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Herbert Marcuse

Herbert Marcuse Biography

Philosopher

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“The danger of abusing the discovery of the truth value of imagination for retrogressive tendencies is exemplified by the work of Carl Jung. More empathically than Freud, he has insisted on the cognitive force of imagination. According to Jung, phantasy is ‘undistinguishably’ united with all other mental functions, it appears ‘now as primeval, now as the ultimate and most audacious synthesis of all capabilities.’ Phantasy is above all the ‘creative activity out of which flow the answers to all answerable questions’; it is ‘the mother of all possibilities, in which all mental opposites as well as the conflict between internal and external world are united.’ Phantasy has always built the bridge between the irreconcilable demands of object and subject, extroversion and introversion. The simultaneously retrospective and expectant character of imagination is thus clearly stated: it looks not only back to an aboriginal golden past, but also forward to still unrealized but realizable possibilities.”

ImaginationJungFreud
Author:Herbert Marcuse
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“Freedom of enterprise was from the beginning not altogether a blessing. As the liberty to work or to starve, it spelled toil, insecurity, and fear for the vast majority of the population. If the individual were no longer compelled to prove himself on the market, as a free economic subject, the disappearance of this kind of freedom would be one of the greatest achievements of civilization.”

WorkCapitalismToilWage SlaveryFalse Freedom
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“Tolerance toward that which is radically evil now appears as good because it serves the cohesion of the whole on the road to affluence or more affluence. The toleration of the systematic moronization of children and adults alike by publicity and propaganda, the release of destructiveness in aggressive driving, the recruitment for and training of special forces, the impotent and benevolent tolerance toward outright deception in merchandizing, waste, and planned obsolescence are not distortions and aberrations, they are the essence of a system which fosters tolerance as a means for perpetuating the struggle for existence and suppressing the alternatives. The authorities in education, morals, and psychology are vociferous against the increase in juvenile delinquency; they are less vociferous against the proud presentation, in word and deed and pictures, of ever more powerful missiles, rockets, bombs--the mature delinquency of a whole civilization.”

SocietyTolerance
Book:Repressive Tolerance
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“Na construção da personalidade, o instinto de destruição manifesta-se com a maior nitidez na formação do superego . Certo, por seu papel defensivo contra os impulsos irrealistas do id, por sua função na conquista duradoura do complexo de Édipo, o superego consolida e protege a unidade do ego, garante o seu desenvolvimento sob o princípio de realidade e, assim, atua a serviço de Eros. Contudo, o superego atinge esses objetivos dirigindo o ego contra o seu id, desviando parte dos instintos de destruição contra uma parte da personalidade destruindo, fragmentando a unidade da personalidade como um todo; assim, atua a serviço do antagonista do instinto de vida. Além disso, essa destrutividade dirigida para dentro constitui o âmago moral da personalidade adulta. A consciência, a mais querida agência moral do indivíduo civilizado, surge-nos impregnada do instinto de morte; o imperativo categórico que o superego impõe continua sendo um imperativo de autodestruição, enquanto constrói a existência social da personalidade. A obra de repressão pertence tanto ao instinto de morte quanto ao instinto de vida. Normalmente, a fusão de ambos é salutar, mas a obstinada severidade do superego ameaça constantemente esse equilíbrio salutar. Quanto mais um homem controla suas tendências agressivas em relação a outros, mais tirânico, isto é, mais agressivo se torna em seu ego-ideal ... mais intensas se tornam as tendências agressivas do seu ego-ideal contra o seu ego. Levada ao extremo, na melancolia, uma pura cultura do instinto de morte pode influir no superego, convertendo este numa espécie de local de reunião para os instintos de morte. Mas esse perigo extremo tem suas raízes na situação normal do ego. Como a ação do ego resulta em uma '... libertação dos instintos agressivos no superego, a sua luta contra a libido expõe-no ao perigo de maus tratos e morte. Ao sofrer os ataques do superego ou talvez ao sucumbir a eles o ego está enfrentando um destino semelhante ao dos protozoários que são destruídos pelos produtos de desintegração que eles próprios criaram.' E Freud acrescenta que do ponto de vista econômico [mental], a moralidade que funciona no superego parece ser um produto similar de desintegração. É nesse contexto que a metapsicologia de Freud se defronta com a dialética fatal da civilização: o próprio progresso da civilização conduz à liberação de forças cada vez mais destrutivas.”

Psicanálise
Book:Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud
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“The people are led to find in the productive apparatus the effective agent of thought and action to which their personal thought and action can and must be surrendered. And in this transfer, the apparatus also assumes the role of a moral agent. Conscience is absolved by reification.”

PeopleActionMoralRolesConscienceAssumingAgentsProductiveTransfersThoughts And Actions
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“Such abstraction which refuses to accept the given universe of facts as the final context of validation, such "transcending" analysis of the facts in the light of their arrested and denied possibilities, pertains to the very structure of social theory.”

FactsLightUniverseGivenSocialAcceptingPossibilityTheoryStructureFinalsRefuseAnalysisDeniedAbstractionArrestedValidationTranscendingSocial Theory
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“All liberation depends on the consciousness of servitude, and the emergence of this consciousness is always hampered by the predominance of needs and satisfactions which, to a great extent, have become the individual's own.”

NeedsIndividualConsciousnessDependsSatisfactionLiberationServitudeEmergence
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“This mutual dependencies no longer the dialectical relationship between master and servant, which has been broken in the struggle for mutual recognition, but rather a vicious circle which encloses both the master and the servant. Do the technicians rule, or is their rule that of the others, who rely on the technicians as their planners and executors?”

Has BeensStruggleMastersBrokenCirclesRecognitionServantRelyMutualViciousDependencyPlannersTechniciansVicious CirclesExecutorsMasters And Servants
Author:Herbert Marcuse
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“In the form of the oeuvre, the actual circumstances are placed in another dimension where the given reality shows itself as that which it is. Thus it tells the truth about itself; its language ceases to be that of deception, ignorance, and submission. Fiction calls the facts by their name and their reign collapses; fiction subverts everyday experience and shows it to be mutilated and false.”

FactsShowsRealityFormNamesLanguageGivenFictionIgnoranceCircumstancesEverydayCeaseDeceptionDimensionsTelling The TruthCollapseReignSubmissionReality Shows
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“The soul contains few secrets and longings which cannot be sensibly discussed, analyzed, and polled. Solitude, the very condition which sustained the individual against and beyond his society, has become technically impossible. Logical and linguistic analysis demonstrate that the old metaphysical problems are illusory problems; the quest for the "meaning" of things can be reformulated as the quest for the meaning of words, and the established universe of discourse and behavior can provide perfectly adequate criteria for the answer.”

SoulProblemUniverseIndividualAnswersSecretImpossibleConditionsSolitudeBehaviorLongingAnalysisLogicalQuestsDiscourseMetaphysicalAdequateCriteriaIllusoryMeanings Of Words
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“In its relation to the reality of daily life, the high culture of the past was many things opposition and adornment, outcry and resignation. But it was also the appearance of the realm of freedom: the refusal to behave.”

RealityPastCultureRelationAppearanceBehaveRealmsOppositionDaily LifeRefusalResignationAdornment
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“Technical progress and more comfortable living permit the systematic inclusion of libidinal components into the realm of commodity production and exchange. But no matter how controlled the mobilization of instinctual energy may be (it sometimes amounts to a scientific management of libido), no matter how much it may serve as a prop for the status quo - it is also gratifying to the managed individuals, just as racing the outboard motor, pushing the power lawn mower, and speeding the automobile are fun.”

MaySometimesMatterIndividualEnergyFunProgressAmountComfortableManagementProductionsRealmsPushingControlledPermitRacingInclusionCommodityStatus QuoComponentsMotorAutomobileSystematicLawnsPropsSpeedingLibidoMobilizationMowers
Author:Herbert Marcuse
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“When the whole is at stake, there is no crime except that of rejecting the whole, or not defending it. ... Those who identify themselves with the whole, who are installed as the leaders and defenders of the whole can make mistakes, but they cannot do wrong - they are not guilty. They may become guilty again when this identification no longer holds, when they are gone.”

MayWholeMistakeLeaderGoneCrimeGuiltyMaking MistakesStakesIdentificationDefendersRejectingNot Guilty
Author:Herbert Marcuse
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“This organization of functional discourse is of vital importance; it serves as a vehicle of coordination and subordination. The unified, functional language is an irreconcilably anti-critical and anti-dialectical language. In it, operational and behavioral rationality absorbs the transcendent, negative, oppositional elements of Reason.”

ReasonLanguageElementsNegativeOrganizationImportanceCriticalVehicleDiscourseRationalityTranscendentUnifiedCoordinationSubordination
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“The ontological concept of truth is in the centre of a logic which may serve as a model of pre- technological rationality. It is the rationality of a two-dimensional universe of discourse which, contrasts with the of thought and behavior that develop in the execution of the technological project.”

MayTwoUniverseTruth IsBehaviorProjectsModelsConceptsLogicContrastExecutionTechnologicalCentreDiscourseRationality
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“Dialectical thought understands the critical tension between "is" and "ought" first as an ontological condition, pertaining to the structure of Being itself. However, the recognition of this state of Being its theory intends from the beginning a concrete practice. Seen in the light of a truth which appears in them falsified or denied, the given facts themselves appear false and negative.”

FirstsStatesFactsLightGivenPracticeConditionsTheoryOughtNegativeStructureCriticalRecognitionTensionDeniedConcrete
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“Precisely because Galilean science is, in the formation of its concepts, the technic of a specific Lebenswelt , it does not and cannot transcend this Lebenswelt . It remains essentially within the basic experiential framework and within the universe of ends set by this reality.”

DoeEndsRealityUniverseConceptsRemainsFrameworkFormation
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“Bourgeois political economy ... never gets to see man who is its real subject. It disregards the essence of man and his history and is thus in the profoundest sense not a 'science of people' but of non-people and of an inhuman world of objects and commodities.”

PeopleMenWorldRealPoliticalEconomySubjectsObjectsEssenceCommodityBourgeoisDisregardInhumanPolitical Economy
Book:The Essential Marcuse: Selected Writings of Philosopher and Social Critic Herbert Marcuse
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“The neo-conservative critics of leftist critics of mass culture ridicule the protest against Bach as background music in the kitchen, against Plato and Hegel, Shelley and Baudelaire, Marx and Freud in the drugstore. Instead, they insist on recognition of the fact that the classics have left the mausoleum and come to life again, that people are just so much more educated. True, but coming to life as classics, they come to life as other than themselves; they are deprived of their antagonistic force, of the estrangement which was the very dimension of their truth.”

PeopleFactsCultureLeftForceMassCriticsConservativeBackgroundsEducatedRecognitionKitchenDimensionsProtestPlatoRidiculeDeprivedLeftistsHegelEstrangementMass CultureBaudelaireShelleyBackground MusicMausoleum
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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