Description of the Module

Items Description of the Module

Subject Name Sociology
Paper Name Contemporary Social Theory
Module Name/Title Critical theory: the frankfurt school
contributions of Herbert Marcuse
Objectives The basic objective of this module is to introduce readers to works
of Herbert Marcuse and critically analyze his most important
contributions to the Frankfurt School
Key words One Dimensional Man, Democratic Unfreedom, Eros and Logos

Module Structure

The Frankfurt School: Introduction, Reason and Revolution, Eros and Civilization, The
Contributions of Herbert „One Dimensional Man‟, Marcuse: The Public Intellectual,
Marcuse Conclusion, References, Learn More.

Role Name Affiliation

Principal Investigator Prof. Sujata Patel Professor, Department of
Sociology,
University of Hyderabad
Subject Coordinator Prof. Sujata Patel Professor, Department of
Sociology,
University of Hyderabad
Paper Coordinator Dr. Dev Pathak Assistant Professor, Department
of Sociology, South Asian
University
Content Writer Shubhangi Vaidya Associate Professor, Department
of Sociology, IGNOU, Delhi
Content Reviewer Dr. Dev Pathak Assistant Professor, Department
of Sociology, South Asian
University
Language Editor Dr. Dev Pathak Assistant Professor, Department
of Sociology, South Asian
University
CRITICAL THEORY: THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL

Contributions of Herbert Marcuse

1. Introduction

The earlier modules familiarized you with the important contributions of Max Horkheimer and
Theodor Adorno in articulating the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. These scholars opened
up the social and ideological foundations of the western capitalist society to intense scrutiny and
critique and put forth the idea that in the guise of rationality, individuality and freedom, human
beings are unwittingly becoming enslaved by the contours of contemporary capitalism which is
based upon blind consumerism and the need to accumulate more and more material goods.
Culture becomes commodified and the „totally administered society‟ regulates and controls the
ways we think and act, blunting the possibilities of dissent and contestation. The present module
will introduce you to probably the best known and most popular of the Frankfurt School theorists-
Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) -whose seminal contributions and ideas influenced a generation of
activists and scholars to critically question the direction in which contemporary society was going
and pose a radical alternative. Marcuse is regarded as the „Guru‟ of the New Left and the student
uprisings that took place in the USA and Europe in the latter part of the decade of the nineteen
sixties; the decade of the „hippies‟ and non-conformist rebels who shunned the „bourgeois‟ family
and its morality and consumerist capitalist lifestyles and domination of the non-west by the
advanced western societies.

Marcuse was born in 1898 in Berlin. His mother was Gertrud Kreslawsky and his father was a
well-off businessman, Carl Marcuse. His childhood was that of a typical German upper-middle
class youth whose Jewish family was well integrated into German society. In 1916 Marcuse was
called to military duty during the World War I (1914-1918). It was in the military where his
political education began, although during this period his political involvement was brief. The
experience of war and the German Revolution of 1918-1919 led Marcuse to a study of Marxism
as he tried to understand „the dynamics of capitalism and imperialism, as well as the failure of the
German Revolution‟ (Kellner 1984: 17).The German revolution was a consequence of the social
tensions and economic crisis that the German Empire experienced after it was defeated in World
War I; however, due the fragmentation and infighting between the left-wing parties, it failed in its
objective of putting in place a new kind of socio-political system. Marcuse also wanted to learn
more about socialism and the Marxian theory of revolution in order to understand his own
inability to identify with any of the major Left parties at that time (Kellner 1984: 17). However,
this study of Marxism would be brief. In 1918 Marcuse was released from military service. He
then went to Freiburg to pursue his studies and completed a PhD in Literature. In his dissertation
of 1922, „The German Artist-Novel‟, the artist represents a form of radical subjectivity. The
novel as a literary form depicts the longing and striving of society and thus embodies a sense of
alienation from social life. This orientation of thought was influenced by his encounter with
Marxism. In simple words, the artist experiences a gap between the ideal and the real; on the one
hand, through his artistic work he attempts to create an ideal world for humanity whereas in
reality, the conditions of his life are far from ideal. This produces a sense of alienation in the artist
which ultimately becomes the catalyst for social change. Explicating the radical function of art as
an agent of transformation is an important contribution of Marcuse. However, just as art
embodied the potential for liberation and the formation of radical subjectivity, it was also capable
of being taken up by systems of domination and used to further or maintain domination. This
aspect would be explored by him in his 1937 essay „The Affirmative Character of Culture‟.
Culture, which is the domain of art, develops in tension with the overall structure of a given
society. The values and ideal produced by culture calls for the transcending of oppressive social
reality (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

After receiving his Ph.D in literature in 1922, and following a short career as a bookseller in
Berlin, he returned to Freiburg in 1928 to study philosophy with Martin Heidegger, considered
one of the most influential thinkers in Germany at the time. While in Berlin Marcuse had
discovered Heidegger's newly published „Being and Time‟. His interest in philosophy had
remained secondary to his interest in German literature up to this point. The excitement caused by
„Being and Time‟ would lead him to a life-long serious engagement with philosophy. Marcuse's
first published article in 1928 attempted a synthesis of the philosophical perspectives of
phenomenology, existentialism, and Marxism. Marcuse argued that much Marxist thought had
degenerated into a rigid orthodoxy and thus needed concrete lived and „phenomenological‟
experience to revitalize the theory. Marcuse believed that Marxism neglected the problem of the
individual and the possibilities of individual transformation and liberation. Marcuse continued to
maintain throughout his life that Heidegger was the greatest teacher and thinker that he had ever
encountered. However, due to Heidegger‟s growing association with the Nazis, Marcuse was
disillusioned and thus parted company with his teacher. After completing a „Habilitations
Dissertation‟ (a post-doctoral dissertation) on „Hegel's Ontology and the Theory of Historicity‟,
he decided to leave Freiburg in 1933 to join the Institut fur Sozialforschung (Institute for Social
Research) which was located in Frankfurt at the time, which later shifted base to North America
during the period of the World War II. His study of Hegel‟s philosophy contributed to a
resurgence of interest in Hegel‟s theories and was very well regarded by scholars at the time. In
1933, he also brought out the first major review of Marx's „Economic and Philosophical
Manuscripts‟ of 1844 which had just been published. The early works of Marx, hitherto
unknown to the public, provided a rich repository of ideas which considerably enhanced scholarly
understanding of his later works. Marcuse came to be widely regarded as an authoritative new
voice in German philosophy. As a member of the Institute for Social Research, he became deeply
involved in their interdisciplinary projects which included working out a model for critical social
theory, developing a theory of the new stage of state and monopoly capitalism, articulating the
relationships between philosophy, social theory, and cultural criticism, and providing a systematic
analysis and critique of German fascism. Marcuse was deeply identified with the „Critical
Theory‟ of the Institute and throughout his life was close to Max Horkheimer, T.W. Adorno, and
others in the Institute's inner circle (Kellner 1984).

2. Reason and Revolution

In 1934, Marcuse fled from Nazi Germany to escape the victimization he would surely have faced
as a Jew and a radical leftist thinker. He migrated to the United States where he lived for the rest
of his life. The Institute for Social Research was granted offices and an academic affiliation with
Columbia University, where Marcuse worked during the 1930s and early 1940s. In 1941, he
published his first major work in English, „Reason and Revolution‟. The book explores the ideas
of Hegel and Marx and their impact upon social theory. It demonstrates the similarities between
Hegel and Marx, and introduced many English speaking readers to the Hegelian-Marxian
tradition of dialectical thinking and social analysis. The text is regarded even to day as one of the
best introductions to Hegel and Marx providing excellent analyses of the categories and methods
of dialectical thinking (Kellner 1984). The purpose of dialectical or negative thinking is to expose
the inherent contradictions that characterize advanced industrial societies and then to overcome
them through revolutionary practice. Not only does society produce contradictions and the forms
of domination that come with them, it also produces the social and psychological mechanisms
that conceal or hide these contradictions. For example, the great social contradiction that is seen
in capitalist societies is the co-existence of wealth and poverty. The rich, who own and control the
means of production, grow richer, while the poor who toil in farms and factories grow poorer.
The ideology underpinning capitalism is that the free market and the pursuit of wealth will
ultimately result in prosperity for all and that the wealth and profit accumulated by the rich will
„trickle down‟ to the poor eventually. This ideology conceals the inherent inequity underlying the
system and the way in which it legitimizes monopolistic capitalism in which the largest and most
powerful players eventually „swallow up‟ their competitors. According to The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2013), „The capitalist belief that unbridled competition is good for
everyone conceals the goal of purging society of competition by allowing large corporations to
buy out their competition‟. In the capitalist system, the role of the worker becomes reduced
merely to that of an object, a cog in the wheel that is used to generate production and profits for
the capitalist. The worker does not become a free and rational subject, is not able to actualize his
or her potential as a free and rational human being but is instead reduced to a life of drudgery and
toil in order to eke out the means for survival. The very society that is created by human beings
oppresses and dehumanizes its creators. The „essence‟ of the worker is thus erased. The task of
dialectical thinking is to bring this situation to consciousness. Once it is brought to consciousness
it can be resolved through revolutionary practice. As the title of the book suggests, „reason‟ helps
to distinguish between „existence‟ and „essence‟ and conceptualizes those norms and ideas that
may be actualized through social practice. Kellner (1984) remarks that if social conditions come
in the way, then reason calls for revolution (cf The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy or SEP).

3. Eros and Civilization

Marcuse had a stint working in the U.S. government from 1941 through the early 1950's. When
he returned to intellectual work in the 1950s he published one of his best known works „Eros and
Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud‟ in 1955. The book attempts a synthesis of the
ideas of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and those of Karl Marx in a new and
original way. Psychoanalysis was an essential theoretical tool for the Frankfurt School from the
beginning; Max Horkheimer was deeply influenced by it and he inducted psychoanalyst Erich
Fromm after taking over as Director of the Institute in 1931. The aim was to use psychoanalytical
concepts to understand the psyche of the working class and their reluctance to revolt against
oppressive social and economic structures. Marcuse developed his own unique approach to and
interpretation of psychoanalytic theory, combining it with a Marxist bent in his analysis of
advanced industrial societies. Freud believed that much of human behavior was motivated by two
driving instincts: the life instincts and the death instincts. The life instincts are those that relate to
a basic need for survival, reproduction and pleasure. They include such things as the need for
food, shelter, love and sex. He also suggested that all humans have an unconscious wish for
death, which he referred to as the death instincts. Self-destructive behavior, he believed, was one
expression of the death drive. Freud's „Civilization and its Discontents‟ (1930) paints a bleak
picture of the evolution of civilization as the evolution of greater and greater repression from
which there seems to be no escape. The death and life instincts are engaged in a battle for
dominance with no clear winner in sight. Marcuse responds to Freud‟s pessimism in his work.
According to him, Freud fails to develop the emancipatory possibility of his own theory. Marcuse
attempts to show that human instincts or drives are not merely biological and fixed, but rather, are
social, historical, and flexible. He also attempts to show that the repressive society also produces
the possibility of the abolition of repression (Marcuse 1955: 5 cf SEP). Marcuse argues that
human instincts are shaped by society and social organization, and therefore are not „fixed‟ but
subject to change. The transformation of „animal drives‟ into „human instincts‟ through the
influence of society results in the transformation of the „pleasure principle‟ into the „reality
principle‟. According to Freud, it is a hostile society that represses the free play of the „pleasure
principle. For Marcuse, liberation means a freeing up of the pleasure principle. However, he
realizes that if human beings simply act according to the demands of the pleasure principle, social
existence will become impossible as the rights of others may be infringed. Hence, there has to be
a certain amount of repression, and human beings need to operate within certain mutually
accepted boundaries in order that social life proceeds smoothly. In dealing with this contradiction
between individual desires and social controls Marcuse suggests some creative modifications of
Freud's theory and introduces two new terms to distinguish between the biological and social
dimensions of human instincts. Basic repression refers to the type of repression or modification
of the instincts that is necessary „for the perpetuation of the human race in civilization‟ (Marcuse
1955: 35 cf SEP). Surplus repression, on the other hand, refers to „the restrictions necessitated by
social domination‟ (Marcuse 1955: 35 cf SEP). The purpose of surplus repression is to shape the
instincts in accordance with the present „performance principle‟ which is „the prevailing form of
the reality principle’ (Marcuse 1955: 35 cf SEP). In capitalist societies, human beings and their
labor are construed as a means to an end, namely, serving the interests of the system of
production. They become alienated from the process and must still submit to it in order to
survive. To use a sociological term, they are socialized into fulfilling the demands of a system in
which their humanity and agency counts for nothing and where they are programmed to conform
and thus perform their prescribed functions. This is what Marcuse means by the performance
principle. In order to manipulate the worker to conform to the system, the libido is restricted and
the individual must internalize the „laws‟ that govern the smooth functioning of the system.
Individual desires must conform to those of the system. In other words, „he desires what he is
supposed to desire‟ (Marcuse 1955: 46 cf SEP).

He writes:

„Society is stratified according to the competitive economic performances of its members.. their
labor is work for an apparatus which they do not control, which operates as an independent power
to which individuals must submit if they want to live. And it becomes the more alien the more
specialized the division of labor becomes. Men do not live their own lives but perform pre-
established functions while they work, they do not fulfill their own needs and faculties but work
in alienation hope…Libido is diverted for socially useful performances in which the individual
works for himself only in so far as he works for the apparatus, engaged in activities that mostly
do not coincide with his own faculties‟ (1966:8 cf Wolin, 2006: 86).

Marcuse called for the end of repression and creation of a civilization which would involve
libidinal and non-alienated labor free and open sexuality, and production of a society and culture
which would further freedom and happiness. As Western society had more or less conquered the
problems of hunger, want and the satisfaction of basic human needs was more or less assured,
society could afford to let go its stranglehold on the desires and creativity of individuals and
allow them to freely express themselves and their feelings. His vision of liberation anticipated
many of the values of the 1960s counterculture which rejected the conformist, conservative
values of the previous generations and believed in free love, gratification of desires and a
communal life based upon mutual sharing rather than accumulation and competition. Marcuse
became a major intellectual and political influence during the decade that has come to be known
in popular parlance as the „swinging sixties‟. His criticism of western philosophy was based on
the fact that philosophy tends to treat human beings as pure, and possessing abstract
consciousness. The body and its passions are to be subdued by reason or logos. Marcuse did not
intend to subjugate logos (reason) to eros (desire). He wanted to return Eros to its proper place as
equal to logos, as the driver of life.

While his radical critique of existing society and its values, and his call for a non-repressive
civilization made him a hero among the young generation of students and activists, he was
strongly criticized by his former colleague Erich Fromm who accused him of „nihilism‟ (toward
existing values and society) and irresponsible hedonism. Marcuse on the other hand accused
Fromm of conservatism and the heated debate that resulted between these two eminent
intellectuals of the Frankfurt School was an unpleasant consequence of the publication of the
book.

4. The ‘One Dimensional Man’

In 1958, Marcuse joined Brandeis University and became one of the most popular and influential
members of its faculty. He published a wide-ranging critique of both advanced capitalist and
communist societies in ‘One-Dimensional Man‟ (1964) a text which acquired iconic status as a
classic of critical theory. „This book theorized the decline of revolutionary potential in capitalist
societies and the development of new forms of social control. Marcuse argued that "advanced
industrial society" created false needs which integrated individuals into the existing system of
production and consumption. Mass media and culture, advertising, industrial management, and
contemporary modes of thought all reproduced the existing system and attempt to eliminate
negativity, critique, and opposition. The result was a "one-dimensional" universe of thought and
behavior in which the very aptitude and ability for critical thinking and oppositional behavior was
withering away‟ (Kellner 1984).

The first chapter of „One-Dimensional Man‟ begins with the following sentence:

„A comfortable, smooth, reasonable, democratic unfreedom prevails in advanced industrial

civilization, a token of technical progress‟ (Marcuse 1964: 1 cf SEP).

„One-Dimensional Man’ analyses the decline of dialectical thinking which is capable of

understanding the contradictions by which society is constituted and the forces of domination that
sustain it. The person who thinks critically demands social change. One-dimensional thinking
does not demand change nor does it recognize the degree to which the individual is a victim of
forces of domination in society.

The idea of a „democratic unfreedom‟ refers to the free acceptance of oppression and surplus
repression. Marcuse questioned two of the fundamental postulates of orthodox Marxism: the
revolutionary proletariat and inevitability of capitalist crisis. He uses the insights of Freud in
„One-Dimensional Man‟ and in ‘Eros and Civilization‟ to understand why the working class who
Marx predicted would rise and revolt do not actually do so and the manner in which they are
psychologically controlled by the system through surplus repression. Freud„s theory of the „super-
ego‟ explained how individuals in society internalize the norms and values that they learn from
„authority figures‟ (parents, teachers, priests, etc.) who exercise control over their thoughts and
actions. According to Marcuse, in advanced, industrial societies the authority figure is no longer
needed as the super ego becomes depersonalized and domination no longer requires force. So
how does this insidious system of social control and regulation work? First, the system must
make the citizens to feel freer than they really are. Second, the system must provide the citizens
with enough goods to keep them pacified. Third, the citizens must identify with their oppressors
and fourth, political discourse must be put under erasure. To give a simple example, when people
across classes watch the same films or television programmes or hear the same songs or are
constantly fed with the idea of a certain way of life or value system that the nation shares, they
are lulled into forgetting the contradictions within the system and become victims of one-
dimensional thinking that does not permit them to critically see the total picture.

Even though he was skeptical about the working class revolution predicted by Marx, he believed
that by inculcating radical thinking and social critique amongst those who were dispossessed or
oppressed by the system, forces of domination could be challenged and overthrown. He was
particularly impressed by the feminist movement and its radical questioning of the gendered
institutions that create and nurture sexism and discrimination. Because of his support for new,
emerging forces of radical opposition, he was hated and reviled by the „Establishment‟ who saw
him as an anarchist and rebel who stood against all the values of Western capitalist society.
„One-Dimensional Man‟ was also severely criticized by orthodox Marxists and yet it had a deep
influence on the „New Left‟ as it articulated their growing dissatisfaction with both capitalist
societies and Soviet communist societies where Marxism had taken the form of a rigid,
bureaucratic system where the dictatorial state crushed any kind of critical or oppositional
thinking and ruled with an iron hand.

5. Marcuse: The Public Intellectual

„One-Dimensional Man‟ was followed by a series of books and articles which articulated the
politics of the New Left and their critique of capitalist society. The famous and controversial
essay „Repressive Tolerance‟ (1965) is another example of the problem of one-dimensional
thinking. Here Marcuse shows how terms, ideas, or concepts that have their origin in struggles for
liberation can be co-opted and used to legitimate oppression. The concept of tolerance was once
used as a critical concept by marginalized social groups. According to Marcuse, the term is co-
opted and used by the Establishment to legitimate its own oppressive views and policies. It is the
idea of pure tolerance or tolerance for the sake of tolerance that puts under erasure the real
concrete social conflict out of which the concept emerged. Rather than pure tolerance, Marcuse
calls for discriminating tolerance (SEP).

„An Essay on Liberation‟ (1969) celebrated all of the existing liberation movements of the sixties
from the Viet Cong who were fighting to overthrow an oppressive political regime to the hippies
in the U.S and Europe who rebelled against bourgeois morality and the excesses of capitalist
societies. While it was hailed as a revolutionary piece by many radicals it ended up alienating
Establishment academics and those who opposed the movements of the 1960s.

„For Marcuse, the specter of liberation haunted advanced industrial societies. One might even say
that Marcuse's own critical theory was haunted by the specter of liberation. That is, at one level
Marcuse engaged in a critique of oppressive social structures so that the door for revolution and
liberation could be opened. At another level, Marcuse would modify his theory to make room for
various form of resistance that he saw developing in oppressive societies. Marcuse was at once a
teacher of revolutionary consciousness and a student‟ (SEP).

In the Preface to „An Essay on Liberation‟ while reflecting on the student revolt of 1968 Marcuse
writes:
„In proclaiming the “permanent challenge,” (la contestation permanente), the “permanent
education,” the Great Refusal, they recognized the mark of social repression, even in the most
sublime manifestations of traditional culture, even in the most spectacular manifestations of
technical progress. They have again raised a specter (and this time a specter which haunts not
only the bourgeoisie but all exploitative bureaucracies): the specter of a revolution which
subordinates the development of productive forces and higher standards of living to the
requirements of creating solidarity for the human species, for abolishing poverty and misery
beyond all national frontiers and spheres of interest, for the attainment of peace‟ (Marcuse 1969:
ix–x cf SEP).

The student protests of the 1960s were a form of the „Great Refusal‟, in which the younger
generation said „NO‟ to multiple forms of repression and domination. This Great Refusal
demands a new, free society and the flourishing of a new kind of sensibility or thought process.
While Marxism restricts itself to changing power relations, Marcuse makes a mental leap and
speaks of new forms of subjectivity. Human subjectivity in its present form is the product of
systems of domination. Once these forms of subjectivity are erased, the systems of domination it
engenders will also cease to exist. When a new form of subjectivity which respects freedom and
rejects domination emerges, a new and liberated form of society will also come into being. He
speculated that:

„Prior to all ethical behavior in accordance with specific social standards, prior to all ideological
expression, morality is a disposition of the organism, perhaps rooted in the erotic drive to counter
aggressiveness, to create and preserve ever greater unities of life. We would then have, this side
of all “values”, an instinctual foundation for solidarity among human beings- a solidarity which
has been effectively repressed in line with the requirements of a class society but which now
appears as a precondition for liberation‟ (Marcuse 1969:19 cf Wolin 2006:79).

In 1965, Brandeis University refused to renew Marcuse‟s teaching contract. He received an

appointment at the University of California at La Jolla where he remained until his retirement in
the 1970s. This was his most influential period in public life, during which he published many
articles and gave lectures and advice to student radicals all over the world. He travelled widely
and his work was often discussed in the mass media, thus becoming one of the few American
intellectuals to have such a mass appeal and limelight. He was always respected and even idolized
by his students, and soon his students began to gain influential academic positions and to promote
his ideas, making him a major force in the intellectual landscape of the U.S. and beyond.

In his last book, ‘The Aesthetic Dimension‟ (1979), Marcuse returned to his earlier passion of art.
He looked at the emancipatory potential of aesthetic form in so called „high culture‟. Marcuse
thought that the best of the bourgeois tradition of art contained powerful indictments of bourgeois
society and emancipatory visions of a better society. Thus, he attempted to defend the importance
of great art for the projection of emancipation and argued that Cultural Revolution was an
indispensable part of revolutionary politics. He takes a polemical stance against the problematic
interpretation of the function of art by orthodox Marxists. These Marxists claimed that only
proletarian art could be revolutionary. Marcuse attempts to establish the revolutionary potential of
all art by establishing the autonomy of authentic art. Marcuse states: „It seems that art as art
expresses a truth, an experience, a necessity which, although not in the domain of radical praxis,
are nevertheless essential components of revolution‟ (Marcuse 1978: 1 cf SEP).

In this context it is important to bear in mind that for Marcuse and the Frankfurt School there was
no evidence that the proletariat would rise up against their oppressors as predicted by Marx. Their
theorizing attempted to uncover the social and psychological mechanisms at work in society that
made the proletariat complicit in their own domination. The student revolts of the 1960s
confirmed much of the direction of Marcuse's critical theory by showing how the need for social
change includes class struggle but cannot be reduced to class struggle. There is a multiplicity of
social groups in contemporary society that seek social change for various reasons. There are
multiple forms of oppression and repression that make revolution desirable. Hence, the form of
art produced, and its revolutionary vision may be determined by the various subject positions.
Each subject as distinct from other subjects represents a particular subject position. For example,
white women and the working class women. However, these individual features operate within a
structural matrix, i.e. in a given society gender, race, class, level of education etc, are interpreted
in certain ways. Experiences and the opportunities provided by them are often affected by subject
and structural position and produce what Marcuse calls „the inner history of the individual‟
(Marcuse 1978: 5 cf SEP).

Subject positions of oppression do not refer to class oppression alone and hence radical
subjectivity and art may come from any of these positions. Economic class is just one structural
position among many. Hence, it is not only the proletariat who may have an interest in social
change. Marxist ideology by focusing merely on the proletariat ignores the importance of
radicalizing human subjectivity in creating a revolution.

„The subjectivity of individuals, their own consciousness and unconscious tends to be dissolved
into class consciousness. Thereby, a major prerequisite of revolution is minimized, namely, the
fact that the need for radical change must be rooted in the subjectivity of individuals themselves,
in their intelligence, and their passions, their drives and their goals‟ (Marcuse 1978: 3–4cf SEP).

5. Conclusion

As we have seen, amongst all the Frankfurt School thinkers, it was Marcuse who carved out an
indelible place in the public life and contemporary revolutionary discourses of the times. He
engaged with the fundamental debates of the time, namely, war and dominance, illiberal politics,
consumerist culture and the alienation of human beings from their inner core and their
manipulation by a system they simply did not have the capacity to understand, as they had been
socialized into conformity and become „cultural dopes‟. Western society had conquered the
pressing human problems of hunger and want, but it had also created a dehumanized society
where the inner core of individual personality and subjectivity, the libidinal drives that
contributed to human creativity and self-expression were systematically repressed and
neutralized. He urged for a freeing up of these creative energies and the free play of eroticism,
sensuality, creativity and human liberty. In a socio-political milieu where Western capitalist
societies were waging war and supporting repressive regimes, and where the youth felt frustrated
and alienated from the value system of the older generation, Marcuse‟s ideas seemed fresh,
exciting and liberating. Moreover, unlike other „armchair‟ academics, Marcuse was always ready
to engage with and lend support to protest movements and politics. Marcuse's work in philosophy
and social theory generated fierce controversy and polemics; however, it reanimated these
disciplines in a fresh and fundamental way. Marcuse is also credited with reopening Marxist
theory to a more nuanced reading by highlighting Marx‟s early works which were fundamentally
concerned with the problem of human self-realization and alienation. He emphasized the core
philosophical foundations that lay at the heart of Marxism; it was not merely a programme for
social and economic change but a philosophical engagement with the very essence of human life.
Similarly, Marcuse reopened Freudian concepts to new and exciting interpretations; rather than
the gloomy, pessimistic view that society and civilization necessitated repression and taming of
human drives; he saw these very drives as instrumental in forging a new kind of social solidarity
based upon mutual respect, liberation and self-actualization. Marx and Freud meet in the work of
Marcuse and contribute greatly to our understanding of ourselves and our world.

6. Summary

Let us look at the main points of this module:

 Herbert Marcuse‟s (1898-1979) contributions and ideas influenced a generation of

activists and scholars to critically question the direction in which contemporary society
was going and pose a radical alternative. Marcuse is regarded as the „Guru‟ of the New
Left and the student uprisings that took place in the USA and Europe in the latter part of
the decade of the nineteen sixties.
 Marcuse's first published article in 1928 attempted a synthesis of the philosophical
perspectives of phenomenology, existentialism, and Marxism. Marcuse argued that much
Marxist thought had degenerated into a rigid orthodoxy and thus needed concrete lived
and „phenomenological‟ experience to revitalize the theory.
 Marcuse believed that Marxism neglected the problem of the individual and the
possibilities of individual transformation and liberation.
 Marcuse considered Heidegger as the greatest teacher and thinker that he had ever
encountered. However, due to Heidegger‟s growing association with the Nazis, Marcuse
was disillusioned and thus parted company with his teacher.
 In the 1950s he published one of his best known works „Eros and Civilization: A
Philosophical Inquiry into Freud‟ in 1955. This book attempts a synthesis of the ideas of
Sigmund Freud, and those of Karl Marx in a new and original way.
 Marcuse developed his own unique approach to and interpretation of psychoanalytic
theory, combining it with a Marxist bent in his analysis of advanced industrial societies.
 Marcuse called for the end of repression and creation of a civilization which would
involve libidinal and non-alienated labor free and open sexuality, and production of a
society and culture which would further freedom and happiness.
 He published a wide-ranging critique of both advanced capitalist and communist societies
in ‘One-Dimensional Man’ (1964) analyses the decline of dialectical thinking which is
capable of understanding the contradictions by which society is constituted and the forces
of domination that sustain it.
 The idea of a „democratic unfreedom‟ refers to the free acceptance of oppression and
surplus repression. Marcuse questioned two of the fundamental postulates of orthodox
Marxism: the revolutionary proletariat and inevitability of capitalist crisis.
 Even though he was skeptical about the working class revolution predicted by Marx, he
believed that by inculcating radical thinking and social critique amongst those who were
dispossessed or oppressed by the system, forces of domination could be challenged and
overthrown.
 Marcuse's work in philosophy and social theory generated fierce controversy and
polemics; however, it reanimated these disciplines in a fresh and fundamental way.
7. References\

Kellner, Douglas (date not mentioned) „Herbert Marcuse‟ accessed from

[Link]/huma/illuminations/[Link] accessed on 15-01-2014

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Herbert Marcuse.

Farr, Arnold, "Herbert Marcuse", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming on URL =
[Link] accessed on 15-01-2014

Wolin, Richard. The Frankfurt School Revisited. New York and London: Routledge.2006.