Marcuse argued that the middle class was too obsessed with consumerism for them to fight capitalism. This leads to a weak unity among the working class. Instead, the marginalized, victims of fascism basically, should be united.
I read an article critical of him on the marxists website, and it was kinda dumb. At the start of the article the writer labeled him as “anti-working class”, he immediately accused him of being a CIA puppet as well. Then he said he was an anarchist lol. Afterwards, he claims that the working class is not pacified, citing they had " lack of trust" in government as evidence.
Finally, here is a gem of a statement emphasizing the author’s idiocy.
“Marcuse was also often accused of being an advocate of the so-called “sexual revolution,” including the supposedly “liberating” effects of promiscuity, pornography and the sexual content of mass culture. Actually, he was strongly opposed to these trends; which he criticized with his theory of “repressive desublimation.” By turning people’s natural sexuality into a commodity, he argued, capitalism actually repressed their capacity for loving relationships and replaced it with perversions that became increasingly brutal. He associated this perversity with the rise of fascist trends and viewed its encouragement by the ruling class as a form of social control.”
It seems the writer thinks porn is liberating? It’s what I got from this.
What do you guys think of Marcuse?
In his written works, he criticized capitalism, modern technology, Soviet Communism, and popular culture, arguing that they represent new forms of social control.[8]
Between 1943 and 1950, Marcuse worked in US government service for the Office of Strategic Services (predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency) where he criticized the ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the book Soviet Marxism: A Critical Analysis (1958).
From what I’ve gathered he worked with this organization for fighting fascism. It’s not fair to use this as an argument to discredit his work.
In my opinion he just follows the lines of what is referred to as “Western Marxist”, this does not mean the entire work of that person is useless. Sartre did some spectacular work regarding existentialism and considered himself a Marxist yet criticised every existing Marxist State either as authoritative, not Marxist enough, and so on. By all mean I’m sure you can learn new things from reading Marcusse, but I don’t think you should consider his opinions on the USSR very seriously, and it is, in my opinion, better to spend your time reading a either a text or a critique of a true revolutionary. That said, I do have One Dimensional Man in my bookshelf and will read it one day.
Erich Fromm, who was an avowed Marxist (though certainly a peculiar one), has a good critique of Marcuse in The Crisis of Psychoanalysis (essentially on psychoanalytic grounds, but the critique might be valid for other parts of his thought)—can’t give a precise page because epubs don’t really allow to:
What does Marcuse mean by “technical discipline?” Sometimes it sounds as if he is referring only to problems of therapy; but at other times the word “technical” is used to refer to clinical, empirical data. To make a separation between philosophy and analytic theory, on one hand, and psychoanalytic clinical data, on the other, is untenable in a science whose concepts and theories cannot be understood without reference to the clinical phenomena from which they were developed. To construct a “philosophy of psychoanalysis” which ignores its empirical basis must necessarily lead to serious errors in the understanding of the theory. Let me say again that I am not implying that one must be a psychoanalyst or even that one must have been psychoanalyzed in order to discuss problems of psychoanalysis. But in order to make sense of psychoanalytic concepts, a person must have some interest in and capacity to deal with clinical data, individual or social. Marcuse and others insist on handling concepts like regression, narcissism, perversions, etc., while remaining in the world of purely abstract speculation; they are “free” to make fantastic constructions precisely because they have no empirical knowledge against which to check their speculations. Unfortunately, many readers get their information about Freud in this distorted way, not to speak of the serious damage which all muddled thinking inflicts on those exposed to it.
This is not the place to enter into a full discussion of Marcuse’s works dealing with psychoanalysis, Eros and Civilization, One Dimensional Man, and An Essay on Liberation. I shall restrict myself to a few remarks. First of all, Marcuse, while widely read, makes elementary mistakes in presenting Freudian concepts. Thus, for instance, he misunderstands Freud’s “reality principle” and the “pleasure principle” (although at one point he mentions the right quotation), assuming that there are several “reality principles” and asserting that Western civilization is governed by one of them, the “performance principle.” [it goes on through a few more pages]
In this sense, Fromm thinks Marcuse is an idealist who just uses theoretical concepts however he sees fit without caring about their original purpose. This makes him able to make grand statements and speculations about society (some of which honestly do hit home) but at the same time sorely lacking in any empirical basis.
On a personal note, I have read a bit of Marcuse and found him at his best when criticizing western institutions; his chapters on analytic philosophy in One Dimensional Man were a riot to read.
Your comment is much appreciated! I just ordered One Dimensional Man yesterday. I am worried that I will have difficulty understanding the book because of that remark you posted. The book arrives in a week, so I’ll read up on Freudian concepts while I wait.
I personally think that, from marcuse, ODM is one of the more approachable texts
I don’t really think you need to know Freudian concepts all too well to work with Marcuse, especially One Dimensional Man, which as the comrade pointed out, is a very approachable text. In any case knowing Freudian concepts might be a bit of a hinder since, as Fromm points out, Marcuse is so idiosyncratic in his use as to pretty much ignore their original meaning. Best to read him as is, I feel, and then later, if you brush up on your psychoanalytic knowledge, you can compare and contrast his use as differing from others.
That the article provide citations on that claim that he thought that?
