Product Description
Originally published in 1964, One-Dimensional Man quickly became one of the most important texts in the ensuing decade of radical political change. This second edition, newly introduced by Marcuse scholar Douglas Kellner, presents Marcuse's best-selling work to another generation of readers in the context of contemporary events.

"Marcuse shows himself to be one of the most radical and forceful thinkers of this time."
—The Nation ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Some of the best of the '60's
Herbert Marcuse was one of the original members of the Frankfurt School of critical theory.Along with like-minded colleagues, when Hitler came to power in Germany, Marcuse emigrated to the United States where he taught at a number of universities, including New School for Social Research, Brandeis, and the University of California at San Diego.

Marcuse and the other members of the Frankfurt School, such as Benjamin Nelson, Max Horkheimer, and Theodor Adorno, were profoundly influenced by the work of Karl Marx.In addition, however, they were indebted to Hegel, Freud, and Max Weber.This helps to explain their interest in culture as a vehicle of domination and exploitation.

During the 1960's and early 1970's, Marcuse was the most influential New Left philosopher in the U.S., and probably throughout the world.He voiced the suspicion, however, that he was much more often cited than he was actually read.It seems unlikely that he would be pleased to be remembered as one of the three M's:Marx the prophet, Marcuse his interpreter, and Mao his sword.This sort of mindless slogan mongering was sharply at odds with Marcuse's commitment to rigorous scholarship in the pursuit of truth.

After 40 years, I remember One-Dimensional Man best for two relatively simple but paradoxical notions:rationality is never neutral or disinterested, and freedom can be oppressive and contrary to the development of human potential.

Rationality in the service of specific interests at the expense of others is manifest in out-sourcing, down-sizing, internationalization, and technological development, all means of reducing labor costs to benefit capital and at odds with the interests of labor.Rationally calculable pursuit of profit, in other words, is thoroughly irrational from the standpoint of labor.

The oppressiveness of freedom can be seen in modern industrial society's capacity to provide immediate material and sensual gratification, contributing to the creation of cultural shallowness and single-minded pursuit of the pleasures of consumption.The creation of new needs renders us prisoners of capital's productive apparatus and ideological tools.

If he were alive today, one wonders if Marcuse might have entertained the idea that our credit crisis is really a product of the contradiction between diminished purchasing power and the ever-more-effective manipulation of the culturally engendered need to consume.At this juncture the most we can say with certainty is that if Marcuse wanted to develop this idea he would not have written a polemic -- his commitment to rigorous scholarship was much too strong.

100-Dimensional Realities
Yes, I flipped all the pages of Herbert Marcuse's work, "One Dimensional Man," when it was first written. It was an interesting critique of society. Naturally, we can think of hundreds of critiques of other societies, but just looking at our own, we can admit readily that there are things that needed improvement.

A lot of that improvement has taken place, in terms of internet sites encouraging and even thriving on more individual expression. This is on a scale hardly imaginable in the 1960's and 1970's. We all knew some new things would come along, but who would've predicted YouTube and similar, take-off sites?

When reading a critique of our own society, it is important to keep perspective. All aware of the problems and benefits of our own societies, we can readily find there are problems and benefits everywhere. Erasing poverty, hunger, starvation - and even erasing wars - will go a long way towards increasing humanity.

Probably everyone alive in the 1960's and 1970's would agree that it is a good thing that the New Left and the Black Panthers were not running society. We all know it would have gone the way of the Khmer Rouge and thought up some form of universal "final solution," justifying all sorts of means towards some improbable end. However, we also need to wonder, "Why are Americans underpaid and lacking in government benefits compared to Europeans?" Was something like the mind-control or public thought-control contemplated by Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" at work, keeping the public acquiescent while the taxes on the wealthy and on corporations was decreased? They listened to and accepted for a long time the arguments of the far right, all to the effect that the wealthy deserved all that and more. It was completely forgotten that the heroism of those members of the average society, our military foreparents, made their wealth acquisition possible and that they might owe more than the average person to society because of facts like that?

The well-off do not acquire their well-being strictly through their own efforts. It may be through inheritance, and other times, their own efforts, or a combination of the two. The playing field was made safe and free from Hitler and from Communism by the blood of the young people of the working and middle classes, by and large. That is why we are not all slaves of some madly-totalitarian directing our every move from above.

Freedom is not free. If you read One-Dimensional Man today, it should be largely as a historical work. It should be read - if at all - only by people who have done a significant additional amount of reading of long, written works. Philosophy, at that. Perhaps the kind of person who could stand to get through a graduate program in something or other. Even then, it would be read with a large grain of salt. There were some very good points made.

It certainly makes more interesting reading than Karl Marxes "Das Kapital," which was a real sleeper.But I would like to mix it with some Eric Hoffer.

Then, as they train in college, don't particularly "believe" in any one thing. Not too much, anyway.

Instead, think,

"It should be interesting to see how it all comes out."

Very exciting.
Not disillusioned with the central theme of Marxism, Marcuse attempts to explain the arrested development of post-Marxist revolution, along with totalitarianism of both capitalist and communist systems, production for the sake of production, the sciences infiltrated by totalitarian ideology which leads to catastrophic consequences, the dialectic which portrays man's potential and man's defeat in the face of modern society and the systematic adjustment and tolerance to rebellion against existing society, like Che Guevara designer t-shirts.

Trenchant social critique
I first read this in college, and it is still one of my favorite books, full of perceptive, although not positive insights into western society

A surprisingly disappointing book
This is Marcuse's most famous work and one that was a major influence on and during the student revolts all over the European continent of 1968. Many of the catchphrases of that time, such as "repressive tolerance" and the like, are derived directly from Marcuse. He has since lost much of his popularity and audience, and in my view, quite deservedly so.

His main thesis is that modern man has become one-dimensional due to the totalitarian, all-encompassing exercise of power by the entrenched capitalist class. While this of itself is not such a bad idea, though certainly romanticizing and exaggerating reality, his approach to explaining and attacking it leaves very much to be desired. Marcuse overuses empty or unexplained phrases endlessly (like "cutting off perspectives through an overwhelming ossified concreteness of imagery" and similar things) while at the same time hardly making use of any prior thought or philosophy on the subject at all. This makes the impression of much ranting and little content. Even worse is his general laziness as a thinker - he never actually bothers to explain why such a full-spectrum dominance has occurred or how he wants to prove its existence, he merely asserts it and then goes on about the manifold bad effects it has.
Rather bizarre in this context, and perhaps even nihilistic, is his general dislike of what he perceives as "rationality". He only uses this word in negative contexts (particularly in the context of industrial expansion) and seems to consider it the primary form of "one-dimensional thinking", affected by the symbolism of capitalism. Now it is one thing to say that the fashionable concept of rationalism is false and ill-founded, but to reject relying on rational processes altogether as he seems to do is a bit too much.

To put it bluntly, everything Marcuse has written in this book has also been written in, say, Debord's "The Society of the Spectacle", and then in half as many words and quite more philosophically coherent. The early Marcuse (of Eros and Civilization) was much better; this book warrants no more interest than a purely antiquarian historical one. ... Read more

Product Description
In this classic work, Herbert Marcuse takes as his starting point Freud's statement that civilization is based on the permanent subjugation of the human instincts, his reconstruction of the prehistory of mankind - to an interpretation of the basic trends of western civilization, stressing the philosophical and sociological implications. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Eros and Civilization in Context
Herbert Marcuse's 'Eros and Civilization' is emblematic of the aspect of his work that integrates Freudian theory with Marxian doctrine. Although he primarily deals with Freud and the issue of society's use of repression (psychological and political) in the service of production, he deals with Marxist theory also when you read between the lines. The theme of alienation of labor is clearly one of the resounding and recurring notes in the symphony.
As a psychotherapist intimately acquainted with developments in psychoanalytic theory in the fifty odd years since Marcuse wrote, this project involves some perils as well as some rich veins of thought. To philosophize on the basis of a theory which is derived primarily from clinical work in which two individuals share in a closed setting is always dangerous. In addition, to take Freud's formulations for granted, and then proceed to apply them to social and political systems is a big stretch. I would say primarily that the main flaw in Marcuse's thesis is his acceptance of Thanatos, or the so-called death principle, which is no longer accepted by any school of psychoanalysis. Unfortunately, Freud's own tendency to speculate both in the fields of anthropology and metaphysics, does not help Marcuse any. If one studies Talcott Parsons and his brilliant work on social systems (The Social System) using social theory, one can see a great deal of resonance with Marcuse's analysis of repression as a cultural control mechanism.
To balance the equation, I believe Marcuse brings to surface themes which have been abandoned in modern social discourse through sheer inertia and the grinding power of the repressive culture. The description of therole the inner agencies (i.e. the superego) play in integrating an individual into a particular society is a brilliant analysis. If our culture seemed "successful" as a consumer society then, the movement has only expanded to the point the culture in general has lost sight of how our citizens are enslaved by the very "American dream" we tell ourselves will bring happiness. The concept of an infinitely expanding economy, the measurement of the nation's well being by primarily economic and political indicators, the military displacement of aggression to an outside "evil" enemy, the frenzied pursuit of built-in obsolence have all metastasized, and Marcuse has put them to the microscope.
I would say that at a time when our country is having a resurgence of hope, Marcuse's work offers a very important analytic tool with which think about where we are and where we want to go as a people, and a void re-creating excessively repressive social structures.

interesting parallels
I read this book perhaps 20 years ago then came across a copy again quite recently. For those interested in an anthropological approach to psychology-as-myth (the chapter on 'Origin of Repressive Civilization' is especially interesting not least because it is so very clearly wrong!) that more or less parallels a similar approach to myth and culture in the (somewhat contested) spirit of Frazer, De Santillana, Graves or even Weston this book will be of interest -- although I must say that anyone familiar with those authors will almost certainly be familiar with this one.

Interesting predecessor to Deleuze and Guattari
The most annoying feature of this book is the the continual use of the Freudian concepts of ego, Es, and so on... in the first part. To accept that, you really need to believe in the orthodox psychoanalytical theory, which maybe is a bit hard these days.
But Marcuse trascends the boundaries of psychoanalytical theory, and develops a range of arguments that stand on their own.
He thinks that society throughout History ha s been one huge repressive endeavour, accepted by the individuals because it allowed them to survive, even though it deprivedthem of the possibility of happiness.
But nowadays, we should have reached the stage whereeveryone's basic needs can be satisfied with a minimal amount of work; in fact, penury subsists only because those detaining power create it in order to justify their domination.
If everyone could free their libido, the Death instinct would disappear, because it exists only on the basis of the "Nirvana principle"(we desire destruction because death equalls with the quiet of complete satisfaction).
A porttrait of a society where everyone wouold be free to apply their libido to everyone else, and to engage in work in a way more akin to playing follows.
This soundsbit distressing, especially the concept of "jolly work", if I dare name it so. The most interesting parts are in fact the "asides", where Marcuse explains how we imagine "complete satisfaction" always to reside in a past which our memory conserves as a token both of the oppression of the individual and of the human species, how art is limited by form, the existence of which defines it as something incapable of influence on reality, the way that philosophy since Plato has cooperated with oncoming Christianity to define "Nirvana" as finding itself substantially "beyond" our world etc..
And of course, the parts where he speaks of libido applied to everyone and everything reccalls our friends Deleuze and Guatari's "desire" tracing its rhyzomatic paths.

Essential reading for all Freudo-skeptics
Marcuse's "Eros and Civilization" lays the foundations for a major critique of the fundamental tenets of Freud's theory of the mind. The German philosopher demonstrates how Freud transformed what was essentially a psychology of society into a sociology of the mind. ('Freud's "biologism" is social theory in a depth dimension"'). For Marcuse Freud's mistake was to see the repression of istincts not as a historically situated pheomenon due to particular (and therefore mutable) social conditions, but as an absolute given indispensable to the growth of civilization. Perhaps for reasons of expediency(Freud's ideas might have been still too influential in 1956 for an overt attack), Marcuse elaborates his counterargument that a non-repressive society IS possible within a Freudian framework. But the damage is done: once you read this book Freud's idea that repression is salutary and necessary for psychic development will look a lot more like what it was(late Victorian moralism) and much less like what it wasn't (science). For more along these lines try Rieff, Freud: the Mind and the Moralist.

Indispensable reading
Marcuse's attempt to combine Marx and Freud, and his vision of a non-repressive civilization (as well as his views on phantasies, art, myths and even perversions as anticipiations of such a society) is one of the masterpieces of utopian thought. After reading it your daydreams will never be the same again. It is not an easy text: the first part is certainly dry at times, and presupposes some familiarity with Freud (it is useful to read his Civilization and its discontents along with Marcuse's text).But the second part is truly of masterpiece. Anybody intesested in art, sexual liberation, ecology or psychoanalysis will find this essential reading. Far from being a rehash of Fromm, Marcuse accuses Fromm et. al. of removing the truly subversive elements from Freud. But read it, anf find out for yourself. ... Read more

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Marcuse, the author of One-Dimensional Man, argues that the traditional conceptions ofhuman freedom have been rendered obsolete by the development of advanced industrial society.An Essay on Liberation outlines the new possibilities for contemporary human liberation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Beautiful Brilliance
Wow, wow, and wow!! The more I read Marcuse, the more I fall in love. His command of language is a rare gem combined with an unequalled intellect that deconstructs western consumerism and slavery of the human spirit. One of the most arresting moments of the book: his thoughts on obscenity. "Obscenity is a moral concept in the verbal arsenal of the Establisment, which abuses the term by applying it, not to the expressions of its own morality but to those of another." He illustrates this by stating that obscenity is not a work of art or a woman's genitalia, but a 4 star general or a clergyman espousing the virtues of war. The rest of the book is a beautiful treatise on how we have the power to truly liberate ourselves from the tyranny of consumerism and false consciousness.

Pleasant surprise
I expected another doctrinaire diatribe extolling the Marxist 'cause' and the coming Revolution. What I got sounded sane, balanced and what's more, intelligent. This reads very much like H. D. Thoreau, for the 20th century. Short book, plenty of analysis and insight into modern culture.

H. Marcuse= A modern Day H.D. Thoreau
A RESPONSE TO "Liberation from the Affluent Society"

My first impression of Herbert Marcuse' speech was the title.Upon reading it I thought why would anyone want to be liberated from an affluent society?It seemed rather odd to me that anyone would want to be freed from prosperity.However, upon further and deeper reading I soon learned exactly what the author meant by his title.Marcuse sees western society as an enslaving system which crushes its members into a life of bondage towards gain.Marcuse sees a need to fight against the society and to not be a normal citizen while society dictates so much in its members' lives.I believe that although Marcuse has a place in awakening the reader against the drudgery of life, overall Marcuse is a man who is too revolutionary to ever be content in the modern state of mass society.
I realized how much in common Marcuse had with the great Nineteenth Century Transcendentalist Henry Thoreau.Both men are radicals of their time. On that basis both unhesitatingly confronted the contemporary world, however shocking or bizarre their claims might seem to the conformist consensus of the establishment.Just as Thoreau challenged the government's moral decision in the Mexican War and his opposition to social conformity due the drudgery of life, Marcuse also pitted himself against the War in Vietnam and his opposition to mass society due to his position of seeing the great limitations of capitalism.Both men have basically the same struggle and that struggle is against the enslavement of society.However, they differ in the sense that Thoreau does not advocate a new social order just a method of passive resistance, whereas Marcuse in another essay advocates a Utopian alternative to the restraints of capitalism.
The central question of Marcuse's thought appears clearly in this short speech.The question being from what standpoint can society be judged now that it has succeeded in feeding its members? Recognizing the arbitrariness of mere moral outrage, Marx measured capitalism by reference to an immanent criterion, the unsatisfied needs of the population. But that approach collapses as soon as capitalism proves itself capable of delivering the goods. Then the fulfilled needs of the individuals legitimate the established system. However, Marcuse' radicalism means opposition, not just to the failures and deficiencies of that system, but to its very successes. Marcuse sees that this affluent society has ruined its members by the very nature of gain in capitalism.In his discussion of the divisions of the hippies he commends the sector that goes beyond the norm to radically oppose capitalism for its inability to bring true fulfilled in life.
It is viewed that the conflict between rationalism and irrationalism was a major division in the main thinkers of the modern era.However, Marcuse wants to go beyond that to redefine rationalism. He believes that collectively in society we have become irrational-rationales who define rationalism only as efficiency.The same efficiency was used by the Nazis to slaughter millions of Jews, but would we define that as rational? I think not. Marcuse' only real solution to this irrationality is education.
I believe overall men such as Marcuse and Thoreau have an important place because in a sense these men are like mirrors.They help the reader to step back from the chaos of life rethink our motives as to why we behave the way we do and whether or not this behavior is for our benefit.

Everybody should read this.
Well, the book is about 30 years old but so far it is probably one of the best observations of the forces behind the scenes which are running the western culture. It does not offer any clear conclusion but it definitely raises the level of consciousness and what is also funnier it makes visible to many social mechanisms around in the present time. Definitely a good reading, written in a good normal language which is easy to understand... Enjoy. ... Read more

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"Dr. Marcuse's book deserves a warm welcome.It is the first coherent and sympathetic account in English for many years past of what a great and original thinker set out to do." -- The Times Literary Supplement

It is of the very definition of any "classic" work that it not only introduce a new depth and direction of thought, but that its original insights endure.Such is the case with Herbert Marcuse's REASON AND REVOLUTION.When this study first appeared in 1940, it was acclaimed for its profound and undistorted reading of Hegel's social and political theory.As its many editions bear witness, especially this one hundredth anniversary edition commemorating the author's birth, the appreciation of Marcuse's work has remained undiminished, and indeed it is today more relevant than ever before.

We are now faced with a political future that initiated itself with the sudden collapse of Soviet Communism and the unexpected declaration of a "New World Order."In this rapidly changing sea of political realities, there is no better guide to where we have been and to what we might expect than Marcuse.As he well understood, turbulent and spectacular political events always ran within channels earlier set by political theory; he equally understood that it was Hegel's often unappreciated and often misunderstood theory that actually set the fundamental path toward modern political life.It is a fortunate combination to have a scholar of Marcuse's unquestioned brilliance and lucid honesty addressing the sources and consequences of Hegel's social theory. ... Read more

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Developing a concept briefly introduced in Counterrevolution and Revolt, Marcuse here addresses the shortcomings of a Marxist aesthetic theory and explores a dialectical aesthetic in which art functions as the conscience of society.Marcuse argues that art is the only form of expression that can take up where religion and philosophy fail and contends that aesthetic offers the last refuge for two-dimensional criticism in a one-dimensional society. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Delving in the emancipatory aesthetic
Marcuse uses a critical approach, not to merely argue against a Marxist perspective on art, but rather to highlight the emancipatory potential in art. This is because its form is autonomous relative to a set of social relations, and insofar that `content becomes form' (p. 8), art is able to represent the prevailing and petrified un-freedom.

Against the perspective of a social construction of art, Marcuse capitalizes on the notion of "subjectivity" as the counter-force to ground his thesis. That is, `the radical qualities of art ... are grounded precisely in the dimensions where art transcends its social determination and emancipates itself from the given universe of discourse and behavior while preserving its overwhelming presence'. This is to say that art's emancipatory potential lies in its refusal to subjection, in its survival to preserve its subjectivity. Against maybe Adorno, for Marcuse this is the case because `art's separation from the process of material production' points to some unique qualities of art: its own language and dimension of affirmation and negation.

Despite the emancipatory potential, Marcuse is well aware that art cannot change the world but rather change consciousness, so as to hope for change the world: art is a means, and an effective one on condition that the tension between art and radical praxis is kept alive. This, however, should not be understood in a materialist sense, that the more emancipatory pieces of work are produced, the more likely to change the world is. Indeed, speaking of Goethe, Marcuse claims that `it is absurd to conclude that we need more Iphigenies' (p. 58) to express emancipatory humanism. Rather, this ideal transcends given praxis, along with social changes, hence a continuous need for such emancipatory art irrespective of materialist considerations.

If art for Marcuse fights reification, it also fights against the risk of "forgetting" by making the petrified world speak!This is to say, here is a worthy attempt to remind us of the importance of creativity in making a difference in our society!

Despite the rating, an important book
Give him a "5" for effort but a "0" for logic.Marcuse attempts the case for a sort of cultural Marxism - a society in which every single facet of human existence is politicized.I read this work (very short) some time ago and thought that few would take seriously these statements since they seem to contradict our basic beliefs about art, subjectivity and artistic freedom.Marcuse speaks with the conviction of the ideologue.His views of aesthetics mirror his views on the nature of mankind.

One must remember that Marcuse interprets other subjects in the same manner as he does aesthetics. For example, education is important only so far as it is political indoctrination. His views on art mirror those of Deconstructionism, the literary component of cultural Marxism.Both language and art are to be divorced from their source, interpreted by "experts" and judgedby the degree to which they affect political thought. And this is the rub - in a Marcusian world, the purpose of art is not beauty or enjoyment but instead is the shaping of a collective, radical consciousness.

He calls for "standards" on judging art but one quickly discerns that those standards are NOT based on skill. style or technique.In other words, art is not judged on artistic but ideological standards. Artistic judgement has always been (except in dictatorships) a subjective act but then Marcuse has never been shy in advocating an authoritarian society that would "force" people to be free (shades of Chomsky).This is an enlightening book considering its enormous influence in academia.

pithy and to the point
Herbert Marcuse, originalmember of the so-called 'Frankfurt School',here presents a critique of Marxist aesthetics in one of his last books. Although only 72 pages long, the book is powerful in its argument againstthe orthodox Marxist view that 'art represents its the interests and worldoutlook of particular social classes.'Marcuse argues for the importanceof art in itself, apart from its source, writing, 'the criteria for theprogressive character of art are given only in the work itself as a whole:in what it says and how it says it.'He truly believes that art's place inthe world is not to change the world directly but to influence how peopleperceive the world and thereby lead them to change it.

Marcuse alsotouches upon other aspects of aesthetics, like his belief in a constantstandard allowing us to distinguish between high and low art and thequestion of the 'end of art' as posited by Bertolt Brecht and others. Nevertheless his main argument is most powerful: he ends the book bypraising art's role in representing 'the ultimate goal of all revolutions:the freedom and happiness of the individual.'

Truly a valuable book forall students of art, aesthetics and philosophy.

read this book
wonderful stop read it immediately stop I'm sure it's good, though I haven't actually read it myself stop ... Read more

Product Description
By examining the aesthetic, social, and educational philosophy of Herbert Marcuse, the author documents and demonstrates the structure and movement of Marcuse's thought on art, alienation, and the humanities. Reitz's work stresses the centrality of Marcuse's argument that the arts and humanities may act as disalienating educational forces. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Overcoming alienation through Arts
Art, Alienation and the Humanities: A Critical Engagement with Herbert Marcuse
By Charles Reitz. SUNY 336 pp.

Alienation, reification, estrangement, disempowerment, and exploitation, are some of the concepts Charles Reitz addresses. Reitz presents an elaborate and lucid discussion of Marcuse's misplaced emphasis on aesthetic dimension as a purportedly disalienating dimension and as a means to overcoming the one dimensionality of existence. Reitz's discussion of Marcuse's aesthetic finds a parallel line of discussion regarding Marxian beliefs in the causes of alienation and the means of effective dealienation leading to the dissolution of Marcuse's. The philosophical discussion is complex and requires a good knowledge of the competing philosophical orientations such as those of Dilthey, Comte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Schiller, Goethe, Nietzsche, Marx and Heidegger among others.

Reitz's unique contribution lies not only in presenting Marcuse either as a non-Marxist or even as an anti-Marxist, but in attempting to "recall" viable and promising "theory and conduct of education" embedded in Marcuse's critical theory and work even though he finds Marcuse's argument flawed with contradictions.

Marcuse's work in the United States introduced the American academics to the Frankfurt School's views of Marxism. Later Marcuse came to believe that both the Hegelian "dialectic of historical progress" and historical materialism found in classical Marxism (the inevitablity of the transition from capitalism to socialism) were not sufficiently convincing. Marcuse instead suggests the "aesthetic arguments" as a substitute for the Marxist structural and historical analysis of social change. That is, he opts for Dilthey's belief in"emotional" and "political" potential of humanities and intellectual history as opposed to Marx's historical materialism with labor as its foundation. To Marx, in a commodity driven market "art" finds its highest level of appreciation like any other commodity by the need for it and its price.
In his later years as contrasted with his middle period (1932-1970) and indeed throughout his intellectual life, Marcuse was in Reitz's estimation suffering from a crippling contradiction between Hegelian idealism and Marxian materialism. In Marcuse's estimation according to Reitz,knowledge and particularly educational knowledge is ontological and the word spirit occupies a central position in the pursuit of philosophical truth (ala Dilthey), replacing the core of Marxism -- Historical Materialism. Thus the selection of idealism and the rejection of materialism and the substitution of ontological aesthetic based on the classical German Idealism from Kant to Heidegger for the historical materialism (p.234).

The discussion in "The Future" section is very insightful. Reitz skillfully applies the core of the critical theory and specifically Marcuse's concept of "one dimensional man" to current realities of consumerism, alienation, reification and apathy. Globalization of production, grueling labor process, sold out politicians and politically, economically, and socially overpowering transnational corporations are reasons for Reitz's suggested course of ction.
On many issues regarding Marcuse's Marxism, anti-Marxism, idealism etc., Reitz is tormented between the pole of respect for an intellectual giant whose ideas appear to be timeless and the pole of distrust of a "third way" or approach to analyzing society that shakes the foundation of Marxism, historical materialism, by introducing the "libido" and the "erotic will" as meaningful substitutes categories.

Neither Marcuse believes nor Reitz is accusing him of arguing that aesthetics are free from political influence, and or neglecting the impact of commodification of sex, and the impact of abuses of the sensual and the sublime on the alienation process. Marcuse sees technical progress and the advancement of science as prerequisites for freedom, provided that their direction is altered and their goals are redefined free from the influence of alienating forces so they may become a vehicle of liberation -- "technology of liberation" -- an aesthetic morality which is vehemently opposed to the pollution of life by the "spirit of capitalism." The revolution demands a solid "real foundation" composed of the historical and the sensuous -- life instincts which must be rescued from crude materialistic reductionism. It is difficult to see these as anything but revolutionary and I am sure that Reitz agrees that it is all good materialism.
To Marcuse "The radical social content of the aesthetic needs becomes evident as the demand for their most elementary satisfaction is translated into group action on an enlarged scale...from...drive for better zoning regulations to...decommercialization of nature...control of the birth rate.....The quantity of such reforms would turn into the quality of radical change..." sufficiently so as to "weaken" the structural power which stands in opposition to them (An Essay On Liberation, p. 28). Here Marcuse is the Green of the late twentieth century, or is it the Greens including Reitz who reiterate Marcuse of yesteryear.

Marcuse however is walking a fine line between idealism of greater good for everyone and Marxism and its emphasis on structural causes of mass misery and alienation. Marcuse adds an interesting statement regarding the interplay of objective and subjective realms which are discussed in detail by Marx. To Marcuse "[T]he term `aesthetic,' in its dual connotation of `pertaining to the senses' and `pertaining to art,' may serve to designate the quality of the productive-creative process in an environment of freedom" (Marcuse p.24).To Marx, aesthetics and in particular art in an alienated (capitalistic) environment cannot function beyond the realm of consumption. In order for arts to be liberating and disalienating, the social environment in which art is relegated to mere objects of consumption must be transformed into a free society in which art becomes art in itself. But Reitz is certainly looking at broader issues of exploitation and reification disguised and sadly presented as individual freedom regardless of the means (escapism in the form of sex, violence, sports, and consumerism) by which the whole structure is reproduced and in the spirit of postmodernism the wholehearted acceptance of these as inevitable.

In the 1930s Aldous Huxley predicted the rise of sexual freedom, promiscuity, warfare, militarism and aggression accompanied by reduction in political and economic freedoms. Well aware of these similarities, Reitz presents the reader with hope and aspirations by increasing the level of anxiety as did Marcuse's lecture on the ills of capitalist societies back then.

Mehdi Shariati ... Read more

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Product Description
Acclaimed throughout the world as a philosopher of liberation and revolution, Herbert Marcuse is one of the most influential thinkers ofthe twentieth century. His penetrating critiques of the ways modern technology produces forms of society and culture with oppressive modes of social control indicate his enduring significance in the contemporary moment. This collection of unpublished or uncollected essays, unfinished manuscripts, and correspondence between 1942 and 1951, provides Marcuse's exemplary attempts to link theory with practice, and develops ideas that can be used to grasp and transform existing social reality.

These papers vividly chronicle Marcuse's increasing, yet reluctant estrangement from Max Horkeimer, director of the Institute for Social Research and his years as an analyst with various U.S. government agencies. Marcuse's later attempts to link theory and practice in the 1960s and 1970s in regard to the New Left, National Liberation Movements and other new social movements were grounded in his work from the 1940s. As the 1940s witnessed the rise to global prominence of German fascism and its defeat in World War Two, and the emergence of the Cold War,Marcuse strived to preserve the radical vision of his youth during a difficult historical period while many turned toward more conservative positions.

Precisely the sort of broad theoretical and political theorizing that Marcuse undertook througout his life is needed today to analyze the momentous changes that we are currently undergoing.

Excerpt: Personal history is interwoven with intellectual and political events in these papers. We debated whether letters belonged here: whether some should be published at all. My father had a deep sense of personal privacy, both as a character trait and as a political expression of resistance to the commodification of the private.Yet the letters contain substantive discussions also. We could have edited out, expurgated some of the material. While not publishing every letter my father wrote, our selection was based on interest, and every letter that is included is included in full. That decision was in part painful for me personally. The juxtaposition of the letters to Horkeimer and the exchange with Heidegger highlights the point. --from the Foreword by Peter Marcuse ... Read more

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Relevant and interesting early work
Marcuse was retained by the United States Office of War Information and later the Office of Strategic Services (the precursor of the CIA) because of his insight into German society.
His insights are attractive to this nonsociologist. Although Lady Thatcher, who seems to be descending into a form of insanity, said recently "there is no such thing as society", ordinary working people, who cannot afford gated communities, must perforce live in society.


Numeric results, innocent of theory, are useless for insight and only theory can match the qualitative texture of daily life. This is perhaps why Adorno's American typists at the Princeton Radio Research project both understood his "complex" prose and were sympathetic to his conclusions, while his "educated" superiors thought him "elitist."


One of Marcuse's insights into Nazi society describes the ordinary person as informed by "matter of fact cynicism". Perhaps because of Marcuse's German background, he here fashions a surprising neologism, a Katzenjammer, a jamming-together of concepts useful precisely because it is striking. This neologistic fashioning of terms-of-art is a permission German gives the speaker which his withheld, superficially, by English.


The cynical are not usually thought of as matter-of-fact, and the matter-of-fact, not usually thought of as cynical. The two sets, while not considered disjoint, are not considered to largely intersect.

Nonetheless, Marcuse's insight captured something about German society during the war that many observers missed. The ordinary German mind was thought by Anglo-American commentators to share in the mysticism of Hitler.


But Marcuse saw that the ordinary German, although silenced, was quite cynical about the war and Hitlerdom. Much later, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's research has confirmed Marcuse's hypothesis, for in the latter's book HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS, Goldhagen finds that many Germans were, as matter-of-fact cynics, not willing to participate in the Holocaust but equally unwilling to make a protest. This combination may have resulted from what Marcuse described as the destruction of pre-war Wilhelmine patriarchy and the regression to the matter-of-fact cynicism which is the protective coloration of silenced women.

The execution of a Rosa Luxembourg had shown countless Germans the consequence of protest while not necessarily convincing them that their leaders were anything but fools and madmen. The patriarchal response, commencing with the German revolts to Napoleon's rule during its awakening in 1800, was to act on the revolutionary belief. The matter-of-fact cynical response was quietism.


The Nazis in their origin in reaction to the Left revolutions of 1918 had succeeded in "debunking" liberatory narratives and in making resistance seem foolish. Young Germans of the Weimar period would be psychically familiar to young Americans of today, in the naivete of believing oneself free of "illusions."

The destruction of German patriarchy also foreshadows the consequences of the destruction of patriarchy good and bad in American life, where Lost Boys, filled with fancies but empty of "illusions", curse women in darkened streets and bars reminiscent of Cabaret.


This is the most troubling aspect of Marcuse's work: the fact that modern Americans, at least prior to the watershed of Sept 11 2001, were in their high levels of cynicism, their growing inability to treat their psychological troubles with anything other than legal or illegal drugs, and their pseudo-sophisticated, "ironic" rejection of narrative grand and small, closer to Weimar and Hitler period Germans than their grandparents.


Marcuse's insights led him in later life to a more general critique of society as composed of "one-dimensional", disempowered atoms. Only by actively maintaining an alternative stance to generalized depression can one prevent cynical matter-of-factness from taking over one's life.

Marcuse's Genius
There is so much to be said about Herbert Marcuse that this short space will not suffice.

What can be said about this collection of essays is its outline of the modern age, relating as the title suggests:"Technology, war and fascism."

Often, we think of technology asbeing simply the increasing of our tools' efficacy, in all other waysbenign, that war is perpetrated by nations and leaders, and that fascism isa dead ideology based on hate, suspicion, and opposition to everthing inthe status quo.Marcuse helps us find an understanding of these elementsof the twentieth century, placing them in the context of worldcivilization, industrialization, political development, andcapitalism.

In relation to my personal collection, I do not have a bookmore relevent to understanding the world, than those which Marcusecontributed. ... Read more

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The role of art in Marcuse’s work has often been neglected, misinterpreted or underplayed. His critics accused him of a religion of art and aesthetics that leads to an escape from politics and society. Yet, as this volume demonstrates, Marcuse analyzes culture and art in the context of how it produces forces of domination and resistance in society, and his writings on culture and art generate the possibility of liberation and radical social transformation.

The material in this volume is a rich collection of many of Marcuse’s published and unpublished writings, interviews and talks, including ‘Lyric Poetry after Auschwitz’, reflections on Proust, and Letters on Surrealism; a poem by Samuel Beckett for Marcuse’s eightieth birthday with exchange of letters; and many articles that explore the role of art in society and how it provides possibilities for liberation.

This volume will be of interest to those new to Marcuse, generally acknowledged as a major figure in the intellectual and social milieus of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as to the specialist, giving access to a wealth of material from the Marcuse Archive in Frankfurt and his private collection in San Diego, some of it published here in English for the first time.

A comprehensive introduction by Douglas Kellner reflects on the genesis, development, and tensions within Marcuse’s aesthetic, while an afterword by Gerhard Schweppenhäuser summarizes their relevance for the contemporary era.

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Dialectal stories and poems by New York City black and Spanish-speaking children edited from tape recordings taken in the classroom. ... Read more

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A Short Read
Without getting into the substance of why Marcuse is interesting, or significant, or revolutionary, I'll address the book: It's a stimulating, but short read and I would recommend a trip to the library or a used copy for the cost. I would have preferred this as part of a compilation of Marcuse's essays. Five stars for substance, four stars for length.

An addendum written in the midst of decline
Marcuse's short work Counterrevolution and Revolt, written in 1972, has four sections: "The Left Under the Counterrevolution," "Nature and Revolution," "Art and Revolution" and "Conclusion." One must imagine the political situation to which Marcuse addresses the work: the New Left, whose advances and promises were so recently great, has suffered a quick decline for two key reasons. The first was that the adaptability of the capitalist-consumer system to convert "the entire individual-body and mind-into an instrument, or even part of an instrument: active or passive, productive or receptive, in working time and free time," all for service of the system (14). Commodification had become universal; culture, even "high" culture was available in commodity form. The proletariat no longer exists as the negation of the capitalist system, but rather, as an absorbed part of it through commodity accumulation. Individual identity resides in commodity and one's job. Counter institutions, such as those the New Left desired, were difficult, if not impossible, to establish in a fashion that could gain popular support. In fact, the New Left itself had dissension and division that was the other key reason for its decline. Marcuse admonishes the New Left for its concretion of Marxian theory, he cites the difficulty of a critical language's ability to stay negative of that which it opposes without being absorbed by it. Drawing form the difficulties of the New Left, Marcuse proclaims "While it is true that people must liberate themselves from their servitude, it is also true that they must first free themselves from what has been made of them in the society in which they live. This primary liberation cannot be 'spontaneous' because such spontaneity would only express the values and goals derived from the established system. Self-liberation is self-education but as such it presupposes education by others" (46-47), revealing the "authoritarian tendencies among the New Left" (47). Much of Marcuse's arguments here draw from his seminal work One-Dimensional Man (1964, highly recommeded), which was considered as a type of bible for certain members of the New Left. Also of interest from Marcuse are his An Essay on Liberation (1969, like CRR, may be considered an addendum to One-Dimensional Man) and Negations (a collection of essays originally written in German 1934-38, trans. 1968). As for others, Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle (1967), Jean Baudrillard's Symbolic Exchange and Death (1976) and Simulacra and Simulation (1981), and much of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology. Certainly, other Frankfurt School (Critical Theory) figures such as Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin (esp. his "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" in Illuminations). ... Read more

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Paperback edition with three essays. 1969, 123 pages published by Beacon Press. ... Read more

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The great theorist of radical liberation analyzes the complex relationship between authority and freedom.

This is the first paperback edition of what is now recognized as Marcuse’s most important collection of writings on philosophy. He analyzes and attacks some of the main intellectual currents of European thoughts from the Reformation to the Cold War. In a survey that includes Luther, Calvin, Kant, Burke, Hegel and Bergson, he shows how certain concepts of authority and liberty are constant elements in their very different systems. The book also contains Marcuse’s famous response to Karl Popper’s Poverty of Historicism, and his critique of Sartre.

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Historical Survey of Political Authority
One of the earliest in the line of leftish psychoanalytic philosophers, Marcuse remains underappreciated in the modern canon. Though this slim volume doesn't rank among his masterworks, and can be considered less than absolutely essential in a way that Eros and Civilization cannot, it remains interesting and worthwhile. Beginning with Luther and Calvin and moving through Burke, Hegel, Marx and others to the then-contemporary, Marcuse illustrates the different conceptions of authority and rebellion that have prevailed throughout the age of the bourgeoisie. Especially illuminating are his chapters on Luther's anti-reforming reformation and Burke and the place of the family. ... Read more

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Through a rich collection of papers and letters, this book shows Marcuse at his most radical, focusing on his critical theory of contemporary society, his analyses of technology, capitalism, the fate of the individual, and prospects for social change in contemporary society. ... Read more

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The New Left and the 1960s is the third volume of Herbert Marcuse's collected papers. In 1964, Marcuse published a major study of advanced industrial society, One Dimensional Man, which was an important influence on the young radicals who formed the New Left. Marcuse embodied many of the defining political impulses of the New Left in his thought and politics - hence a younger generation of political activists looked up to him for theoretical and political guidance. The material collected in this volume provides a rich and deep grasp of the era and the role of Marcuse in the theoretical and political dramas of the day.

This volume contains articles, letters, talks, and interviews including: "On the New Left," a transcription of the 1968 talk at the Guardian newspaper's twentieth anniversary; "Reflections on the French Revolution," which contains comments on the 1968 French student and worker uprising; "Liberation from the Affluent Society," which presents Marcuse's contribution to the 1967 Dialectics of Liberations conference; and "United States: Questions of Organization and the Revolutionary Subject," a conversation between Marcuse and the German writer Hans Magnus Enzenberger, published here in English for the first time.

Edited by Douglas Kellner, this volume will be of interest to all those previously unfamiliar with Herbert Marcuse, generally acknowledged as a major figure in the intellectual and social mileux of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as to specialists, who will here have access to papers and articles collected in one volume for the first time. ... Read more

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Herbert Marcuse: A Critical Reader is a collection of brand new papers by seventeen Marcuse scholars, which provides a comprehensive reassessment of the relevance of Marcuse's critical theory at the beginning of the 21st century. Although best known for his reputation in critical theory, Herbert Marcuse's work has had impact on areas as diverse as politics, technology, aesthetics, psychoanalysis and ecology. This collection addresses the contemporary relevance of Marcuse's work in this broad variety of fields and from an international perspective. ... Read more

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Essays for Marcuse's 100th Birthday
Interesting collection of essays.Begins with one by Angela Davis, and continues with writings by authors who have become familiar with Marcuse's work over the years.The third section is devoted to enviromental philosophy, and Marcuse's contributions to that movement.
The contributions are for the centenial of Marcuse's birth.Many examine particular aspects of his major works: "Eros and Civilization" and "One Dimensional Man."Herbert Marcuse: A Critical Reader ... Read more

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