One Dimensional Man is a work by Herbert Marcuse, German philosopher of the Frankfurt School (which also belonged Habermas, Horkheimer or Adorno). In “one dimensional man”, author offers a wide-ranging critique of both contemporary capitalism and the Communist society of the Soviet Union, documenting the parallel rise of new forms of social repression in both these societies. He argues that "advanced industrial society" created false needs, which integrated individuals into the existing system of production and consumption via mass media, advertising, industrial management, and contemporary modes of thought.
This results in a
"one-dimensional" universe of thought and behavior, in which aptitude
and ability for critical thought and oppositional behavior wither away. Against
this prevailing climate, Marcuse promotes the "great refusal"
(described at length in the book) as the only adequate opposition to
all-encompassing methods of control.
Modernity and critics
Modern societies are “closed
societies” that integrate all aspects of human life, private and public.
Democracy of western society and in Marcuse is the best system of domination
(Marxist parentage of this review is rather obvious as not to stress). Democracy under the guise of freedom of expression,
“stifles the revolutionary forces by new forms of control over.”
The protest becomes futile, since the
society is non-explosive, since thought is to thank you powers.
Marcuse seems to regret the nineteenth
century society based on class antagonisms, the proletariat against bourgeois
civil society against state. The twentieth century is thus characterized by a
“policy of increasing integration” of the masses once pointedly excluded.
Today, they were integrated into the system to protect it.
Totalitarianism
and industrial societies
In advanced industrial societies,
Marcuse says that the unit of production is totalitarian in without it
determines the activities, attitudes and skills involved in social life. It
defines and regulates also the aspirations and individual needs. Thus, the
creation of false needs and control of these needs have corollary the
disappearance of the border private / public life: only the consumer remains.
It is this unique ontological condition that Marcuse called “un dimensional.”
Pluralism of democracy is an illusion
that seeks to hide that “the specific system of production and distribution has
the form of government.” This is the critical power of the individual who
defines the degree of democracy in a society. However, according to Marcuse,
individual thinking is “drowning in mass communication.” He points and the dual
role of media: to inform / entertain and conditioning / indoctrination. Behaviors
and thoughts one dimensionalised by advertising, the entertainment industry and
information. Dimensional thinking is the “dominant system that coordinates all
ideas and all objectives with those it produces, which he encloses and rejects
those who are irreconcilable.”
Protests, integrated system are more
negative, they function to justify the status quo. This denial of criticism is
a negation of transcendence, which is a fundamental aspiration of man. The
social system is static, in a sense of confinement.
The society has in effect creates a
kind of pre-established harmony among the conflicting interests of civil
society. Marcuse points to the political monism where pluralism is apparent, is
a sham.
Even the enemies of institutions and
democracy became “normal force inside the system.” The reversal is so historic
that initially, it is critical that civil society allows the state to regulate
its power, it is today the State flange criticism and weakens.
Even what Marcuse called “high
culture” (with accents Nietzschean obviously), otherwise all oppositional
elements and transcendent of a society has been incorporated into the
established order. Result in forfeiture by the theorist of the Frankfurt School
of mass communication, which has commodified cultural fields (music,
philosophy, politics, religion, culture … has lost its subversive power.
Thus, the modern society becomes ‘one dimension’,
characterized by the flattening of discourse, imagination, culture and politics
into the field of understanding, the perspective, of the dominant order. This
affluent consumer society of organised capitalism stands in contrast with a
previous situation of ‘two-dimensional’ existence i.e. the coexistence of the
present system with its negation.
So, in culture, this second dimension was expressed
in the role of culture as critique, in the ways in which even conservative
aspects of culture contrasts with the prevailing order. In thought, the gap emerges because of the
distance between concepts and their particular uses, the possibility of
conceptually separating an actor or object (a worker, a produced item) from its
functional or systemic context (work, commodities), and the contrast between
ethical values and existing realities. And the gap between the two dimensions
is for Marcuse crucial to the possibility of social change.
So, according to Marcuse, The two dimensions produce
a gap or distance between what can be thought and what exists, a gap in which
critical thought can flourish. But in present capitalist society, with the
emergence of ‘welfare state’, the gap has been closed by a process of almost
totalitarian social integration through the coordination of social functions
and the rise of consumerism and administrative thought.
Conclusion of the analysis:
In a nutshell, Marcuse criticizes the
modern become of societies in which capitalism and liberal democracy are
the major features. Marcuse’s thesis is that modern society is an artifact of
freedom, all the more pernicious it pretends to be a regime of liberty.
Marcuse’s project is near Tocqueville’s thesis in Democracy in America.
The power of critical Marcuse is
clear: democracies are in his authoritarian regimes that do not say their name.
It is the disappearance of thought in material reality which is the center of
concern of today’s intellectuals. Marcuse is the merit of reminding us of this
truth: Thinking is denying.
Criticism-
Much of the book is a defense
of "negative thinking"
Appreciation-
‘One dimensional man’,
despite its criticism of being pessimistic, influenced many in the New Left as it articulated their growing dissatisfaction
with both capitalist societies and Soviet communist societies. Besides, The
some scholars such as philosopher Ronald Aronson believe that despite of
being 50 years old, One-Dimensional Man is more relevant today than
ever.
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