe he possesses freedom of thought and expression while all the while being complete subjugated to norms of behavior in reality dictated. He has lost his ability to live freely in the “public sphere” and is denied a forum of debate where he can “confer in “unrestricted fashion” and “proceed[s] in accordance with standards of critical reason and not by simply appeal to traditional dogmas...” (Held citing Habermas, 1980: 260). Modern Capitalism and The One-Dimensional Man “Marcuse was engaged in a life-long search for a revolutionary subjectivity, for a sensibility that would revolt against the existing society and attempt to create a new one” (Kellner, HM and The Quest: para. 1). While his critique of Marxism “into sterile orthodoxy” (Kellner 5) was pointedly directed to the Soviet system, capitalist industrial societies were not immune, and his basic theories are useful in analyzing contemporary capitalism both in the newly “capitalized” Soviet system and the established industrial capitalist societies on so many levels they must be taken and analyzed singly. A central point in the application of Marcuse to contemporary capitalist society is reflected in remarks by Freeburg regarding the adjudged success of a society based on the provision of basic needs and that perception as a stumbling block to the individual’s real quest for satisfaction. Freeburg writes, that “as soon as capitalism proves itself capable of delivering the goods” (Freeburg, 1992: para. 5) it is deemed valid on all levels. Criticism and opposition to certain aspects becomes pointless since we are forced to essentially say and believe that this system has given us everything we need, so stop complaining. To do so seems irrational. We are constantly being told that we have it good, and its all because of capitalism and the basic and material needs it supplies. In later writings Freeberg states, “Marcuse believed that the elimination of true individuality in one-dimensional society explained the absence of opposition” (Freeberg, 2005:2) Modern capitalism, to a great degree, has formed, evolved and maintained its status quo in relationship to individuals and societal workings in general and in comparative relationship to communism [the threat]. Freeburg however, citing a last speech by Marcuse, writes, “With the collapse of Soviet communism, the last alibi of historicist opposition to capitalism has died. We can no longer rest our case for change, if we ever did, on the realized achievements of ‘socialism.’ We are one step closer to a world in which only Marcuses type of principled opposition is available. His thought has never been more relevant [as it is today]” (Freeburg, 1992: para. 9). Consider the role of consumerism and its promotion by advertising and the media, a point appropriately taken by Marcuse and one central to his theories. Applied to modern capitalism, especially as it is practiced in the larger western economies, it is perhaps the most damaging aspect contributing to a one-dimensional approach to existence in capitalist societies. Consider the quote by Stefansson: “...Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public” (Stefansson, Quotes About Advertising). So then advertising, true or false, leads us to the same irrational conclusion. True or not we can not avoid advertising and thus the purchase of products, most of which we do not need. This, however, is intrinsic to consumer society and necessary for the perpetuation of the myth that ‘we need these things’ and capitalist society provides them as no other system can. From the modern perspective of Cronk, “The public fetishistically substitutes consumer ideals for the lost acculturating experiences of art, religion and family” (Cronk, 1996: para. 3), a reality consistent with the Marcuse theory of repressive desublimination that robs us of our ability and determination to seek out higher evidence and levels of culture. “Consumerism is the myth that the individual will be gratified and integrated by consuming” (Cronk, 1996: para. 3)—a myth that in man’s one-dimensional state he does makes no effort to look beyond. Extrapolating, “The reduction of cultural values to economic worth has produced a situation in our enlightened society where product availability, as opposed to survival needs, becomes ethical justification for political oppression” (Cronk, 1996: para. 5), which leads to an inevitable discussion of the impact of capitalism globally. In the war torn Democratic Republic of the Congo and a conflict lies a mineral, coltan, used in all electronic devices from laptops to cell phones in modern capitalist societies. People there are forced by a small profit seeking majority to dig the valuable mineral with bare hands. It is an example of global capitalism spreading it tentacles in a manner that can hardly be considered supplying the needs of anyone, except, perhaps the corporations who “outsource” the gathering of the material to locals, “creating a paradigm of rape, slavery and capitalist profit” (Conflict Minerals, 2009: para. 1-5). A paradigm, exactly, one which when applied indicates we aren’t thinking very much about this aspect of capitalism, and that, as Marcuse maintains, we are immersed in sameness of thought and behaviour in which aptitude and ability for critical thought [on the results of capitalist endeavors in the Congo] and oppositional behaviour wither away. We not only say nothing in great numbers, but are unable at this point to even think about the problem in a critical manner. The U.S. with the help of the U.K. are making war in the middle east at great profit to the military and industrial machine, which, hand in hand with governments have what Marcuse contends is a “false need” for the necessity to even be there. Companies such as Blackwater Industries, a suspiciously ‘private’ military security firm made millions, while many died and the rest sat at home accepting the situation in their blind inability or lack of willingness to provide counter arguments that would, by the society, be considered radical and out of place. Within which the social context products of labour take on the form of social relationship. If as Marx contends, and would be agreed with by Marcuse, that products are essentially “social hieroglyphics,” (Marx, 1994: 234) then our symbol set as modern capitalistic society has grown disproportionately to our ability to decipher the different between that which we need and that which we have been convinced we either need or want. Conclusion Contrary to both Kellner and Marcuse, contends that theories projected in the One-Dimensional man are not “speculative” (Stojanow, 2004: para.3) and are too Utopian in their dialectic. Utopian prospects aside, Marcuse purpose in exploring the theories were never meant to produce a Utopian society, yet the basic theories in today’s modern capitalist can not be take lightly and are, upon examination, relevant to the understanding of how we live and why. Without realizing, Stojanow admits the basis of Marcuse theories have benefits to modern critical thinking that go beyond the development of a perfect society by quoting Marcuse himself. “The books deal with certain basic tendencies in contemporary industrial society which seem to indicate a new phase of civilisation. These tendencies have engendered a mode of thought and behaviour which undermines the very foundations of the traditional culture. (Stojanow, 2004: para. 12) These are ideas we, as products of the capitalist culture, would do well to heed, understand and internalize if we are serious about evolving into societies truly interested in our own self-fulfillment as citizens of the world with its true interest at hear. He [Marcuse] says that instead of going along with the status quo we would do well to stop thinking positively about all we have be convinced to believe as true and begin to recognize the possibilities in a society rested from the control of the forces which have only their own interests at heart. --promotes the “great refusal” as the only adequate opposition to all-en-compassing methods of As Kellner maintains, “The One-Dimension Man is an important work of critical social theory that continues to be relevant today as the forces of domination that Marcuse dissected have become stronger and more prevalent in the years since he wrote the book” (Marcuse, 1964, Introduction, Kellner: xi). Bibliography Conflict Minerals and Civil War in the Congo. December 27, 2009. http://endofcapitalism.com/category/consumerism/ Cronk, R. (1996). Consumerism and the New Capitalism. http://www.westland.net/venice/art/cronk/consumer.htm Eisenhower, Dwight D. (January 16, 1961).Farewell Speech: Eisenhower Warns Us of the Military/Industrial Complex UTube: http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=yfp-t-701-s&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF8&rd=r2&p=dwight%20eisenhower%20farewell%20speech Feenberg, A. (1992) Marcuse: Obstinancy as a Theoretical Virtue. http://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/cns.htm Feenberg, A. (2005) Heidegger, Marcuse and the Philosophy of Technology. http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/feenberg/hm.pdf Held D. (1980). Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Harbermas. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. Hinman, J.L One-Dimensional Man in The Postmodern Age: Re-Thinking The Bourgeois Subject, Toward the Sensibilities of Freedom. http://negations.icaap.org/issues/97f/97F_jhinman2.html Kellner, D. (1984). Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. Kellner, D. Herbert Marcuse and the Search for Radical Subjectivity. Libcom.org. http://libcom.org/library/herbert-marcuse-quest-radical-subjectivity-0 Marcuse, H. One-Dimensional Man. Boston: Beacon Press Books, 1964; online Chapter version: June 18, 2005. http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/64onedim/odm1.html Google Books version: http://books.google.com/books?id=XwC0xZU5z7kC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_slider_thumb#v=onepage&q=&f=false Marcuse, H. One-Dimensional Man. Boston: Beacon Press Books, 1964; online Chapter version: June 18, 2005. http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/64onedim/odm1.html Google Books version: http://books.google.com/books?id=XwC0xZU5z7kC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_slider_thumb#v=onepage&q=&f=false Marx K. (1994). Selected Writings. Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company. Stefansson, V. (1964), Quotations About Advertising http://www.quotegarden.com/advertising.html Stojanow, J. (January 29, 2004), Marcuse’s Critique on Modern Classless Society. http://www.jgora.dialog.net.pl/OnTheAbsoluteRationalWill/Marcuse.htm The Search for Freedom, Part II, One Dimensional Man. (Novemver 23, 2001). http://www.alternativeinsight.com/One_dimensional_man.html Read More