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Schoolman, Morton (1980) - The Imaginary Witness. The Critical Theory of Herbert Marcuse
Schoolman, Morton (1980) - The Imaginary Witness. The Critical Theory of Herbert Marcuse
T H E CRITICALTHEORYOF
HERBERT MARCUSE
MORTON SCHOOLMAN
*%
-I
The
Imaginary W itness
•>
The
Imaginary Witness
The Critical Theory of
Herbert Marcuse
Morton/Schoolman
Preface xi
________________ One___________________
Early Writings, Early Hopes 1
L ordship and B ondage 3
H eidegger and Historicity 3
Hegel and Historicity 13
Marx and Historicity 22
The Historical Tasks o f Philosophy 28
____________________Two___________________
Fascism, Rationalism,
and the
Abandonment of the Individual 42
A uthoritarian State 44
A uthoritarian S ociety 48
T he T heoretical R esponse to A uthoritarianism 67
Three
The Second Dimension 89
B asic Elements of the Interpretation of Freud 90
R epression and Sublimation 97
Vll
Vlll
C ontents
Five
Civilization Without Discontents II:
The Regime W ithin and the Regime Without 229
T he Psychological U nderpinnings of O ne -dimensionality 231
T oward a R econstruction of the S ubject 247
R ationalism , D eterminism , and the
P reinterpretation of Freud 257
________________________Six_______________________
Civilization Without Discontents III:
The Foundations of Critical Theory
and the New Science 261
T he P hilosophical F oundation 265
T he A nthropological Foundation and the N ew S cience 282
Eight
The Aesthetic Dimension and the Second Dimension 324
A rt for the S ake of T heory 326
C ritical and U ncritical E lements of A rt 329
A rt for the S ake of A uthoritarianism 332
For the Sake o f Fascism 332
For the Sake o f Soviet Marxism 333
For the Sake o f Advanced Industrial Society 335
A rt for the S ake of F reedom 340
B ourgeois A rt as the F inal R efuge for C riticism 343
X C ontents
*
____ Concluding Remarks____
The Imaginary Witness 350
Bibliography 359
W orks by H erbert M arcuse
■» 359
S econdary W orks on H erbert M arcuse 374
Index 394
Preface
XI
Xll
P reface
*
ONE
1
2 T he I maginary W itness
political and social life and action] du rin g that stage, at the sam e
tim e I wrote articles o f Marxist analysis for the then theoretical o r
gan o f the German Socialists, Die Gesellschaft. So I certainly was in
terested, and I first, like all the others, believed there could be som e
com bination between existentialism and M arxism , precisely b e
cause o f their insistence on concrete analysis o f the actual hu m an
existence, hum an beings and their w orld .3
from and against the reified world of affairs, even though this in
dividual now views this world in fetishized terms. Within the ex
tended framework the individual is understood to be constrained
to view the world ideologically but not determined to do so. And
constraints can be shattered. ^
On both of these accounts a conclusion can be drawn, albeit
quite tentatively at this stage. In Marcuse s estimation reification
is not the crucial issue for theoretical inquiry. What is to be deci
sive in the historical situation that Marcuse is investigating are
not the factors that inhibit radical action and a critical perspec
tive of the society.
What, then, are the decisive factors? Marcuse does not pose
this question explicitly. But by way of calling attention to partic
ular inadequacies in Marxist theory, Marcuse asks, “does the
theoretical basis from which Marxism derives its truth, i.e., the
necessity for the historical [revolutionary] activity that it ad
dresses and comprehends, come from a full grasp of the phe
nomenon of historicity?”10 “Historicity” —there is, perhaps, no
more important concept in Marcuse’s first writings. It expresses
the inspiration and incorporates the general focus provided by
Heidegger, both of which were noted earlier. By identifying fac
tors that dispose the individual to action, the conception of histo
ricity begins to chart progress toward the formation of a socialist
consciousness. In spite of social relations of domination, the the
ory of historicity maintains, the enslaved individual, the “bonds
man” in Hegel’s terms, possesses attitudes toward existence that
potentially undermine the perpetuation of domination as much
as they actually support it. Historicity thus offers the possibility
of envisioning an end to the Marxist dilemma. The individual
may be heavily burdened by the mystifications of ideology, but
at a deeper level of existence he is simultaneously disposed to a
radically different and unfettered social experience. Before dis
cussing specific existential characteristics that historicity makes
visible, precisely what does Marcuse mean by historicity and why
is there a question as to whether Marxism grasps this phenom
enon completely?
The clearest definition of historicity to be found in Marcuse’s
early essays sharply outlines its conceptual properties. “All deter
minations of radical action,” Marcuse explains, “join together in
their basic determination [of radical action] as historicity” (flies-
Early Writings, Early Hopes 9
The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dog
mas, but real premises from which abstraction can be made only in
the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and
the material conditions under which they live, both those which
they find already existing and those produced by their activity.16
In keeping with Marx, Marcuse argues that “every genuine
method permits its approach to be guided by the manner in
which its object is given.”17
“Concrete philosophy” is the form of investigation that emerges
from Marcuse’s theory of historicity. It is distinguished from all
other aspects of Marx’s theory and from subsequent versions of
Marxism, such as Lukacs’s, that have encouraged a disregard of
the individual. For Marcuse, the premises of concrete philosophy
are identical to those of historical materialism. These premises
are simply ordinary people, the “objects” that are to provide the
guidelines for any theoretical discussion of political practice.
Now, what are the determinants of action for each individual?
Action, First of all, has an “existential” basis. It is determined
“existentially.” Existential action, Marcuse appears to be saying
in his early essays, is action that arises from existence and that
has existence as its goal. For example, in The German Ideology,
Marcuse suggests, Marx interpreted the activities of material
production and reproduction as categories of existential action.
To be precise, both are types of existential, “practical” action —
practical in the sense that they insure survival and arise in re
sponse to the problem of satisfying basic needs; existential in the
sense that they are rooted essentially in the very structure of exis
tence because man must always produce to meet human needs
and reproduce the means of production.
Yet it is not existential action that intends mere existence as its
goal that is of primary interest to Marcuse. He is searching for
modes of existential action that project definite forms of exis
tence. It is here that Heidegger’s philosophy becomes especially
pertinent. For the average individual, Marcuse explains, life’s
possibilities and the decisions about which possibilities are to be
seized and made reality are preordained. The great majority of
people submit unreflectively to the values and aspirations of the
public consensus. At all times and in all his purposes the individ
ual bends under the weight of social pressures. But the plight of
the ordinary individual, which stands out in the typical features
12 T he Imaginary W itness
social structure, that is, division of labor. When the issue is then
raised, on what grounds is capitalism to be judged, Marcuse’s
view is that standards of critical evaluation are to be found al
ready formed within capitalist society.
This point is decisive, of course, for it carries two very impor
tant implications. First, there is no danger that the ideological
principles of capitalism would serve as the final basis for de
termining its rationality. The rationality of capitalism would
always be challenged from within by the insights of working-class
individuals, which are inevitable expressions of the system’s
structural arrangements. Second, since critical standards of ra
tionality are internal to capitalism, there is no need to resort to
transcendental conceptions of right, the good, or other such uni
versal. In fact, since Marcuse’s theory of historicity maintains
that all meaning, including standards of truth and validity, are
formed within a historical, social context, his theory excludes a
transcendental foundation for criteria of rationality.
By maintaining that conceptual meaning, in particular, crite
ria of rationality, that is, concepts of truth and falsity or of right
and wrong, is always defined within a social context, Marcuse
has explicitly followed not only Hegel (as he is interpreted in
Hegel's Ontology) and Marx but Wilhelm Dilthey as well. Dil-
they’s view that all meaning is formed within and is relative to a
social context is endorsed by Marcuse. Dilthey, Marcuse ex
plains, understood that
all the [social] structures and [cultural] form s o f [historical-societal]
reality . . . have been produced by a definite historical life. And
only as such products in the concrete coherence of the respective life
do they have existence and meaning.34
Marcuse’s agreement with Dilthey that meaning cannot be de
cided on some universal, objective basis independent of social
life brings us directly to the new problem. Within capitalism
there are two fundamentally opposing views —the ideology of the
bourgeoisie and the ideals of the working class, capitalist institu
tions and socialist aspirations. Each is false from the standpoint
of the other. But if meaning or, in this case, rationality is inter
nal to a way of life and both views, as the perspectives of its ma
jor social classes, are internal to the capitalist way of life, are not
principles of capitalism and socialism equally rational? On one
32 T he I maginary W itness
radical act, the class act, does not occur spontaneously; it does
not precede but must follow reflection and the political discourse
through which reflection acquires a true understanding of the
social order. Through discourse initiated by philosophy radical
dispositions can escape the constraints of ideology. It is no sur
prise that in a discussion of the practical function of philosophy,
Marcuse points to the philosopher who celebrated the critical
function of political discourse.
Socrates still had the possibility o f addressing the individual person
in the m arketplace and o f philosophizing with him because the in
dividual person still existed within the society o f the A th en ian city-
sta te.42
Notes
1. “H eid egger’s Politics: An Interview with Herbert M arcuse by
Frederick O la fso n ,” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, 6, 1 (N ew
York: 1977), p. 29. T h is interview was taken from the transcript o f a
film presented at a conferen ce on the philosophy o f M artin H eidegger
sponsored by the D epartm ent o f Philosophy, University o f C alifornia,
San D iego, May 4, 1974. As this part o f the interview clearly indicates,
it was sp ecifically the H eideggerian dim ensions o f his early work that
M arcuse later rejected. M arcuse judges these aspects o f his project by
saying that he “soon realized that H eid egger’s concreteness was to a
great extent a phony, false concreteness, and that in fact his philosophy
was just as abstract and just as rem oved from reality, even avoiding re
ality, as the philosophies w hich at that tim e had dom in ated German
universities, nam ely a rather dry brand o f neo-K antianism , neo-
H egelian ism , n eo-id ealism , but also positivism ." (W hat M arcuse
m ean s by concreteness will be exp lain ed shortly.) M arcuse does not say
how soon this rejection occurred. O ne cannot determ ine from this
statem en t, in other words, w hether he rejected H eidegger before the
early period ended in 1933 or afterward. I will argue in this chapter
that the break with H eidegger took place before 1933, although im
plicitly. But though I will show that M arcuse departed from H eid eg
ger before this early period con clu d ed , I will also argue that the entire
early project, that is, not only the work that incorporated H eidegger’s
philosophy but also the m uch m ore prom ising work that broke with
38 T he Imaginary W itness
27. Ib id ., pp. 3 4 -3 5 .
28. Ib id ., p. 39 (translation ch an ged ).
29. Ib id ., p. 34.
3 0 . In an earlier article M arcuse h ad argued that the con crete d ia
lectic o f historical m aterialism elim in ates “causality and teleo lo g y ”
from M arx’s theory. See H erbert M arcuse, “B esprech ung von Karl
VorlSnder: Karl Marx, sein Leben und sew, Werk," Die Gesellschaft, 6
(part 2), 8 (Berlin: 1929), p. 188.
31. In "The Struggle against Liberalism in the T o ta lita ria n V iew o f
the State” (1934), published the year follow in g the N azi assum ption o f
power, M arcuse argued that “g en u in e historicity presupposes a c o g n i
tive relation o f existence to the forces o f history and, derived from it,
the theoretical and practical critique o f these forces.” Negations:
Essays in Critical Theory (Boston: B eacon, 1968), p. 34; origin ally
published as “Der K am p f gegen den Liberalism us in der totalitaren
Staatsauffasu ng,” Z e/tec/in /f filr Sozialforschung 3, 2 (Paris: 1934), pp.
1 6 1 -1 9 5 . Failing to integrate theory and p ractice, H eid egger’s theory
o f historicity is not “g en u in e” in the sense in d icated by M arcuse. In
this passage M arcuse is, in fact, clearly allu d in g to H eid egger. In the
context in w hich the statem en t appears, M arcuse is in d ictin g e x isten
tialism for extollin g the m an who acts w ithout first reflectin g on the
m ean ing or consequences o f his action . Such an in d ivid u al, in M ar
cuse’s view, is fascistic, as is the theory that turns u n reflected action in
to a virtue. W ithout an adequ ate cogn itive d im en sion , a theory o f h is
toricity, such as H eid egger’s, is precisely this sort o f existen tialism . In
this 1934 ind ictm en t M arcuse m ay be looking back u p on his early p e
riod and en gagin g in self-criticism for at on e tim e havin g b ecom e e n
tangled in a theory o f historicity that dbes not su fficien tly integrate
theoretical and practical activity. M arcuse was already on the path to
this particular critique o f H eidegger w hen the latter’s m issing c o g n i
tive elem en t, as we have seen, was secured by rootin g the theory o f his
toricity in H egel and M arx.
3 2 . Herbert M arcuse, “On the P hilosoph ical F oun dation o f the
C oncept o f Labor in E con om ics,” Telos, 16 (St. Louis: 1973), p. 34
(translation changed): originally pu blish ed as “U ber die philoso-
phischen G rundlagen des w irtschaftsw issenschaftlichen A rbeits-
b egriffs,” Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, 69 (T u b
ingen: 1933), pp. 2 5 7 -2 9 2 .
3 3 . H erbert M arcuse, “Zur Kritik der Soziologie," Die Gesellschaft,
8 (part 2), 9 (Berlin: 1931), p. 277.
3 4 . H erbert M arcuse, “Das Problem der g esch ich tlich en W irklich-
keit: W ilhelm D il{h ey,” Die Gesellschaft, 8 (part 1), 4 (B erlin: 1931),
p. 361.
Early Writings, Early Hopes 41
TWO
42
Fascism, Rationalism, and the Abandonment of the Individual 43
cuse and his social theory became the victims of that crisis he a t
tempted to escape and to comprehend.
Marcuse’s writings, and those of other theorists belonging to
the Frankfurt School, are widely held to be unusually and per
haps unnecessarily difficult, often obscure, and occasionally im
penetrable. Whatever the merits of these claims as they pertain
to the entirety of Marcuse’s work, the essays written during this
transitional period are very clear not only with regard to style but
also with respect to the questions posed, the straightforwardness
of analysis, and the conclusions drawn. Furthermore, none of
the ambiguity characterizing many of Marcuse s later efforts is
present. On the contrary, Marcuse’s positions are stated with di
rectness, free of even irony and sarcasm. The steady clarity and
sobriety of this period may be the result of fascism, as though this
particular crisis lent a certain transparency to the complex
theoretical problems to which it gave rise and with which Mar
cuse became occupied. Nevertheless, the clarity Marcuse’s theory
does achieve during this period of his work will, in the final
analysis, prove to be illusory for it conceals a deeper and dark set
of implications.
Authoritainan State
Marcuse’s examinations concentrate on the tendencies and rela
tions peculiar to liberal, democratic, capitalist societies. His ana
lytical purpose is to identify the economic and ideological factors
in liberal capitalism out of which grew the authoritarian state.
Although National Socialism is the immediate form of Fascist to
talitarianism Marcuse considers, it is apparent that his real tar
get is the authoritarian state as a social formation potentially
heir to all liberal capitalist societies.4 There is, in other words,
common to all variations of liberal capitalism a foundation that
contains the seeds of fascism.
Economic factors are of singular importance to Marcuse’s
analysis. Private property, the individual entrepreneur’s owner
ship of the means of material production, is the fundamental
principle of liberal capitalism. As a basic right its preservation
and protection are guaranteed. But private ownership is also lib
eralism’s irratiopal element. Because this configuration is by na
ture prone to instabilities such as unemployment and inflation,
Fascism, Rationalism, and the A bandonment of the Individual 45
Authoritarian Society
Before moving the discussion to these new issues, a few prelimi
nary remarks are in order. In “A Study on Authority,” the theo
retical investigation now to be considered, Marcuse critically ex
amines the concepts of freedom and authority in the history of
“social thought,” that is, in religious, philosophical, political,
and sociological thought as it evolved in bourgeois society. The
family is also a prominent concern in this study. The discussion
will be confined to the central parts of Marcuse’s investigation,
which establish its principal thesis and form the basis of his theo
ry of authoritarian society.7 In the relevant sections of this study,
Marcuse certainly could be viewed as uncovering the ideological
constraints that capitalism imposes «on social thought and as
showing the way in which these constraints are reflected in its
concepts. Though such an approach is not incorrect, it limits our
understanding of Marcuse by supposing that his primary focus is
simply social thought as it is molded by the relations and author
itarian tendencies of capital.
But Marcuse’s analysis is not confined to the disclosure of the
ideological content of philosophical and theoretical concepts.
While this is the ostensible purpose of Marcuse’s argument, a
crucial underlying assumption animates this study. Marcuse as
sumes that all the concepts he examines are integral to the ideol
ogies that inform the day-to-day operations of the societies in
which the concepts are rooted. He assumes as well, therefore,
that the philosophical and theoretical concepts are also common
to the belief systems of all individuals within these societies.
Fascism, Rationalism, and the Abandonment of the Individual 49
ever thinks to benefit at the expense of the whole, the family gen
erates the selflessness that is a prerequisite for the authentic com
munity sought after by the state. And because individuality is
swallowed up benignly by the family, at a higher level of social
organization —the state —the dissolution of the individual can be
reproduced. The state inherits an individual well taught by the
family to subordinate individuality to an authority presiding
over the common good.
As Marcuse’s analysis moves from concepts of freedom and au
thority to theories of the family in bourgeois thought, a thesis is
beginning to crystallize. Because of the decisive sociological and
psychological functions that they attribute to the family, bour
geois thinkers are shown to be at least as concerned with theories
of social organization as they are known to be with strictly theo
logical or philosophical defenses of their concepts of freedom
and authority. Accordingly, Marcuse’s purpose is to expose the
social, not philosophical, implications of these concepts. The so
cial implications assume the greater significance when philoso
phers and religious thinkers, who nevertheless have grounded
their concepts in some sort of metaphysics, look to the family as
the social institution to implant these concepts in individuals as
unreflectively held beliefs or attitudes. If individuals were social
ized, or in a word “determined,” to view authority uncritically,
such attitudes toward authority would become the unshakable
basis of a relation of domination.
Within liberal society, of course, these attitudes actually may
be no more than tendencies toward an authoritarian relation.
But Marcuse takes the social theories of the formation of these
attitudes to reflect the structural characteristics of bourgeois so
ciety. Consequently, to judge from his analysis of freedom, au
thority, and the family in bourgeois thought, Marcuse certainly
wants to claim more than a tendential status for these attitudes
as they are nurtured within the social framework of liberalism.
The momentum of his argument does seem to be leading to a
foreclosure of the possibility that under certain conditions these
tendencies could be expressed as any social formation but au
thoritarianism. This momentum is illustrated further by another
measure of the social implications of the authoritarian family ex
amined in “A Study on Authority."
54 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
No one can study the essays written during this period without
being struck by an extraordinary —though some undoubtedly
would say outrageous —feature. Marcuse’s analyses of the essen
tial properties of liberalism and fascism show them to be congru
ent without exception. The extensiveness of this agreement, and
its startling implications for liberalism, is conveyed by the notion
of “total mobilization,” which subsequently becomes "one-di
mensionality.” No thought, indeed, no form of thought (art,
philosophy, science, ordinary language, etc.), is spared “the
reshaping of all human existence in the service of the most pow
58 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
from that quality. While this first school views the family as orig
inating independently of social processes, the “sociologistic” con
ception denies the family even a relative autonomy from society.
Viewed as a unit duplicating on a small scale the structural rela
tions of the entire society, the family is presumed to have arisen
from and to be conditioned directly by the social structure.
Marcuse illustrates the faults of these approaches with careful
ly selected examples. In one seminal work published in the mid
nineteenth century that was a sociological classic at the time
Marcuse is writing, the family appears as the natural ethical
foundation of society.24 Concerned to protect the family from so
cialist and other tendencies within bourgeois society that could
alter its natural structure and functions, its author wages a noble
defense. The sanctity of the family and the virtues of liberalism
are claimed to go hand in hand. When the family’s members are
considered, it is the father who plays the major socioeconomic
and political role within the society, while women are bound to
the family and “naturally” assume no public functions. By offer
ing emotional and spiritual comforts absent from the economic
sector, the family serves as a refuge for the embattled male eco
nomic subject, thus preparing him for another day’s work. More
over, the patriarchal and economic authority assigned to the
father by nature and the equally natural subordination of wom
en are authority patterns transmitted by the family.
As one combination of studies proves, the sociologistic meth
odology consistently transforms the family into a unit compatible
with any social formation.25 The principle that the individual is
capable of thought that can change the shape and direction of
social processes is rejected. Not individuals but groups “think”
or, to put it differently, being prior to individuals, the structural
dynamics of groups determine individual thought and action.
The most important group within this environment of social de
terminants is the family. But though the family molds the indi
vidual’s thinking, it in turn is formed and reformed by the larger
social structure to accord with the latter’s imperatives. Marcuse
also criticizes a third study for adopting a very similar thesis.26
This study claims that the family is invaded by society and its
functions appropriated. Whatever independence the family may
once have had js gradually exchanged for a complete depen
dence on broader social tendencies.
Fascism, Rationalism, and the Abandonment of the Individual 61
facts. Only the facts are real, positivism alleges, and there are no
grounds for believing in an essence, a truer world, apart from
them. As Marcuse says, using for the first time an expression that
will figure prominently in his future work, according to positiv
ism “the world of facts is, so to speak, one-dimensional.”31 And if
the given facts are the facts of authoritarianism, positivism and
phenomenology collaborate in its affirmation.32
The distinction between essence and appearance is no esoteric
philosophical conception. It is fundamental. Without it philos
ophy relinquishes any possibility of thinking critically. Marcuse’s
analysis of this development is clearly a difficult theoretical
study. It is painstaking in its attention to detail, much more so
than an exposition can hope to capture. Its detail radiates a cer
tain urgency or perhaps anxiety. It is as though Marcuse is turn
ing over every philosophical stone to recover some critical bear
ing that remains untouched by the authoritarian dynamics of
bourgeois society.
All these qualities of Marcuse’s study are indicative of its real
purpose. Though it is conducted at the level of a philosophical
analysis, Marcuse’s critique of philosophy is not designed simply
to expose philosophical errors or to stake out an opposing philo
sophical terrain. Marcuse’s great concern is with what the politi
cal practice implicit in philosophical discourse shows about the
nature of society. Marcuse is waging a battle for ideas that, in
the complete absence of other sources of opposition, continue to
transcend this society and to call it into question. As an enter
prise removed from society in the sense that it makes no contri
bution to the mechanics of social organization and the produc
tive process, philosophy, by virtue of its “distance,” should be less
vulnerable to social and political dynamics than is the thought of
ordinary individuals. Transcendent ideas should endure within
philcsopny—that they do not is far more significant than philos
ophy’s affirmation of the status quo. It is revealing of the sheer
power of authoritarianism to coordinate the most remote forms
of thought with its political ends.
point beyond the established social and political facts (social or
ders) to transcendent possibilities. By defending the validity of
the conception of transcendent possibility, which is based upon
his examination of Hegel’s philosophy, Marcuse wages a critique
of positivism that simultaneously provides the rational founda
tion for the truth of critical theory. And at the same time, since
Marcuse’s foundation is drawn from Hegel’s own thought, this
foundation frees Hegel from the accusation that his philosophy
could certify any established social order as true. The rationality
of transcendent possibility, central to Hegel’s logic, indicts as ir
rational and authoritarian all social systems that obstruct the re
alization of human potentiality.
Marcuse’s exposition of Hegel’s philosophy is thoroughly com
prehensive and exacting in its attention to and affection for
Hegel’s fine detail. What is salient here, however, is not a review
of Marcuse’s exposition but its major thesis. In Marcuse’s analysis
of Hegel’s Early Theological Writings, the first philosophical
writings (the Difference between Fichte's and Schelling’s System
of Philosophy, Faith and Knowledge, the “Relation of Skepti
cism to Philosophy”), the first political writings (“The German
Constitution”), his System o f Morality, the Jena system (particu
larly the Jena Logic and Philosophy of Mind), the Phenomenol-
ogy of Mind, Science of Logic, the Logic, Philosophy o f Right,
and the Philosophy o f History, a single motif appears consistent
ly as Hegel’s foremost concern. All the differences among these
greatly varied works, though discusse'd by Marcuse, ultimately
are passed over and resolved into the uniform theme of the “uni
versal.”42
I described the four basic components of Hegel’s universal
during the discussion of his concept of essence. For Hegel, es
sence and the universal are in fact one and the same. Only one
additional property of the universal should be noted. The uni
versal is true according to the principles of dialectical logic.
Thus, Marcuse’s insistence on viewing the universal as the cen
tral motif of all of Hegel’s works implies that their respective
arguments are grounded in Hegel’s logic, especially the system of
the Science of Logic. The question of the correctness of this in
terpretation of Hegel falls outside the scope of this study of M ar
cuse and is not relevant to it. W hat is significant is to remember
why Marcuse pursues this particular interpretation. The reason,
Fascism, Rationalism, and the Abandonment of the Individual lb
as explained, is that Marcuse seeks a foundation for the truth
claimed by critical theory, a task imposed upon him by the his
torical circumstances confronting critical theory. The main
point is that Marcuse seizes upon the logic of the universal as a
rational, philosophical foundation for critical theory’s concept of
possibility. Whether the universal actually is a satisfactory foun
dation for critical theory is taken up in another chapter.43 At this
time the focus of the discussion is a description of the revised
conceptual framework of critical theory when its theoretical
weight comes to rest upon Hegel’s universal.
Marcuse draws out the implications of the logical properties of
universals. A particular fact or set of facts is an expression of a
universal but is not its equivalent. The (factual) nature of man
within capitalism, for instance, partakes of the universal “m an
kind,” or “m an,” but according to the logic of universals m an
kind is more than man appears to be in a capitalist society. Logi
cally, “m an” refers not only to men as they have appeared past
and present but to all possible men. The same property of possi
bility belongs to all universals, and everything that has been
encountered historically and all that comprises our own world,
organic and inorganic, the products of mind or matter, has a
universal as well as a particular form.
If thought is to be rational, therefore, it must be guided by the
logic of universals. It must refuse to define as true the form that
something—be it man, the state, justice, happiness, and so
forth —has taken historically or assumes in the present. Reason
proclaims truth to be in the continual unfolding of potentiality.
And a society is rational and true only to the extent that it con
tributes to this end.
Rational thought, guided by the universal as the criterion of
truth, thus implies a very special kind of thinking. Reason is
“negative thinking,” as Marcuse calls it. To think negatively, or
dialectically, is to conceive of things as they appear as being lim
ited. Such conceptions spring from a recognition of something’s
potentiality. To think in this manner is to deny, cancel, or “ne
gate” a thing’s apparent form. And to think negatively, critical
ly, there must be freedom of thought. Rational faculties must be
free from any sort of conditioning by social and political factors
that would blind reasoning processes to the existence of possibil
ities for growth and development.
76 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
the truth, the subject must know what is true in a society that
equates the truth with its own practices.
With the conversion of critical theory into rationalism, Mar
cuse responds deliberately and reflectively to fascism. For as long
as the proletariat remains disabled, and the objective possibili
ties that it still objectively represents remain inert, rationalism
will also remain the citadel that preserves and protects the truth
of critical theory. Rationalism, as mentioned, is the greatest
strength of critical theory.
But it is also the greatest weakness'. A rich and complex con
cept of subjectivity is embedded in the rationalistic dimensions of
critical theory. Autonomy, rationality, and a clear, conscious,
and certain apprehension of radical goals and of the obstacles to
those goals represented by the established order are all charac
teristic of the subject of political practice. These characteristics
constitute critical theory’s explicit concept of the subject. But
when we now inspect Marcuse’s critical theory more closely, it
will be discovered that its implicit concept of the subject is dra
matically different. Critical theory’s implicit concept of subjec
tivity is impoverished.
Because critical theory’s criteria for political practice are un
compromisingly rationalistic —now identical to those prescribed
by the concept of correct class consciousness, which Marcuse re
jects in his early work—any political practice that does not meet
these criteria is in no sense authentic political opposition. M ar
cuse declares the inflexibility of theory’s criteria when he says
that “theory will preserve the truth even if revolutionary practice
deviates from its proper path. Practice follows the truth, not vice
versa.”49 When critical theory confronts subjects who express op
position in this m anner—
an individual feels discontented as a result of the stresses imposed by
the organization of production and the sacrifices exacted through a
system of distribution but is not consciously socialist;
an individual is partially disaffected from society after witnessing
the state’s violation of basic liberties and comes to doubt the justness
and morality of institutional policies but is not clear that institu
tions have ceased to be legitimate;
an individual has an ambivalent allegiance to social and political
institutions butds not certain whether inherent possibilities for
structural change would produce a more rational social order —
Fascism, Rationalism, and the Abandonment of the Individual 79
Notes
8. Ibid., p. 52.
9. Marcuse considered Luther’s The Freedom of a Christian, The
First Lent Sermon at Wittenberg, The Third Lent Sermon at Witten
berg, Sermon on the Ban, Temporal Authority: To What Extent It
Should be Obeyed, Admonition to Peace, An Open Letter on the
Harsh Book against the Peasants, On War against the Turk, Treatise
on Good Works, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation
Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate, and The Large Cate
chism. Ibid., pp. 56-78.
10. Marcuse focused on Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Reli
gion. Ibid. For an analysis of Calvinism that would contest Marcuse’s
equation of Calvinism in general with obedience to authority see
Michael Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins
of Radical Politics (New York: Atheneum, 1968).
11. Marcuse concentrated upon Kant’s Political Writings. See “A
Study on Authority,”pp. 79-94.
12. Ibid., p. 97. Marcuse is alluding to paragraph 246 of Hegel’s
Philosophy of Right; see the translation by T. M. Knox (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 151.
13. Marcuse based his discussion of Hegel primarily upon his read
ing of the Philosophy of Right. See “A Study on Authority,” pp.
95-110.
14. During this period Marcuse’s work on the family takes place
within the context of the Frankfurt Institute’s first theoretical studies
on authority. For a discussion of these studies see Jay’s Dialectical
Imagination, pp. 113-142.
15. Herbert Marcuse, “The Affirmative Character of Culture,”
Negations, p. 95; originally published as “Uber den affirmativen
Charakter der Kultur,” Zeitschrift fiir Sozialforschung, 6, 1 (Paris:
1937), pp. 54-94. The term “affirmative culture” was conceived by
Max Horkheimer; see his “Egoismus und Freiheitsbewegung,” Zeit
schrift fiir Sozialforschung, 5, 2 (Paris: 1936), p. 219. Marcuse ac
knowledges Horkheimer in the first footnote of “The Affirmative
Character of Culture,” p. 88.
16. The critical aspects of bourgeois art are especially significant
for Marcuse. See chapter eight of this volume.
17. “The Affirmative Character of Culture,” p. 124.
18. Ibid., p. 125.
19. Ibid., p. 127 (italics added).
20. Ibid., p. 128.
21. “The Struggle against Liberalism,” p. 17.
22. Ibid., p. 42.
23. Herbert Marcuse, “Autoritat und Familie in der deutschen So-
ziologie bis 1933,” Studien iiber Autoritat und Familie, pp. 737-752.
86 T he I maginary W itness
ized (p. 41); about the first philosophical writings Marcuse says that
for Hegel “speculative thinking compares the apparent or given form
of things to the potentialities of those same things, and in so doing dis
tinguishes their essence from their accidental state of existence” (p. 46);
the Jena system, Marcuse continues, “already reveals the outstanding
traits of his philosophy, especially its emphasis on the universal as the
true being” (p. 88); in the Phenomenology of Mind, Marcuse explains,
“setting the truth in the universal expressed Hegel’s conviction that no
given particular form, whether in nature or society, embodies the
whole truth” (pp. 113-114); in the Philosophy of Right the "abstract
determinations of the Logic once again show forth in their historical
significance. The veritable being, the Logic had said, is the universal,
which is in itself and contains the particular in itself’ (p. 203); and in
the Philosophy of History the "true subject of history is the universal,
not the individual” (p. 229).
43. See chapter six of this volume.
44. Reason and Revolution, pp. 113-114.
45. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, p. 69.
46. Reason and Revolution, p. 315 (italics added).
47. Ibid., p. 318 (italics added).
48. Ibid., p. 319 (italics added).
49. Ibid., p.322.
50. Herbert Marcuse, “On Hedonism,” Negations, p. 185; original
ly published as "Zur Kritik des Hedonismus,” Zeitschrift fur
Sozialforschung, 7, 1-2 (Paris: 1938), pp. 55-89.
51. Ibid., p. 190.
52. Ibid., p. 191 (“determined,” “socialized,” and “incapable of
the least resistance” are my terms).
53. See chapter seven of this volume.
54. Particularly noteworthy is an aspect of Marcuse’s interpretation
of Marx during this period. When discussing Marx’s analysis of the
way in which the state functions to stabilize capitalist society, Marcuse
argues that “the perpetually conflicting activity, the perpetual strug
gle between 'opposed particular interests’ requires, if the reproduction
of the anarchically producing society is to be safeguarded, a universal
apparatus which is equipped with all the material and intellectual in
struments of coercion: it ‘makes practical intervention and control
necessary through the illusory general interest in the form of the state.’ ”
“A Study on Authority,” p. 139. The concept that stands out in this
passage is “universal apparatus which is equipped . . .” While it is cer
tainly true that Marx attributed such a function to the state, Marcuse’s
conception shades Marx’s meaning toward Weber’s theory of the state
as a highly rationalized form of domination. In other words, Mar-
88 T he Imaginary W itness
\
cuse’s interpretation views Marx as having developed a theory that an
ticipates and explains, much more than it actually does, the power of
capitalist institutions to reproduce and perpetuate an inherently un
stable society. In fact, this is the thrust of Marcuse’s entire discussion
of Marx herein (pp. 128-143).
55. See chapter four, pp. 179-183.
56. “On Hedonism,” p. 187.
57. Ibid., p. 184.
58. See chapter six, pp. 282-286.
59. I am suggesting that viewed in the context of Marcuse’s general
concern with the foundations issue, the Freudian aspects of “On
Hedonism” and these principles should be construed as tendencies
toward what eventually becomes Marcuse’s anthropological founda
tion for critical theory. Consequently, the foundations issue, this
essay, and the theoretical principles of critical theory together offer an
explanation for Marcuse’s turn to Freud in addition to that which
points to the influence of those members of the Frankfurt Institute
who had incorporated psychoanalysis into their work earlier than did
Marcuse.
THREE
T he Second D im ension
Warum sucht ich den Weg so sehnsuchtsvoll,
Wenn ich ihn nicht den Briidern zeigen soli.
Goethe, "Zueignung,”
Gedichte
89
90 T he I maginary W itness
and through contact with external objects until the final stage of
instinctual development, when the component instincts are fused,
or alloyed, by being subordinated to the genital sphere .18
W hat is decisive about this process of fusion and subordina
tion is that it is the natural outcome of a biological process of
maturation during which an unorganized and unrestrained, in a
sense free, distribution of instinctual drives, wherein the instincts
had discharged their aims independently, changes to an orga
nized condition in the service of the genital zone. Freud’s emphasis
on the biological nature of the establishment of genital suprema
cy is diametrically opposed to Marcuse’s sociological explana
tion. Sociological factors are significant determinants of psycho-
sexual maturation at all stages of infantile development in that
they influence personality development, character formation,
and dispositions to neurosis, and, of course, the impact of society
is dramatized during the Oedipal conflict through Oedipal re
pression and the creation of the superego. But it is a biological
and not, as Marcuse claims, a historical process that determines
the organization of the instincts.
This point is not made as a denial of the ultimate historical
character either of the nature of the instincts or of other biologi
cal aspects of infantile sexuality. Phylogenetically all facets of
sexuality should be understood as originating in the historical ex
perience of the species. Freud’s archaic heritage thesis makes it
clear that human nature is the result of centuries of human en
counters with social structures all making quite similar demands
for the repressive modification of desires and inclinations. Even
tually these repressions are assimilated as constitutional factors.
Ultimately biology can be reduced to its historical determinants;
human nature, in the final analysis to second nature. Once his
torical experience becomes sedimented as biology, however, we
must be prepared to concern ourselves with it as human nature
only. Phylogenetically, the subordination of the instincts to the
genital sphere and the desexualization of the body may have
been enforced by the repressive mechanisms of the performance
principle in the interests of domination. Ontogenetically, the es
tablishment of genital supremacy is first and foremost a biologi
cal phenomenon such that we must confine our attention to its
critical significance as human nature.
Freud did assert that repression occurs during the Oedipal sit
uation, but he used the term in a highly technical sense. When
100 T he I maginary W itness
that some forms of labor are more gratifying than others and
that the lack of gratification in labor is the impulse to seek more
gratifying forms of sublimation. Freud’s presentation of the bio
logical aspects of gratification thus brings us to the horizon of soci
ological analysis, to a consideration of the historical determinants
of labor, to the social and political organization of sublimated
forms of gratification. We shall return to these issues later.
In this exposition of Freud, I have drawn out major elements
of his instinct theory. They point directly to sublimated activities
as potentially the highest source of gratification. Marcuse, how
ever, views sublimation as denial of gratification: “sublimation
and domination hang together ;’’30 “sublimation involves de-
sexualization ,’’31 loss of pleasure. Marcuse’s reasoning is based
upon two errors he has committed.
The first, briefly discussed, is Marcuse’s claim that under the
impact of the performance principle through the Oedipal con
flict, the genital organization of the instincts occurs and trans
forms the body from an instrument of pleasure into an instrument
of toil by spatially reducing its pleasurable areas to the genital
zone. Through this event desexualization prepares the body for
labor, for if it were to remain subject to the rule of the pleasure
principle it could not be brought to perform tasks from which in
stinctual pleasure cannot be derived. Second, this social restric
tion on sexual behavior makes available instinctual energy for
work. Sublimation desexualizes the instinctual drive, that is, se
verely weakens the libidinal component. Libidinal gratification
is denied in proportion to the degree of sublimation entailed in
the performance of a particular task. Cultures progressing in ac
cordance with an ever expanding set of productive relationships
demand continuous sublimation.
Marcuse’s initial error originates in a confusion about the his
torical character of the instinctual makeup. It is true that in
Freud’s theory the genital phase of organization is the biological
product of centuries of historical repression demanding the spa
tial reduction of the instincts in the service of procreation and
sublimation. At the present stage of civilization, however, the
genital and pregenital stages and all other universal characteris
tics of infantile sexuality are firmly rooted in biological proc
esses. By critically grasping the experience of the individual from
the standpoint of the experience of the species or, more pre
106 T he I maginary W itness
Notes
Civilization W ith o u t
Discontents I:
D om ination— Political
or Technological?
131
13 2 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
obsolete because the state comes to share the general fate of sub
jectivity. Depoliticized, no longer in possession of the capacity to
formulate policies other than those narrowly circumscribed by
technical reason, the state loses its quasi-independence from the
relations of production. This results from the state’s assimilation
to the universal rationality of technics. The stability of modern
capitalism, or rather of advanced industrial society, then would
depend upon the effectiveness of technical reason.
The previous discussion has focused on an exposition of the
fundamental elements of Marcuse’s analysis of technological ra
tionality as it unfolds as a mode of domination within modern
capitalism. Technological rationality is a rationality of domina
tion because it eliminates the capacity of all class and individual
subjects to form or re-form the goals of society and social rela
tions. Capitalism undergoes a qualitative change precipitated by
the quantitative growth of technology. It is transformed into ad
vanced industrial society. At this new stage, domination is a
direct function of a technologically rationalized productive ap
paratus that develops only to reproduce its ability to develop fur
ther.
It has been shown that the basic elements of technological
domination derive from the technical development of the pro
ductive process. And as indicated, these elements are repro
duced in all institutions related directly to the management of
production, such as the state and research and educational insti
tutions. But the spread of technological rationality does not end
with production and those institutions directly related to it. It
extends to all cultural and political spheres of society, as well. As
these sectors, such as language, the ideologies of political parties,
social science, and philosophy, gradually are brought under the
influence of technical reason, these forms of thought become
technical forms of social discourse. Losing all independence
from the rationality of society’s basic production relations, cul
tural and political discourse cease to be critical of the relations
and goals of a technologically organized society. All sectors of so
ciety begin to conform to the logic of technics. Consequently, the
next step in the exposition of Marcuse’s theory will be to examine
his analysis of the technological organization of the cultural and
political spheres of society. This will complete the picture of his
theory of one-dimensional society.
150 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
tion of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and carried out in an inter
national context marked by the antagonistic competition of the
communist and capitalist blocs, has determined all past and
present and perhaps will determine all future characteristics of
Soviet politics and society.
To consolidate the achievements of the revolution and to lay
the groundwork for an authentic communist society and a world
wide communist movement, Lenin stressed the importance of
bringing the Soviet Union to the same stage of material progress
as Western civilization. The policy of rapid industrialization
continued through the Stalinist regime. Its purpose was to create
the material preconditions for a socialist society and was there
fore consistent with Marx’s theory of the historical stages that
must necessarily be traveled on the road to socialism. During this
first phase of socialist construction, individual needs were to be
subordinated to the development of heavy industry. In this m an
ner industrialization was to occur. Only after industrialization
would there be a means to a social product that could be distrib
uted according to individual needs. The emphasis on heavy in
dustry rather than on a planned consumer economy is explained
by the second major reason for the policy of rapid industrializa
tion—the defense of the East from the danger of a capitalist on
slaught. Heavy industry was the guarantee of self-preservation.
The success of both goals required that the Soviet Union avoid
military conflict with the West, which at any time during the
U.S.S.R.’s undeveloped stage could only prove devastating to the
revolution. This respite, which Lenin declared indispensable to
industrialization, could permit the Soviets eventually to attain a
level of economic strength competitive with that of capitalism.
Once this level had been reached, the Soviet Union could relax
its political regimentation of Soviet society. A period of liberal
ization would follow. Individual rights and freedoms would be
restored, and consumer oriented industrial planning would be
developed.
Marcuse points out, though, that the introduction of the peri
od of liberalization is not so much an objective of Soviet society
while it aspires to socialism as a strategy for subverting capital
ism. Here we arrive at the third and equally important basis for
the implementation of Lenin’s policy of industrialization. The
Soviets had consistently and stubbornly rejected the possibility of
a permanent consolidation and cooperation among the capitalist
15 2 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
text in which the facts are made, man-made, and in which their
meaning, function, and development are determined.”37 Like
wise, the critical, “determining, constitutive facts remain outside
the reach of the operational concept.”38 By its very technical
nature operationalism inhibits conceptualization and obstructs
criticism.
Do modes of discourse other than empirical social science de
velop concepts critical of advanced industrial society either by il
luminating the technologically organized context shaping hu
man experience or by articulating possibilities for change that
would not reproduce the domination of technical reason? With
regard to “a whole branch of analytic philosophy,” linguistic
analysis, whose method has “shut off the concepts of a political,
i.e., critical analysis,”39 Marcuse has clearly answered in the neg
ative. The conservative traits he associates with operational so
cial science are duplicated in linguistic philosophy. To under
stand this argument, it is first necessary to consider Marcuse’s
view of ordinary language, the object of analysis of linguistic
philosophy.
O rdinary L anguage as T echnical R eason
The positivist temperament spawned by the universality of tech
nical reason not only infects specialized, theoretical modes of dis
course, such as the social sciences, but also penetrates deeply into
our everyday, ordinary language and thought. Critical faculties
are eroded as the vehicle of conceptualization and expression,
language, becomes entrapped within the fixed meanings pro
moted by the ideology of technical rationality. The manipulation
of commercial and political language through the media reduces
ideas to associations that occur and recur with such invariable
regularity that word patterns are created that assign inflexible
meanings to concepts. The method engendering false associa
tions is again technical. Language is operationalized.
Marcuse refers to this linguistic operationalism as the func
tionalization of language. The things of which ordinary lan
guage speaks are understood only in terms of their behavioral,
functional counterparts. Marcuse cites several types of linguistic
operationalism. This process occurs where the public is condi
tioned to accept a single set of conceptual properties in place of
reason’s office to exercise judgment between alternative concep
166 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
tual meanings. “In the West,” Marcuse notes, “the analytic pred
ication [of freedom] is in such terms as free enterprise, initiative,
elections, individual; in the East in terms of workers and peas
ants, building communism or socialism, abolition of hostile
classes.”40 Moreover, the ideologically imposed characteristics do
not describe the real state of affairs. The individual is thus bur
dened with an illusion, but he is comfortably adjusted to it as the
capacity of reason to dispel the illusion is muted. The manage
ment of political discourse is also secured as it acquires seductive
and intimate overtones. Elected representatives, public institu
tions, merchandise—the sum of political and commercial arti
facts—“are presented ‘especially for you,’ ” causing individuals
personally to identify their needs, aspirations, and self-interest
with the technologically rationalized general interest. Last, the
“hyphenized abridgement” of language fuses potentially differ
ent enterprises in an image that obscures their separate qualities.
The phrase “science-military dinner,” which Marcuse takes as an
instance of this sort of manipulation, suggests that science is
bound analytically to military imperatives and finds its most nat
ural function in that specific relation. The nonmilitary, emanci
patory potential of science, for example, is suppressed.
In these and in other cases that Marcuse examines, concepts are
identified with the features of organized, repressive, and admin
istered institutionalized practices and procedures of the techni
cal social order. The operational grammar thus enjoins language
to celebrate productivity, affluence, the general social needs and
political objectives that foster ever greater rationalization. Once
learned, standardized popular usages become habitual, sponta
neous associations accepted and reproduced without reflection.
Individual reason is powerless to break through the thoughtless
repetition of ideological meanings structured by a technical fa
cade, to a conceptual universe that would prompt a critical inter
pretation of social existence.
Moreover, the behavior prodded by the linguistic socialization
validates the distorted conceptual meanings. Functionalized lan
guage first suppresses knowledge of the internal contradictions of
advanced industrial society. Then as individual expectations and
technologically molded social relations increasingly harmonize,
not only knowledge of the contradictions but also the contradic
tions themselves virtually disappear. Welding reason to the pre
Civilization Without Discontents I 167
N eo -Freudian T echnocrats
Regardless of the criticisms made of Marcuse’s interpretation of
Freud in the preceding chapter, there; is not a doubt that his in
tention was to develop the critical significance of Freud’s discov
eries by remaining loyal to the most speculative notions of the in
stinct theory and metapsychology. Marcuse creatively unearthed
their solemn truth, that the fundamental antagonism existing
between the nature of man and the manmade “nature” of mod
ern institutions can be resolved in favor of a new dimension of
human experience rooted in human nature. Its errors notwith
standing, Marcuse’s reading of Freud opened a new dimension
for social theory.
As Marcuse views it, contemporary psychoanalytic theory bears
no such promise. Examining the neo-Freudian revisionism of
Karen Horney, Harry Stack Sullivan, and Erich Fromm, Mar
cuse emphasizes the ideological conservatism that stems from
their understanding of the relationship between psychoanalytic
theory and psychotherapy.
Freud consistently stressed the irreducible tension between
theory and therapy. The conception of human nature embedded
in his metapsychology means that therapy always implies thera
peutic adjustment. The terms of membership in a civilized soci
ety spell compromise, leaving the individual’s needs frustrated to
some degree. “Discontent,” neurosis, or some other and perhaps
more serious psychological disorder is the price exacted by civili
zation. As psychoanalysis has no power to change the society
to accord with the theoretical view of human nature —and, of
course, Freud’s image of man is not so sanguine as to suggest that
such a change would be entirely desirable —therapeutic practices
at least resign the individual to personal sacrifice in the interest
of a comfortable existence within the limits of social reason.
Theory continues to defend the right of the individual, but in
principle only, for the imperatives of social order are irrecon
Civilization Without Discontents I 173
One-dimensional Society
By recalling the earlier discussion of Marcuse’s evaluation of the
role played by technology in National Socialism, we acquire a
clear insight into Marcuse’s conception of one-dimensional soci
ety. The politics of brute force was the decisive tool of Fascist
totalitarianism, and technology was ^n indispensable though
partial factor insuring its “success.” Common to fascism and ad
vanced industrial societies, including the Soviet Union, is a tech
nical base. From the standpoint of comprehending the nature of
technological rationality, the crucial difference among these so
cial systems lies in the weight technics assumes in each. With fas
cism, politics unleashed the powers of domination inherent in
technology. Before technology could become the predominant
factor in totalitarian rule, however, fascism was defeated and the
evolution of Fascist totalitarianism concluded with politics as its
primary force. In advanced industrial societies the reverse is
true. As Marcuse declares,
In this society, tech n ics is not o n e p a rticu la r fa cto r or d im en sio n
a m o n g others, but is the a p rio ri o f all reality an d rea liz a tio n . T h e
Civilization Without Discontents I 177
the issue “is technical reason closing or has it closed the material,
cultural, and political universe of discourse?” is prima facie ac
ceptance that technological domination is a correct notion, even
though proof may have been offered that it is not immediately,
or is only potentially, a menace. A critique that does not leave
Marcuse’s thesis intact must test the conviction that technologi
cal rationality can be a mode of domination, as Marcuse de
scribes it, under any circumstances.
With this objective in mind, the critical approach adopted in
the remainder of this chapter will be to pursue answers to varia
tions of a single question: what is the nature of an individual who
can be so completely dominated by technical reason? This ques
tion is designed to draw out the concept of the subject implicit in
Marcuse’s theory of technological domination and one-dimen
sional society. If, in fact, the concept of the individual implicit in
his theory appears untenable, then there would be grounds for
suggesting that a different concept of subjectivity may define
firm limits on the extent to which technical reason could become
a rationality of domination, as Marcuse understands it, under
any circumstances.
The first concern of this critical analysis is the nature of the in
dividual engaged at all levels of technically organized processes
of production. Later, the results of this analysis will be developed
into a critique of Marcuse’s view of the relationship between
technological rationality and the cultural and political spheres of
society. It is highly appropriate to begin the analysis by consider
ing Marcuse’s relation to Weber, as will become clear shortly.
W eber for and against M arcuse
Marcuse’s relationship to Weber is not ambiguous in the least.
As can be appreciated readily from the foregoing exposition of
Marcuse’s analysis of advanced industrial society, although there
is an incidental difference in the specific empirical targets of
their analyses, on the whole Weber’s theoretical model of the de
velopment of formal rationality is duplicated in a striking man
ner by Marcuse. Drawing out the parallel, it clearly extends to a
common emphasis on the progress of technical reason within the
historical context of industrialization, to a concern with the im
pact of mechanization, routinization, the calculability of rules
and results, standardization, depersonalization, and a highly
18 0 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
Woodward and Roper were careful to point out that there are
forms of political activity and types of political influence that
this study did not consider but that may be as significant, if not
more so, than the focus of their analysis. The activity of elites
and the influence of the mass media, which other social scientists
have studied extensively and with which Marcuse is concerned,
could be included among possible inquiries. Most important, the
authors recognized that an investigation producing results more
critical than theirs does not “remain outside the reach of the op
erational concept” but lies within the method’s conceptual do
main. This is the point Marcuse consistently misunderstands.
It is still true that Woodward and Roper, like Janowitz and
Marvick, opted for operational definitions that contributed find
ings less critical of elections, political influence, and political ac
tivity than other concepts and criteria would have yielded. A de
19 6 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n ess
L inguistic A nalysis
Now turning our attention to linguistic analysis, we discover that
that “whole branch of analytic philosophy,” which Marcuse re
gards as an essentially conservative discipline, preserves a defi
nite critical edge in its orientation to ordinary language. For in
stance, in his essay “When Is Ordinary Language Reformed?”
(1961), Manley Thompson argues that ordinary language incor
porates erroneous beliefs even after false but well-established
beliefs have been proven wrong because language will lag be
hind alterations in belief systems. 102 People continue to speak in
ways that express mistaken beliefs although they have come to
hold others. Ordinary language is “pretheoretical” and is to be
accepted as valid only until inquiry suggests reasons to change
beliefs. Thompson’s points are significant. They underline the
inadequacy of ordinary language, indicate that beliefs can con
tradict the prevailing universe of meaning, and that one of the
tasks of philosophical inquiry is to question beliefs expressed in
ordinary discourse. Implicitly, he inserts a distance between
what the individual believes to be meaningful and the impover
ished established meanings of spoken and written language. At
the same time, emphasizing the pretheoretical status of ordinary
language dissociates theoretical language from the given ideo
logical terms and clearly rejects the latter as the final criteria of
truth and falsehood.
Similar views are expressed elsewhere and differently by a wide
range of analytic philosophers. To note other examples, in his
article “Moore and*Ordinary Language” (1942), Norman Mai-
Civilization Without Discontents I 207
Soviet Marxism
Union have not changed in the past twenty years. Most important,
it cannot be claimed that Soviet society has become less repres
sive. The state management of cultural life and the suppression
of individual freedoms have risen steadily.
Needless to say, “liberal” or “liberalized” are not terms descrip
tive of contemporary Soviet society, as Marcuse thought that
they would be. A single change has been the attention to con
sumer needs, such that "welfare-state totalitarianism” or “wel
fare-state authoritarianism” far more accurately describe this re
pressive social system that abides a limited consumer ethic .120
The absence of liberalization in Soviet politics questions funda
mentally the validity of Marcuse’s thesis that Soviet development
was and is constrained within the parameters of a technological
project. Clearly, the failure of the liberal phase to materialize af
ter industrialization was accomplished is proof that in the con
temporary period politics operates independently of the re
straints imposed by an ideology of rationalization and technical
progress. Suppression by political means, in other words, contin
ues beyond the point at which, according to Marcuse, it could be
justified by technical considerations.
Only in the contemporary period? Since political domination
can be judged now to have escaped what initially appeared to be
technical constraints, it is necessary to inquire retrospectively
whether the plan of technological rationalization ever could ex
plain and justify the forceful coordination of Soviet society with
that goal. The answer must be that it cannot, for although it is
possible to conceive of the justification for the regimentation of
those sectors of Soviet society directly related to the rationaliza
tion of material productivity, no theory of socialist development
could defend the legitimacy of the suppression of cultural and
individual freedom that characterized the first phase of socialist
construction. One that would attempt to do so, such as Marcuse’s
thesis of the technical determinants of Soviet politics, would con
stitute an apology for an oppressive state apparatus. Yet, suppos
ing that Marcuse’s theory of a technical justification for total sup
pression could be defended, the more basic question is whether
technical factors did actually constrain Soviet politics during the
first phase. To this question it must be responded that if the
achieved Stage of industrialization obviously has not altered Sovi
et political practices, which indicates that politics is now inde
Civilization Without Discontents I 219
S ummation
Notes
1. Marcuse will eventually revise his theory of advanced industrial
society to take account of many such crises. See chapter seven of this
volume.
2. See chapter seven.
3. Herbert Marcuse, “Some Social Implications of Modern Tech
nology,” Studies in Philosophy and Social Science [Zeitschrift fiir So-
zialforschung], 9, 3 (New York: 1941), p. 414.
4. Ibid.
5. Herbert Marcuse, One-dimensional Man: Studies in the
Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston: Beacon, 1964).
6 . For an extended analysis offering a somewhat different interpre
tation of these works see Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1973), pp. 152-167\.
7. Jay points to the similarity of Neumann’s view and Marcuse’s po
sition in Reason and Revolution. Ibid., p. 155.
8. See chapter six, pp. 282-286.
9. The discussion of the basic elements of technological rationality
is based upon, in addition to the works cited, a consideration of Mar
cuse’s “Some Social Implications of Modern Technology." Perhaps
more than any other work, this essay presents the fundamental aspects
of technological reason as Marcuse understands them.
10. Georg Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1971), p. 172.
11. One-dimensionalMan, p. 25.
12. “Some Social Implications of Modern Technology,” p. 427.
13. See chapter 3, pp. 94-97.
14. Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical In
quiry into Freud (Boston: Beacon, 1955), p. 105.
Cixnlization Without Discontents I 223
7 9 . Ib id ., p. 2 8 5 . '
8 0 . One-dimensional Man, p. 116.
8 1 . Ib id ., p. 116 (brack ets a d d ed ).
8 2 . Ib id ., p. 119; M arcuse is q u o tin g from W o o d w a rd an d R o p er,
“ P olitical A ctivity o f A m erica n C itize n s,” p . 133.
8 3 . “P o litica l A ctivity o f A m erica n C itize n s,” p . 137.
8 4 . Ibid.
8 5 . Ib id ., p . 133.
8 6 . One-dimensionalMan, p. 13.
8 7 . Ib id ., p. 12, n. 5.
8 8 . A partial listin g in c h r o n o lo g ic a l ord er follow s. S. S. Steven s,
“T h e O p era tion al D efin itio n o f P sy ch o lo g ica l C o n c e p ts ,” Psychologi
cal Review, 4 2 , 6 (W a sh in g to n , D .C .: 1 9 3 5 ), p p . 5 1 7 -5 2 7 ; A . C . B e n
ja m in , “T h e O p eration al T h eo r y o f M e a n in g ,” Philosophical Review,
4 6 , 6 (Ith a ca: 1937), p p . 6 4 4 -6 4 9 ; P. W . B r id g em a n , “O p e r a tio n a l
A n a ly sis,” Philosophy of Science, 5, 2 (E ast L an sin g: 1 9 3 8 ), p p . 1 1 4 -
131; R. H . W alters an d L. A . P en n in g to n , “O p era tio n ism in P sychol-
o g y ,” Psychological Review, 4 5 , 5 (W a sh in g to n , D .C .: 1 9 3 8 ), p p .
4 1 4 -4 2 3 ; H orn ell H art, “O p eration ism A n alyzed O p e r a tio n a lly ,” Phi
losophy of Science, 7, 3 (E ast L an sing: 1 9 4 0 ), p p . 2 8 8 -3 1 3 ; G eorge A .
L u n d b erg, “O p era tio n a l D efin itio n s in th e S o cia l S c ie n c e s,” Ameri
can Journal of Sociology, 4 7 , 5 (C h icago: 1 9 4 1 -1 9 4 2 ), p p . 7 2 7 -7 4 3 ;
Frank E. H artu n g, “O p era tio n a lism : Id ealism or R ea lism ? ” Philos
ophy of Science, 9, 4 (E ast L ansing: 1942), p p . 3 5 0 -3 5 5 ; S tu art C.
D o d d , “O p eration al D efin itio n s O p era tio n a lly D e fin e d ,” American
Journal of Sociology, 4 8 , 3 (C h icago: 1 9 4 3 ), p p . 4 8 2 -4 8 9 ; Frank E.
H a rtu n g , “O p eration ism as a C u ltu ral S u rv iv a l,” Philosophy of Sci
ence, 1 1 , 4 (East L ansing: 1941), p p . 2 2 7 -2 ^ 2 ; H . Israel a n d B . G o ld
stein , “O p eration ism in P sy ch o lo g y ,” Psychological Review, 5 1 , 3
(W a sh in g to n , D .C .: 1944), pp. 1 7 7 -1 8 8 ; “S ym p osiu m o n O p e r a tio n
is m ,” Psychological Review, 52, 5 (W a sh in g to n , D .C .: 1 9 4 5 ), p p .
2 4 1 -2 9 4 ; P. W . B rid g em a n , " T h e O p e ra tio n a l A sp ect o f M e a n in g ,”
Synthese, 8, 3 ( 6 - 7 ) (D ord rech t: 1 9 5 0 -1 9 5 1 ), p p . 2 5 1 -2 5 9 ; “T h e P res
ent State o f O p e r a tio n a lism ,” Scientific Monthly, 7 9 , 4 (W a sh in g to n ,
D .C .: 1954), pp. 2 0 9 -2 3 1 .
8 9 . For e x a m p le , G id eon Sjob erg, “O p e ra tio n a lism an d S o cia l R e
se a r c h ,” in Symposium on Sociological Theory, e d ite d by L lew ellyn
Gross (N ew York: H arp er, 1959), p p . 6 0 3 -6 2 7 .
9 0 . "In th e a c a d e m ic tr a d itio n ,” M arcuse argu es, “th ese d ic h o to
m ies [e .g ., m a n u a l versus in te llec tu a l w ork, lab or versus leisu re, n e c e s
sity versus freed o m , o p era tio n a l versus n o n b p er a tio n a l th o u g h t] o n c e
foun d their p arallel in th e d istin ctio n b etw een th e n a tu ra l scien ce s on
the o n e h a n d , and all'oth ers on th e o th er, the social sc ien ce s, h u m a n i
Civilization Without Discontents I 227
ties, etc. This distinction between the sciences has now become entire
ly obsolete.” “Remarks on a Redefinition of Culture,” Daedalus, 94, 1
(Cambridge: 1965), p. 192.
91. One-dimensional Man, p. 86 .
92. Ibid., p. 197.
93. Ibid., p. 195.
94. Ibid., p. 180.
95. See chapter six, pp. 276-277, for Marcuse’s examination of
Plato’s dialectical logic.
96. One-dimensional Man, p. 131 (italics added).
97. For another view that is quite suggestive of the one 1 present
here see Alvin W. Gouldner, Enter Plato, part 2 (New York: Harper &
Row, Torchbooks, 1971), especially pp. 96-112.
98. Marcuse refers to the doctrine of recollection in Counterrevolu
tion and Revolt (Boston: Beacon, 1972), pp. 69-70.
99. “On the Problem of the Dialectic,” Telos, 27 (St. Louis: 1976),
p. 33; originally published as “Zum Problem der Dialektik” (part 2),
Die Gesellschaft, 8 (part 2), 12 (Berlin: 1931), pp. 541-557.
100. Ibid. Elsewhere, in fact, Marcuse insists that in every act of
speech the individual has knowledge of the universal, of an essence or
potentiality, and that without such knowledge communication would
be inconceivable. He argues that “all communicative speech (mitteil-
ende Reden), which can be true or false, understands the particular as
the universal (because only as such is it communicable and under
standable).” “Zur Geschichte der Dialektik,” Sowjetsystem und Demo-
kratische Gesellschaft, 1 (Freiburg: 1966), p. 1194.
101. One-dimensional Man, p. 103.
102. Manley Thompson, “When Is Ordinary Language Re
formed?” in The Linguistic Turn, edited by Richard Rorty (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1970), especially pp. 203-204.
103. Norman Malcolm, "Moore and Ordinary Language," in The
Linguistic Turn, pp. 111-124.
104. Ibid., p. 117.
105. Roderick Chisholm, “Philosophers and Ordinary Language,”
in The Linguistic Turn, p. 182.
106. R. M. Hare, “Philosophical Discoveries,” in The Linguistic
Turn, especially pp. 208, 216-217.
107. Ibid., p. 217.
108. Stuart Hampshire, “The Interpretation of Language: Words
and Concepts,” in The Linguistic Turn, pp. 261-268.
109. Critical theory has not continued to neglect the critical dimen
sions of ordinary language and linguistic philosophy. In this area the
writings of Jurgen Habermas are perhaps the best known, but investi
228 T h e Im a g in a r y 'W it n ess
Civilization W ith o u t
Discontents II:
The Regime W ith in and
th e Regime W ith o u t
Whoever ventures on the enterprise o f setting up a
people must be ready, shall we say, to change hu
man nature, to transform each individual, who by
him self is entirely complete and solitary, into a part
o f a much greater whole, from which the same indi
vidual will then receive, in a sense, his life and his
being. The founder o f nations must weaken the struc
ture o f man in order to fortify it, to replace the phys
ical and independent existence we have all received
from nature with a moral and communal existence.
In a word each man must be stripped o f his powers,
and given powers which are external to him, and
which he cannot use without the help o f others. The
nearer m en’s natural powers are to extinction or an
nihilation, and the stronger and more lasting their
acquired powers, the stronger and more perfect is
the social institution.
Rousseau, The Social Contract
place of the superego, it also becomes the ego; that is, it now
constitutes the ego’s identity. In a real sense, the internalized
ego-ideal is the fusion of the ego and superego (functions). And
this newly formed ego, its thought and action, is “identical” to
the thought and action of the agent upon which it was originally
based.
Marcuse does not adopt these elements of the group psychol
ogy model without introducing revisions that he claims are im
plied in Freud’s theory. Freudian categories, Marcuse argues,
are fundamentally historical (social, economic, political), mean
ing that they take shape within one set of historical conditions
and contain within them the possibilities for their revision or dis
solution should these conditions change in specific ways.7 By
considering these revisions this argument can be understood,
along with the broader conclusions of Marcuse’s analysis.
First, Freud applied his group psychology model to particular
sorts of groups, those whose members are bound together by the
attraction of an unusually strong leadership. The egos of the
group’s members have fallen into the plight described above,
though for reasons very different from those offered by Marcuse
and which need not concern us here. However, all other ele
ments of the group psychology model already noted pertain.
Freud’s groups, such as the church and the army, which he used
to illustrate the dynamics of the group mind, are cases in social
as well as individual pathology. Societies, on the other hand, are
comprised of individuals who largely retain the moral, psycho
logical, and intellectual independence that the mob, the mass,
or the group unconsciously has resigned and reembodied in the
(father-)leader. Freud is correct, Marcuse’s theory holds, be
cause societal institutions, most notably the family, give rise to
individuals with psychic structures enabling them to distinguish
themselves to a significant degree, and critically, from the norms
facilitating social order. Individuality requires the traditional
family; the concept of individual presupposes a definite histori
cal logic, that is, material conditions that produce such a family
unit. Conversely, according to Marcuse the Freudian concept of
individual, of ego, implies its historical limits —internal changes
in the society and family that breed structural changes in the
psyche make the group psychology model applicable to the en
Civilization Without Discontents II 239
Notes
1. Herbert Marcuse, “The Obsolescence of the Freudian Concept
of Man,” Five Lectures (Boston: Beacon, 1970), p. 46, originally pre
sented as an address entitled “The Obsolescence of Psychoanalysis,” at
the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association,
1963, but first published as "Das Veralten der Psychoanalyse," Kultur
und Gesellschaft, 2 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1965), pp. 85-106.
2. Herbert Marcuse, "Freedom and Freud’s Theory of Instincts,”
Five Lectures, p. 14; originally published as “Trieblehre und Frei-
heit,” Freud in der Gegenwart: Em Vortragszyklus der Universitaten
Frankfurt und Heidelberg zum hundersten Geburtstag, Frankfurter
Beitrage zur Soziologie, 6 (Frankfurt: 1957), pp. 401-424.
3. Herbert Marcuse, “Progress and Freud’s Theory of Instincts,”
260 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
Civilization W ith o u t
Discontents III:
T he Foundations o f Critical
Theory and the New Science
If God held all truth concealed in his right hand,
and in his left hand the persistent striving for the
truth, and while warning me against eternal error,
should say: “Choose!” I should humbly bow before
his left hand, and say: “Father, give thy gift; the
pure truth is for thee alone. ’’
Lessing, Werke
2 61
262 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
and objective vehicle of historical change and hence not the ob
jective basis for the indictment of modern society, “class” is no
less efficacious as a conceptual tool for analyzing the many in
equalities of capitalism obscured but preserved through rational
ization .3 Technical reason, however, has proven its resourceful
ness in gradually rectifying these inequalities; hence, no critical
ground is to be acquired here. And since the laws of political
economy still pertain to the advanced stage of technical develop
ment, the crucial difference between capitalism and technologi
cal society lies in the course the “higher" stage of society must
eventually run. With advanced industrial society integrating all
potential opposition, its inevitable collapse must result in barba
rism. This is another implication of the practical obsolescence of
the socialist alternative. But although advanced industrial so
ciety must collapse violently, and perhaps with it what remains
of civilization after it has been hollowed by rationalization, ap
parently the peril of barbarism is insufficient to establish the ob
jective irrationality of the prevailing order. Theory’s critical sub
stance is violated where it is no longer rooted in or can no longer
appeal to a class subject. When subjectivity receded, the Marxist
conception of historical development went bankrupt and with it
critical theory’s claim to truth.
Second, Marx’s theory of history is not the only foundation for
reason that terminates in one-dimensional society. “Internal crit
icism,” which takes the social system to task for failing to meet
commitments extolled by its own ideology, while also demon
strating its institutional inabilities ever to do so, also becomes in
effectual. In 1941 Marcuse was able to declare that
critical rationality derives from the principles of autonomy which
individualistic society itself had declared to be its self-evident
truths. Measuring these principles against the form in which indi
vidualistic society has actualized them, critical rationality accuses
social injustice in the name of individualistic society’s own ideology.4
In advanced industrial society, however, reason must search
elsewhere for a critical edge. The individual has become so thor
oughly identified with the aims of the society that social needs,
values, and aspirations appear to originate with the individual.
Alienation has become total .5 Reproducing society spontane
ously from within, the subject appears autonomous. Freedom,
264 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
sort I have offered is sound and justified and must not be aban
doned so long as it is agreed that the interpretation need not
proceed further. Now, however, I want to suggest an alternative
view that may deepen the interpretation of Marcuse s argument
and that turns the indictment into a defense. I believe that this
second view is correct, but it becomes apparent only after Mar
cuse’s criteria have been evaluated and the charges—as obvious
as they are necessary —leveled. The accusations centering on the
general inadequacy of Marcuse’s criteria are well founded; how
ever, once made, they appear facile.’ Surely Marcuse anticipated
such a critique and for that reason a definite intellectual strategy
must reside behind his highly vulnerable “best formulation.” If
this hypothesis has a remote possibility of being true, Marcuse’s
strategy should be permitted to surface.
What could be the real point of Marcuse’s discussion of stan
dards for critical theory? Is it to pose the question of foundation
and to work toward a definition that sharply distinguishes the
rationality of competing projects, in which case he clearly has
failed? Or is it to pose the question and deliberately to provide an
answer that in virtue of its shortcomings implies that this ques
tion, which appears today as one of the overriding obstacles to a
critical theory of society, has in the past been both posed and an
swered incorrectly?
“The criteria for objective historical truth can best be formu
lated as the criteria of its rationality.” The key to unlocking the
meaning of Marcuse’s proposition is to be found in the relation
ship between truth and rationality that it expresses, together
with the inadequacies of Marcuse’s criteria as outlined. Marcuse
is preoccupied with neither criteria of truth nor criteria of ra
tionality but rather with the criteria o f the rationality o f truth.
What the rationality of truth is, is to be revealed by his criteria
though in an uncommon way. Since Marcuse’s criteria do not
serve as criteria in the usual sense, that is, as standards of judg
ment, could it be that he intends to convey a different sense of
“criteria”? In other words, whereas the “formal” status of criteria
of rationality allows them to discriminate, evaluate, and judge
objectively, that is, to be applied independently of the disposi
tion of any subject, to establish criteria of the rationality of truth
would be to disavow formalization. A sure method of avoiding
formalized criteria would be to leave open all their essential
Civilization Without Discontents III 273
that presupposes a subject both more and less capable than those
entailed by the extremes. This is the true subject of politicsl But
as it underlies Marcuse’s new conception of reason it remains ab
stract. With Counterrevolution and Revolt it will be given a defi
nite shape. Whether this is the subject to which critical theory
ought to subscribe cannot now be answered. What is first re
quired is a rich and complex theory of subjectivity that can de
termine whether such a subject really exists. Although my crit
ical examination of Marcuse’s work does not constitute this
theory, it has tried to demonstrate that certain dimensions of
subjectivity prevail in and against the process of rationalization
but are neglected by Marcuse. This subject, in fact, is remark
ably similar to that presupposed by the terms of Marcuse’s new
foundation for critical theory and its concept of emancipated
reason and is a parallel to the reflective, radically disposed sub
ject of Marcuse’s early work (see chapter one).
Thus, an adequate concept of the subject arises as the overrid
ing objective for a critical theory of society, but it is an objective
that cannot be met either by taking refuge in rationalism, in crit
ical “theory,” or only by developing a richer and more complex
theory of subjectivity. To grasp the true nature of subjectivity is
to grasp the subject in practice, as well. Marcuse has expressed
this point succinctly.
In the interplay of theory and practice, true and false solutions be
come distinguishable —never with the evidence of necessity, never as
the positive, only with the certainty of a reasoned and reasonable
chance, and with the persuasive force of the negative.*5
To complete the analysis of Marcuse’s argument regarding the
foundations of critical theory, a final problem needs to be con
sidered. The problem originates in an appreciation of Marcuse’s
broader and more ambitious theoretical objective: to lay founda
tions for critical theory that extend beyond the philosophical
basis we have just examined. Briefly, the problem can be de
scribed in this way: what is the relationship of Marcuse’s philo
sophical foundation to his interpretation of Freud’s instinct theory
and metapsychology, to the anthropological basis of critical the
ory Marcuse summarized by the phrase “a biological foundation
for socialism” and which I have referred to as his “second dimen
sion”? Are the philosophical and anthropological dimensions of
282 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
Notes
1. Herbert Marcuse, One-dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideol-
ogy of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston: Beacon, 1964), p. 21.
2. Ibid., pp. xii-xiii; see also Marcuse’s “Socialism in the Devel
oped Countries,’’ International Socialist Journal, 2, 8 (Rome: 1965),
p. 140; originally published as "Perspektiven des Sozialismus in der
entwickelten Industriegesellschaft,” Praxis, 1, 2-3 (Zagreb: 1965), pp.
260-270.
3. Marcuse argues that in “the advanced industrial countries there
is a class society; all the fine talk about a levelling out of the classes or
a property-owning democracy is no more than pure ideology.” “So
cialism in the Developed Countries,” p. 140.
4. Herbert Marcuse, “Some Social Implications of Modern Tech
nology,” Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, 9, 3 (New York:
1941), p.423.
5. One-dimensional Man, p. 11; also see Herbert Marcuse, “The
Individual in the ‘Great Society’ ” (part 2), Alternatives, 1, 2 (San
Diego: 1966), p. 29.
6. Herbert Marcuse, “Freedom and Freud’s Theory of Instincts,”
Five Lectures (Boston: Beacon, 1970), p. 12; originally published as
“Trieblehre und Freiheit,” Freud in der Gegenwart: Ein Vortragszy-
klus der Universitaten Frankfurt und Heidelberg zum hundersten Ge-
burtstag, Frankfurter Beitrage zur Soziologie, 6 (Frankfurt: 1957),
p p .401-424.
7. One-dimensional Man, p. 89.
8. “Some Social Implications of Modern Technology,” p. 424.
9. Other examples of the “unification of opposites” can be found in
One-dimensional Man, pp. 226-227, and in Herbert Marcuse, “Epi
logue to the New German Edition of Mafx’s 18th Brumaire of Louis
Napolean," Radical America, 3, 4 (Cambridge: 1969), p. 59; origi
nally published as the Epilogue to Karl Marx, Der 18. Brumaire des
Louis Bonaparte (Frankfurt: Insel, 1965), pp. 143-150.
Civilization Without Discontents III 287
Revolutionary Subject,
Revolutionary Class
Often, the outward and visible material signs and
symbols of happiness and success only show them
selves when the process of decline has already set in.
The outer manifestations take time—like the light of
that star up there, which may in reality be already
quenched, when it looks to us to be shining its
brightest.
Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks
289
290 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
Redefining Revolution
F a c t o r s in t h e S o c ia l C o m p o s it io n o f R e v o l u t io n
Marcuse assigns to the 'latter does not agree with Marx s crisis
theory. And although class is rejected in favor of a heterogeneous
social composition, the proletariats strategic relation to the pro
duction process is not ignored. Here Marcuse’s essential differ
ence with Marx is his disqualification of the proletariat as the
subjective factor in initiating revolutionary struggle.
Once Marcuse grasps the scope of the material and social fac
tors of revolution within a single concept, he moves to a consider
ation of what ought to be the practical relations between them.
To this end, Marcuse discusses both the strategies that should be
adopted by the New Left for building alliances among its respec
tive groups, between it and the working, professional, and tech
nical classes, and the obstacles to the success of these strategies
within these constituencies and the prevailing society.
O r g a n iz a t io n a n d St r a t e g y
The basic idea is: how can slaves who do not even know they are
slaves free themselves? How can they liberate themselves by their
own power, by their own faculties? How can they spontaneously ac
complish liberation? They must be taught and must be led to be
free, and this the more so the more the society in which they live
uses all available means in order to shape and preform their con
sciousness and to make it immune against possible alternatives.
This idea of an educational, preparatory dictatorship has today be
come an integral element of revolution and of the justification of
the revolutionary oppression.28
Our goals, our values, our own and new morality, our OWN moral
ity, must be visible already in our actions. The new human beings
who we want to help to create —we must already strive to be these
human beings right here and now.34
Anticipating a particular political practice on the basis of un
covering certain rational constraints embedded in Marcuse’s the
ory leads to a decisive question: is Marcuse obedient to these con
straints or does he violate the discipline of his own theory?
At first there is no disappointment. Without the least equivo
cation Marcuse approves only nonviolent demonstrations. “Pas
sive resistance” is an appropriate characterization of the ap
proach he supports, though such resistance must be of a peculiar
variety. Qualities belonging to a different, erotic sensibility also
must be present. Describing a Berkeley demonstration that was
on the verge of erupting into a violent confrontation, Marcuse
applauds a dramatic turn of events. “After two or three scary
minutes,” Marcuse recalls, “the thousands of marchers sat down
in the street, guitars and harmonicas appeared, people began
‘necking’ and ‘petting,’ and so the demonstration ended.” M ar
cuse refers to this as a “new dimension of protest, which consists
in the unity of moral-sexual and political rebellion .”35
In this example, as in several others scattered throughout
Marcuse’s work at this time, both constraints implicit in M ar
cuse’s theory are heeded. The strategy of demonstration is con
sistent with the principle of nonviolence, and as a primitive ex
pression of Marcuse’s libidinal rationality radical protest entails
the nonaggressive ends of a nonrepressive society. By itself, how
ever, demonstrations cannot alter the prevailing institutions even
if conducted on the broadest scale. Their purpose, Marcuse ar
gues, is educational .36 Demonstrations interrupt normal, every
day affairs and create a public space in which issues and events
are given new interpretations and explanations. Attracting a
critical mass, demonstrations provide the basis for organization,
from which more systematic educational work can proceed.
Demonstrations are preparatory.
It appears, though, that this preparatory stage is destined to
terminate prematurely and unsuccessfully. While Marcuse ad
vises that all opposition must strive to preserve peace by discover
ing forms of democratic struggle that neither are violent nor pro
voke the violence of established institutions, ultimately “it is
Revolutionary Subject, Revolutionary Class 307
T he New Sensibility
Figuratively speaking it is the language of Eros, and it originates
with the student rebellion. For that reason student protest held a
very special significance for Marcuse. Actually, its true impact
on the author of Eros and Civilization hardly can be imagined.
Libidinal rationality, the reality principle of a nonrepressive so
ciety, assumed new meaning in the wake of the moral-sexual
qualities of the student revolt. In light of Marcuse’s humanism, it
is no surprise that he drew attention to the “humanitarian” ac
cent of the student movement. No longer confined to a mere the
oretical indictment of modern society, Marcuse’s second dimen
sion at last found a living, concrete, and political manifestation
in the form of the counterculture. It is no accident that the Essay
on Liberation, devoted to an examination of the student contri
bution to the New Left, begins with a chapter entitled “A Bio
logical Foundation for Socialism?” Marcuse viewed the student
rebellion as a practical verification of his anthropological foun
dation for critical theory. Returning to the anthropological
themes of Eros and Civilization, An Essay on Liberation repre
sents the libidinal impulse by the “new sensibility.” Thus, Mar
cuse’s moral turn to the left is prefigured in the earlier study. Ne
glecting the left would have been tantamount to casting off
much of the work on Freud, the foundation supporting his theo
ry of domination as well as his concept of emancipation.
All the qualities of Eros are displayed by the new sensibility.
Its basic disposition is nonviolent in the broadest sense. It is op
posed to poverty, toil, exploitation, aggression, the transforma
tion of nature to satisfy repressive needs, the ugly creations and
awesome seriousness of modern civilization. It celebrates the
playful, the calm, the beautiful, the receptive faculties of man
through which human relations and the relations of man and na
ture would be pacified. In these qualities is contained Marcuse’s
vision of a nonrepressive society, a socialist society qualitatively
different from the established society. The new sensibility aritici-
312 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
ous work. But it is not that technics has ceased to be a new form
of control. Its effectiveness as a form of domination has altered
not because his understanding of technical reason has changed
but rather because Marcuse’s view of the subject has altered con
siderably. If the individual did not possess the capacities to resist
technological rationalization, there could be no discussion of dis
contents and transcendent needs as new motives for revolution
ary change. Quite clearly, Marcuse now has adopted a concep
tion of a very complex subject. In Counterrevolution and Revolt
the rationality of the subject, that is,'many of his needs, capac
ities, and dispositions, is understood implicitly to be qualitatively
different to some extent from the rationality of technics. Only
with such an understanding could Marcuse discern an opposition
between individual and society and, as we shall see next, reunite
critical theory with political practice. In Marcuse’s earlier work
his conception of subjectivity did not recognize a qualitative dif
ference. His theoretical analysis began one-dimensionally with
the single dimension of technical reason, a purely structural ra
tionality. Since within his theory the individual was already over
whelmed, because oversocialized, his analysis could do little
more than demonstrate that social relations conformed to this
single dimension. When, in Counterrevolution and Revolt, Mar
cuse moved from a theory of one-dimensional society, he also
moved from a one-dimensional theory.
Marcuse’s concept of the individual is now newly anchored be
tween two extremes of subjectivity. It is neither the oversocial
ized, behaviorist subjectivity that sets no limits to the extent to
which the individual can be shaped by society, nor the isolated
critical subject who stoutly prevails against the forces of one-di
mensionality to speak in the voice of Reason. More and less than
these extremes, Marcuse’s subject experiences discontents and
aspires to radically new needs, which erode its allegiance to the
system, but both the discontents and the needs are grasped with
uncertainty. They remain vague. As such, the subject is disposed
critically but is not yet a critical subject.
Marcuse describes the character of this individual as “unpoliti
cal, diffuse, and unorganized .”51 The individual is distinguished
by ambivalence. Unhappy but uncertain why and what to do
about it, the subject under conditions of stress could become re
actionary as well as radical. Worsening economic strains within
Revolutionary Subject, Revolutionary Class 319
Notes
1. See William Leiss, “Critical Theory and Its Future,” Political
Theory, 2, 3 (Beverly Hills: 1974), pp. 330-349.
2. Herbert Marcuse, “On the New Left,” in The New Left: A Docu
mentary History, edited by Massimo Teodori (New York: Bobbs-Mer-
rill, 1969), p. 469; address presented on December 4, 1968, at the
twentieth anniversary program at the Guardian, New York City.
3. Herbert Marcuse, “The Concept of Negation in the Dialectic,”
Telos, 8 (St. Louis: 1971), p. 130; originally published as “Zum Be-
griff der Negation in der Dialektik,” Filosoficky casopis, 15, 3
(Prague: 1967), pp. 375-379.
4. “On the New Left,”p. 472 (italics added).
5. Herbert Marcuse, “The Problem of Violence and the Radical
Opposition,” Five Lectures (Boston: Beacon, 1970), p. 96; originally
published as “Das Problem der Gewalt in der Opposition,” in Das
Ende der Utopie (West Berlin: Maikowski, 1967), pp. 47-54.
6 . Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation (Boston: Beacon,
1969), p. 67. ‘
7. Ibid., p. 51.
8 . See Herbert Marcuse, Revolution or Reform? A Confrontation,
Afterword by Franz Stark (Chicago: New University Press, 1976),
p. 72; originally published as Revolution oder Reform? Herbert Mar
cuse und Karl Popper, Afterword by Franz Stark (Munich: Kosel,
1972). See also Herbert Marcuse, “Revolution aus Ekel,” Der Spiegel,
31 (Hamburg: 1969), pp. 103-106.
9. See chapter six, p. 280.
10. Herbert Marcuse, “Freedom and the Historical Imperative,”
Studies in Critical Philosophy (Boston: Beacon, 1973), p. 219; origi
nally published as “La Liberte et les imperatifs de l’histoire," La Lib-
erte et Vordre social (Neuchatel: la Baconnidre, 1969), pp. 129-143.
11. Herbert Marcuse, “Liberation from the Affluent Society,” in
To Free a Generation: The Dialectics of Liberation, edited by David
Cooper (Baltimore: Penguin, 1968), p. 183.
Revolutionary Subject, Revolutionary Class 321
ence Association, 1963, tyut first published as Das Veralten der Psy
choanalyse,” Kultur und Gesellschaft, 2 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp,
1965), pp. 85-106. Calculations based upon Marcuse’s theory indicate
that the generations of the 1950s and 1960s should have been the first
generations of one-dimensional progeny and consequently those least
capable of rebellion and psychological resistance to advanced indus
trial society.
34. “On the New Left,” p. 469.
35. “The Problem of Violence,” p. 92.
36. “Liberation from the Affluent Society,” pp. 190-191.
37. “The Problem of Violence," pp. 90, 106.
38. An Essay on Liberation, p. 68.
39. Ibid., p. 69.
40. Ibid., p. 68.
41. Herbert Marcuse, “Thoughts on the Defense of Gracchus Ba-
beuf,” in The Defense of Gracchus Babeuf, edited by John Anthony
Scott (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1967), pp.
102-103.
42. “Ethics and Revolution,” p. 140.
43. Herbert Marcuse, “Murder Is Not a Political Weapon,” New
German Critique, 12 (Milwaukee: 1977), p. 7; originally published as
“Mord darf keine Waffe der Politik sein,” Die Zeit, 39 (Hamburg:
1977), pp. 41-42. In a discussion with Peter Merseberger, Marcuse ac
knowledged that his proposals for violence can be interpreted in ways
other than those he intends. “Merseburger: In principle, however, you
still condone a positive terror, one that would be able to liberate re
pressive society from some repression. Marcuse: I would not call that
terror. I approve of any movement, any possibility, that would reduce
or perhaps even eliminate the prevailing terror and the prevailing op
pression. Merseburger: If necessary, by means of terror? Marcuse: If
necessary, yes. But then one would have to specify very precisely the
meaning of ‘necessary.’ We see it is very easy for me to get trapped in
these matters.” “Gesprach mit Peter Merseburger: Herbert Marcuse
und die prophetische Tradition,” in Wcltfrieden und Revolution,
edited by Hans-Eckehard Bahr (Hamburg: Rowolt, 1968), pp.
295-296.
44. “The Problem of Violence,” p. 98.
45. Marcuse argues that “we have here and today a historically new
situation. The technological and scientific development of production
has achieved a stage in which this new man has ceased to be a matter
of mere speculation . . . A new type of map has become possible whose
life and whose instincts —I would lay stress on the instincts —are no
longer determined J5y what Max Weber called ‘inner-worldly asceti-
Revolutionary Subject, Revolutionary Class 323
cism’ or by what we call the Judeo-Christian work ethic, the ethic of re
nunciation and of business.” "Professoren als Staats-Regenten?” Der
Spiegel, 35 (Hamburg: 1967), pp. 115-116.
46. Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution ajid Revolt (Boston: Bea
con, 1972), p. 13.
47. Ibid., p. 21.
48. Ibid., p. 7.
49. Ibid., p. 21.
50. Ibid., p. 30.
51. Ibid., pp. 23, 25.
52. Ibid., p. 55.
, EIGHT
324
The A esthetic Dimension and the Second Dimension 325
and life (social existence). The artist becomes separated from the
surrounding world as his recognition of a shattered cultural uni
ty forces him to an awareness that there is no universal social
spirit through which he can establish an identity. The artist’s
separation compels him to define himself as a subject, individual,
or personality in relation to the antagonistic parts of his society.
As Marcuse puts it, the artist now “awakens into self-conscious
ness.” As society’s various aspects become objects of the artist’s
work, nothing in the society satisfies the artist’s need to portray a
unified vision of social life. Art can only reproduce the fragmen
tation of culture. The artist novel expresses this alienation of the
artist from society. In the novellas of Thomas Mann, the artist’s
self-consciousness of his separation and of the missing universal
spirit in his work reaches its most intense expression. At this stage
in the progress of the artist novel, the artist passes beyond a self-
consciousness of his opposition to society. He attempts to reunify
art and life by depicting a higher, more rational idea of a unified
spiritual existence through a new aesthetic form.
Throughout Marcuse’s writings, this conceptual framework
guides his analysis of the relationship between art and society.
Homogeneous, well-integrated societies produce art that con
forms to established norms. Art cannot escape the iron cage of
social life. Inherently antagonistic social orders, on the other
hand, give birth to artistic works that do not reflect the domi
nant ideology but are independent of and oppose it. Art thrives
on the basis of such conflict for it is driven to make strides toward
an aesthetic conception of a rational social order that would de
velop the progressive dimensions of the antagonisms without be
coming divided internally. In this chapter, it will be seen that
Marcuse finally views advanced industrial society as a homoge
neous social order in which art mirrors social values and flatters
social institutions. He then looks back to an earlier stage of capi
talism during which social antagonisms produced an art with an
aesthetic vision of an order that would develop its historical pos
sibilities for a universal community that meets the needs for free
dom and fulfillment of all individuals.
Marcuse completed his dissertation on an optimistic note. The
struggle of the bourgeois artist to create an aesthetic form that
would reunify art and life is symbolic of a real historical strug
gle—“A piece of human history becomes visible behind the liter
The Aesthetic Dimension and the Second Dimension 329
can master the reality that is the object of art. Form must always
contain rules and symbols quite different from those of social re
ality if the latter is to be dramatically transfigured through art.
The more that political coercion impinges on artistic form, the
more does the form of art become abstract and surrealistic in an
attempt to escape the operational terms of Soviet realism. The
sole end of artistic enterprise then becomes the creation of forms
that by virtue of their abstract character make political retrans
lation impossible. Not only is formalism therefore deeply com
mitted to the ideal of freedom, but the form of the commitment
places this ideal beyond the manipulative reach of the state.
Marcuse holds out the possibility, however, that formalism may
one day be forced to submit to increasingly effective totalitarian
constraints. Within the Soviet Union, “even ‘formalistic’ and ‘ab
stract’ elements may still become reconcilable with conformist
enjoyment. In its societal function, art shares the growing impo
tence of individual autonomy and cognition .”18
For the Sake of A dvanced Industrial S ociety
By this point in the discussion, certain themes have begun to
emerge from Marcuse’s approach to aesthetics. Artistic form ap
pears to be the single most important critical element of art. Its
critical function is preserved unless some social and political dy
namic, such as we encountered in Marcuse’s analysis of fascism,
is used to manipulate the emotive basis of art or if political pres
sures are brought to bear, as they have been in the Soviet Union,
which would eventually subdue artistic form and paralyze its
critical disposition. The argument Marcuse pursues in One-di
mensional Man is quite similar to those of “The Affirmative
Character of Culture” and Soviet Marxism. Art is the final ref
uge for criticism but is jeopardized by practices threatening to
coordinate the critical dimension of art with the norms of the es
tablished order. In this work, as far as art is the concern, Mar
cuse’s analysis is focused on Western advanced industrial soci
eties. The type of authoritarianism described, however, includes
many of the characteristics of Fascist and Soviet totalitarianism.
Though the attack on art within Western advanced industrial
society is noncoercive, it is more effective than its German and
Soviet counterparts. In the West, artistic enterprise occurs with
in a tolerant societal framework. Art is permitted its owrt truths
336 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
and may proceed on it&own terms, but its norms are unfamiliar,
strange, and meaningless for that very reason. Whereas the Sovi
et political system is a less socially and economically integrated
society than those in the advanced West, which means that many
of its sectors would be highly receptive to the critical and tran
scendent qualities of art, the extent of socioeconomic integration
in Western advanced industrial society tends to make it imper
vious to the ideals that art represents.
The contentment of those who live and work in advanced in
dustrial society not only contributes to the lack of impact and the
impotence of art by creating an apathetic public but also nur
tures ignorance of art’s meaning and purpose. And in a society
where all cultural and material artifacts are reduced to the com
modity form, the only art produced will speak to the repressive
needs and interests of the common man. Art must necessarily in
corporate the value attributed to it by a society bent exclusively
on increasing affluence. The result is that the ideals of art are as
similated by a nonidealistic reality. Art, Marcuse contends, “is
brought down from the sublimated realm of the soul or the spirit
or the inner man, and translated into operational terms and
problems.”19
Marcuse indulges in a periodic optimism when he endeavors to
revive an aesthetic that tenaciously clings to a critical function by
continuing to portray an order different from that which the in
dividual most intimately experiences. He turns to the art of the
pretechnological era, which forcefully expressed a real antago
nism between the aesthetic and the social universe. At that time
art projected an infinitely more pleasant reality than even the
most privileged experienced. A genuine material basis for con
trast permeated the existence of each individual, who was natu
rally receptive to the alluring and seductive images of dreamlike
poetic visions. Marcuse recognizes the anachronistic character of
the art of a pretechnological culture and dwells on it not for the
sake of nostalgia but in order to recapture what he believes to be
the suppressed possibilities of a technological society. The fanta
sies of a pretechnological era could become a modern reality prin
ciple; its art links its past with our present and future. The beauty
of traditional art would stimulate the recollection of deeply re
pressed desires for a higher gratification. Once again, the truth
The Aesthetic Dimension and the Second Dimension 337
one of the tasks of the opposition to recapture and save from ex
tinction the transcendent qualities of bourgeois art. The vision of
a free society that such art embodies would serve both as a prac
tical inspiration and as a theoretical guide for a gradually ex
panding political opposition. Most important, according to the
arguments of Counterrevolution and Revolt, there exists both an
opposition that could seize upon and politicize the progressive
aesthetic achievements of the bourgeois past and a critically
disposed individual to whom such a radical appeal would be
meaningful. What must be emphasized is that it is only through
a living opposition that the dead art of the past becomes animate
and an oppositional force. Without an existing opposition, bour
geois art remains buried and its critical powers remain buried
with it.
In his final book, The Permanence of Art: Against Any Par-
ticular Marxist Aesthetics (Die Permanenz der Kunst: Wider
eine bestimmte Marxistische Aesthetik), translated from the
German as The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward a Critique o f
Marxist Aesthetics, Marcuse departs from the optimism of Coun
terrevolution and Revolt and returns to the theory of technologi
cal domination and one-dimensional society. The new work re
tains Marcuse’s aesthetic theory unchanged. Marcuse’s critique
of Marxist aesthetics and modern art, the theory of the critical
function of aesthetic form and its affirmative characteristics, the
relation of form and beauty to Eros, the imagination, and the
pleasure principle, and bourgeois art as the apotheosis of the aes
thetic representation of freedom and fulfillment —in short, all
the arguments scattered through the many works discussed in
this chapter are collected into The Aesthetic Dimension. But it is
Marcuse’s return to his earlier theoretical convictions that is most
significant.
In The Aesthetic Dimension the focus is exclusively on art.
The discussion no longer proceeds within the context of an anal
ysis of the deterioration of social order and the emergence of an
opposition in advanced industrial society. The central argument
of Counterrevolution and Revolt has been discarded. Once
again, critical theory is without practice. Not only the revolu
tionary class subject but also the critically disposed individual
subject have ceased to be a source of political resistance and po
The Aesthetic Dimension and the Second Dimension 347
Notes
1. The essays have been collected in Herbert Marcuse, Zeit-Messun-
gen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1975). The first, "Marxismus und Femi-
nismus,” was originally published as “Marxism and Feminism,” Wom
en’s Studies, 2, 3 (Old Westbury: 1974), pp. 279-288; “Theorie und
Praxis” was published in Zeit-Messungen for the first time; “Scheitern
348 T h e Im a g in a r y W it n e ss
T he Im aginary W itness
It is not the portrayal of reality as hell on earth but
the slick challenge to break out of it that is suspect.
If there is anyone today to whom we can pass the re
sponsibilities for the message, we bequeath it not to
the “masses,” and not to the individual (who is
powerless), but to an imaginary witness—lest it per
ish with us.
Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno,
Dialectic of Enlightenment
bilities of radical action and thus could never grasp action’s real
preconditions. Only a theory that recognizes the effects of re
ification and realizes that the structure concealed by ideology
generates insights that transcend appearances can be a radical
theory. Such a theory is radical because it recognizes that the in
dividual is necessarily ambivalent. By grasping the individual’s
plight Marcuse’s theory discovered that insight can become
knowledge and disposition opposition only through a politics of
engagement and discourse. Liberal politics surfaced as an au
thentic radical politics, liberal theory as a theory of revolution.
Marcuse’s project did not liberalize radicalism but radicalized
liberalism. The position that Marcuse arrives at with Counter
revolution and Revolt returns to his early project and in a precise
way expresses this radicalization of liberal political practice.
Among contemporary variants of critical theory there is pres
ently little work that in its basic theoretical and practical objec
tives and conception of the individual resembles Marcuse’s proj
ect. There are signs, however, that the broad based intentions of
Marcuse’s early writings also animate some recent developments,
particularly in the area of interpretive social theory .2 An exam
ple of the research conducted in interpretive theory is William
Connolly’s study, Appearance and Reality in Politics. 3 Without
attempting a detailed exposition of Connolly’s rich and complex
work, I want to draw attention to certain aspects that establish it
as a counterpart to Marcuse’s early project.
Drawing initially upon the results of Richard Sennett and Jon
athan Cobb’s Hidden Injuries o f Class',4 Connolly focuses upon
the set of beliefs through which the worker justifies his accept
ance of the work routines and authoritarian controls that are
fundamental to his everyday existence in industrial society. The
worker’s tolerance of these harsh practices is motivated by an
“ideology of sacrifice.” Through his willingness to sacrifice to im
prove his children’s opportunities for social mobility, the worker
can claim the respect of his family, which in turn lends dignity to
his life activity and provides him with self-esteem and a personal
identity.
Because the worker’s identity is largely rooted in his sacrifice,
the ideology of sacrifice serves as the basis from which he inter
prets the meaning and significance of events within the social or
der. Connolly explains, for instance, that the worker’s sacrificial
Concluding Remarks 353
Notes
1. Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlight
enment (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), p. ix.
2. An excellent introduction to interpretive theory is Brian Fay, So
cial Theory and Political Practice (London: George Allen & Unwin,
Concluding Remarks 357
*•
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H abermas, J urgen . “Technology and Science as ‘Ideology.’ ” Toward
a Rational Society (Boston: Beacon, 1970), pp. 81-122.
____Philosophised-politische Profile [Herbert Marcuse and others]
(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1971).
___ (ed.). Antworten auf Herbert Marcuse (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp,
1968).
H acker, A ndrew . “Philosopher of the New Left.” New York Times
Book Review (New York: March 10, 1968), pp. 1-37.
H earn , T homas. "On Tolerance." Southern Journal of Philosophy, 8
(Memphis: 1970), pp. 223-232.
H ein , H ilde . “Aesthetic Consciousness: The Ground of Political Expe
rience. "Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 35, 2 (Cleveland:
1976), pp. 143-152.
H elms, H ans G. “Linksradikalismus unter Monopolkapitalistischen.”
Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Philosophic, 17,10 (East Berlin: 1969), pp.
1180-1209.
H ermann , Ka i . Die Revolte der Student en (Hamburg: Christian Weg
ner, 1967).
“Hilfe von Arbeitslosen.” Der Spiegel, 25 (Hamburg: 1967), pp.
103-104. "•
H indery , R. “Marcuse’s Eroticized Man.” Christian Century, 87 (Chi
382 B ib lio g r aph y
Index
394
In d ex 395
*
THE IMAGINARY W ITNESS
TH E CRITICALTHEORY OF
HERBERT MARCUSE
MORTON SCHOOLM AN
ISBN O-QH-TBAOMD-D