Class & Economy as Practices of
Power:
Herbert Marcuse
One-Dimensional Man
Ch. 9 & 10
“The catastrophe of liberation”
Technical thought is not neutral
• The social position of the individual, and the
way that he or she relates to others, is
determined by “objective” economic &
political processes, laws that appear as
“calculable manifestations of (scientific)
rationality.” (169)
– “Laws” of economics
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What is Reason?
• What is rational? Can nuclear war be
rationally chosen?
• For Marcuse, a strong, two-dimensional
rationality is aimed always at truth and Being.
This is the mark of the rational. In this light, to
speak of the rational choice for nuclear war is
only to highlight the basic insanity of technical
society.
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We have it much better than before…
• Ideal & actual
– The “side effects” of civilization
– Tolerance of these is enforced by “the
overwhelming, anonymous power and efficiency
of the technological society.”
– “The absorption of the negative by the positive is
validated in the daily experience, which
obfuscates the distinction between rational
appearance and irrational reality.”
– P. 226
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Historical determination of truth
• Mathematics and operationalism became
understood to be ‘true’ (as values are not) by
demonstrating their ability to predict and
control the universe
– Thus, the validity of the concept is not what
determines its truth, but its historical
manifestation
– Thus, liberation will require a catastrophic shift in
our historical circumstances
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The Catastrophe of Liberation
• Catastrophe:
– 1. ‘The change or revolution which produces the
conclusion or final event of a dramatic piece’ (J.);
the dénouement.
– 2. ‘A final event; a conclusion generally unhappy’
(J.); a disastrous end, finish-up, conclusion,
upshot; overthrow, ruin, calamitous fate.
– 3. An event producing a subversion of the order or
system of things.
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New Reason
• “A new direction of technical progress will be
the catastrophe of the established direction”,
not the evolution of quantitative rationality,
“but rather its catastrophic transformation,
the emergence of a new idea of Reason,
theoretical and practical.” (228)
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Recombining science and value
• TWO dimensions of thought
• “What is at stake is the redefinition of values
in technical terms, as elements in the
technological process.”
• “calculable is the degree to which, under the
same conditions, care could be provided for
the ill, the infirm, and the aged—that is
quantifiable is the possible reduction of
anxiety, the possible freedom from fear.” (232)
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• “Formerly metaphysical ideas of liberation
may become the proper object of science”
– The Good is a part of Reason
• But for this, science must become political, it
can no longer embrace a pretended neutrality.
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Pacification
• The pacification of nature should be the aim of
technology
– All happiness results from the overcoming of Nature
– The veneration of the Natural is a veil to protect the
status quo
•
•
•
•
•
•
Race
Disease
Gender
Sex
Economics
Poverty
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• Art is, almost by definition, the enemy of the
Natural
– It asserts Truth against Fact
• Thus, Art can be “envisaged as validated by and
functioning in the scientific-technological
transformation of the world.” (239)
– Not art for art’s sake, but as part of a project of
fundamental change
– “Rather than being the handmaiden of the established
apparatus, art would become a technique for
destroying this business and this misery.”
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• Nature is only what IS, and what IS is
oppressive in that it promotes the satisfaction
of needs that requires
– The rat race
– Planned obsolescence
– Enjoying freedom from thought
– Working with and for the means of destruction
(241)
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Needed for the change
• Centralized economic planning
– Deployment of resources in rational plan to pacify nature
• Abolition of false freedoms
– Freedom of enterprise
– “Work or starve”
– Advertising as speech
– Population controls
• Change in consciousness
– The “primary subjective prerequisite for qualitative
change” is “the redefinition of needs.”
• Direct Democracy
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• The false needs present in current technological
society form the material base of domination
– They prevent the individual from being the individual,
making him or her only an element of the economic
and political apparatus. He or she is incapable of true
self-determination. There is no space for solitude
– Enchained by a vision of “the good life” as one of
material satisfaction & contentment
– P. 245*
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• But fundamental change may be impossible
– Economic & political interests in maintaining
status quo
– Aesthetics have been co-opted to veil domination
rather than reveal it
• “A combination family room during peacetime (sic!)
and family fallout shelter should war break out.”
– Workers, once the agents of change, have been
incorporated into society’s structure
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• What, then, is to be done?
– The Great Refusal
• “What we refuse is not without value or importance.
Precisely because of that, the refusal is necessary.
There is a reason which we no longer accept, there is
an appearance of wisdom which horrifies us, there is a
plea for agreement and conciliation which we will no
longer heed. A break has occurred. We have been
reduced to that frankness which no longer tolerates
complicity.” (Le Refus, fn. 3, p. 256)
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“It is nothing but a chance.”
• But this is only individual, and politically
impotent.
– It allows the individual to be authentic, True to a
greater extent than he or she would otherwise.
• “Don’t wait to be hunted to hide.”
– But even such people will find themselves
continuously compromised by the necessities of
survival.
– Ultimately, while the life of the individual may have
improved, and be Truer, nothing has changed.
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“It is nothing but a chance.”
• Last possible agents of fundamental change:
– “the substratum of the outcasts and outsiders, the exploited
and persecuted of other races and other colors, the
unemployed and unemployable”
– “Their opposition is revolutionary even if their consciousness is
not.” (256)
• Civil rights mvmt might be the beginning of fundamental
change:
• “Their force is behind every political demonstration for the
victims of law and order. The fact that they start refusing to
play the game may be the fact which marks the beginning
of the end of a period.” (257)
– Protest & a demand for change
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But…
• “the economic and and technical capabilities
of the established societies are sufficiently
vast to allow for adjustments and concessions
to the underdog, and their armed forces
sufficiently trained and equipped to handle
emergency situations.” (257)
– Ultimately for Marcuse, the choice is between
individual withdrawal or, just possibly, an alliance
of diverse outsiders.
• Both likely futile
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Essay Prompts
• 1. Using the critical tools presented in the readings from
Foucault, analyze the structures of power present in Ehrenreich’s
description of her experience as a low-wage worker in at least one
chapter from Nickel & Dimed.
• 2. Using Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man as your source,
critique one of the following texts:
–
–
–
–
–
Front section of New York Times or Wall Street Journal
An episode of a TV show
An NBA game
Two hours of cable news network (CNN, FOX, MSNBC)
Another text of your choice, to be approved by me
• An example of how this prompt can be approached may be found
on the course website.
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Essay Prompts
• 3. Agree, disagree, or modify the following statement: “Marcuse argues
that, due to the benefits that they receive, the modern, Western worker is
not aware of his or her oppression. However, the reality depicted in
Ehrenreich’s Nickeled and Dimed shows that Marcuse is wrong on this
point, and thus the society he describes is far less stable than he
imagines.”
• 4. It is common to hear that people in poverty make bad decisions that
prohibit them from improving their lot. How do Ehrenreich and Bourgois
account for “bad choices” or “self-destructive behavior” among the
working poor? What role does the presence or absence of social capital
play?
• 5. A thesis-based argument of your own choice. The topic of this paper
should be specific, clear, and focused on class texts and areas of concern.
It must also be approved by me.
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