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Herbert Marcuse Social Philosopher
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Herbert MarcuseSocial PhilosopherHerbert Marcuse was born in Berlin in 1898. He studied at the University of Berlin and the University of Freiburg, where he worked with Heidegger. He received his Ph.D. for a dissertation on Hegel’s ontology and its relation to his philosophy of history. He left Germany for Switzerland and taught at Geneva for a year. He then went to the United States, and from 1934 to 1940 was the colleague of Max Horkheimer at the Institute for Social Research. At Columbia he pursued the research which led to the writing of Soviet Marxism. A study of Marcuse will examine: (1) function of philosophy, (2) the role of Marxism, (3) technology, and (4) application to debate. As a critic, Marcuse has been an influential guide to the political left. Marcuse as a young academic was very much a product of the German academic and philosophical tradition. Marcuse disliked Nazism and his explanation was that systems like Nazism grew out of certain societies. Specifically, Marcuse believed that Nazism represented a culminating stage in the development of a bourgeois society based on a capitalist economy. In addition, he argued that in the philosophy and theory of Nazism one found the culmination of tendencies present throughout the bourgeois epoch. Marcuse argued that the essential function of philosophy was the criticism of what exists. Philosophy was able to provide us with an account of the structure of thought in particular times and places. Moreover, philosophy provided us with a standpoint which transcended the limitations of particular times and places and of particular structures of thought. Marcuse has never denied that the practice of philosophy was historically conditioned. Instead, he argued that the distortions imposed by that conditioning were less at some periods than at others; one therefore found in the history of philosophy periods in which philosophical thought had the power to transcend its immediate environment. In contrast to other positions at the time (phenomenology and positivism), Marcuse praised Marxist materialism. Precisely because Marxist materialism both envisaged a contrast between what a human happens to be at the moment and what a human could become. Marcuse also distinguished between bow things really are in a capitalist society and the false consciousness that humans in such a society possess. This notion also restored the concept of essence to a central place. We are thus not limited to things as they are; in the light of Marxist materialism given facts are understood as appearances whose essence can be comprehended only in the context of particular historical tendencies aiming at a different form of reality. Furthermore, this knowledge of historical structures is what gives us a basis for the criticism of existing reality. Moreover, Marcuse’s study of Soviet Marxism was necessarily a study of Stalinist and post-Stalinist Marxism. Both Marcuse and Soviet Marxists agree with Marx that at the point at which the transition from capitalism to socialism takes place the relationships that have held between different social institutions are also transformed. It becomes possible to direct social change in ways that have before been impossible. Marcuse argues that this means, that even if Soviet Marxists can be indicted for their view of the function of the state in this transition, it is common ground that impersonal economic forces lose their dominant place in the chains of history. Finally, in One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse argues that technology of advanced industrial societies has enabled them to eliminate conflict by assimilating all those who in earlier forms of social order provided either voices or forces of dissent. Technology does this partly by creating affluence. Freedom from material want, which Marx and Marcuse himself took and take to be the precondition of other freedoms has been transformed into an agency for producing servitude. When human’s needs are satisfied, their reasons for dissent and protest are removed and they become the passive instruments of the dominating system. Moreover, Marcuse argues that the human nature of those who inhabit advanced industrial societies has been molded so that their very wants, needs and aspirations have become conformist. The majority cannot voice their true needs, for they cannot perceive or feel them. The minority must therefore voice their needs, and this active minority must rescue the necessarily passive majority. Debaters should be able to find Marcuse useful for almost any resolution. Because Marcuse is interested in government structure, values, policies, and violence, his work should be integrated into most debate rounds. Marcuse can also be used with other Marxist-centered scholars, who critique current government forms and the plight of the minority. Finally, the debater should recognize that Marcuse is essentially practical. His primary interest is not to discuss value hierarchies, but to reveal how those values lead to oppression and/or liberation. BibliographyBen Agger. THE DISCOURSE OF DOMINATION: FROM THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL TO POSTMODERNISM. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University press, 1992. Harold Bleich. The Philosophy of Herbert Marcuse. Washington: University Press of America, 1977. Paul Brienes. ed. CRITICAL INTERRUPTIONS: NEW LEFT PERSPECTIVES ON HERBERT MARCUSE. New York: Herder and Herder, 1970. John Fry. MARCUSE, DILEMMA AND LIBERATION: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS. Brighton, England: Harvester Press, 1978. Douglas Kellner. HERBERT MARCUSE AND THE CRISIS OF MARXISM. Berkeley: University of California press, 1984. Peter Lind. MARCUSE AND FREEDOM. London: Croom Helm, 1985. Sidney Lipshires. Herbert Marcuse: from Marx to Freud and Beyond. Cambridge, MS: Schenkman Publishing Co., 1974. Alasdair Maclntyre. HERBERT MARCUSE: AN EXPOSITION AND A POLEMIC. New York: Viking Press, 1970. Main Martineau. HERBERT MARCUSE’S UTOPIA. Montreal: Harvest House, 1986. Herbert Marcuse. THE AESTHETIC DIMENSION: TOWARD A CRITIQUE OF MARXIST AESTHETICS. Boston: Beacon Press, 1978. Herbert Marcuse. COUNTERREVOLUTION AND REVOLT. Boston: Beacon Press, 1972. Herbert Marcuse. EROS AND CIVILIZATION: A PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY INTO FREUD. New York: Vintage Press, 1955. Herbert Marcuse. AN ESSAY ON LIBERATION. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969. Herbert Marcuse. HEGEL’S ONTOLOGY AND THE THEORY OF HISTORICITY. Cambridge, MS: MIT Press, 1987. Herbert Marcuse. ONE DIMENSIONAL MAN: STUDIES IN THE IDEOLOGY OF ADVANCED INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY. Boston: Beacon Press, 1966. Herbert Marcuse. SOVIET MARXISM: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. Robert B. Pippin. MARCUSE: CRITICAL THEORY AND THE PROMISE OF UTOPIA. South Hadley, MS: Bergin & Garvey, 1988. Paul A. Robinson. THE FREUDIAN LEFT: WILLHELM REICH, GEZA ROHEIM, HERBERT MARCUSE. New York: Harper & Row, 1969. Morton Schoolman. THE IMAGINARY WITNESS: THE CRITICAL THEORY OF HERBERT MARCUSE. New York: Free Press, 1980. 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