Trenchant social critique

books:

	• One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society Herbert Marcuse Beacon Press, 1991 - 260 pages average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

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.

When We Dead Awake

By pure chance I found an old, tattered copy of this in a used book shop many years ago. I still recall the bizarre sensation of realizing that someone else, much older than me and way ahead of my own experiences, had expressed so accurately, so vividly, a view of society that I understood, and suspect is resonant among many, but perplexing to articulate in a way that isn't flippantly dismissed outright by those who gauge the intrinsic worth of human existence by a poisoned belief structure's merits.

Marcuse's book is a damning examination of the dynamics of 'democratic unfreedom;' technological servitude in the guise of liberty. I remember how the notion struck me, that if such societal/institutional analysis was on target in the early 1960s, just how indoctrinated and delusional must the situation be in our currently perceived time? Precisely.

Thankfully there are a few truly aware pockets of critical thought to be found, but by and large, the Few Big easily control the UNcritical masses through a constant barrage of institutional, cultural and media propaganda(entertainment equals indoctrination)and the strategically manufactured 'values' and exhaulted social practices of this UNreality are then impressed upon one person to the other as the herd 'polices' and indoctrinates via familiarity, example and ostrcism, making opposition to greed and superficiality appear absurd, futile.

Marcuse discusses artistic alienation, how the inherent properties of truth and protest found in artistic expression were defanged:
"The absorbent power of society depletes the artistic dimension by assimilating its antagonistic contents. In the realm of culture, the new totalitarianism manifests itself precisely in a harmonizing pluralism, where the most contradictory works and truths peacefully coexist in indifference. Prior to the advent of this cultural reconciliation, literature and art were essentially alienation, sustaining and protecting the contradiction-the unhappy consciousness of the divided world, the defeated possibilities, the hopes unfulfilled, and the promises betrayed. They were a rational, cognitive force, revealing a dimension of man and nature which was repressed and repelled in reality. Their truth was in the illusion evoked, in the insistence on creating a world in which the terror of life was called up and suspended-mastered by recognition. This is the miracle of the chefd'oeuvre; it is the tragedy, sustained to the last, and the end of tragedy-its impossible solution. To live one's love and hatred, to live that which one *is* means defeat, resignation, and death. The crimes of society, the hell that man has made for man become the actual unconquerable cosmic forces."

It's fascinating when observing various societal/cultural trends, tendencies and practices, to go back and see how it corresponds with Marcuse's prophetic warning...and yes, that is meant quite literally: this book is no less prophetic than Orwell's 1984, and what's more, is far more chilling in its range and scope due to it's realistic exploration of cultural indoctrination, mass delusion and mass denial. In Orwell's novel, 1984, Winston Smith's world is controlled through ideology, yes, but the Big Stick of state violence looms above perpetually, ensuring the perpetuation of an automatized populace.

Marcuse's book, on the other hand, is an irrefutable postulation of the Big Lie, the comfortably horrific ease in which society has become fatally entangled within a stupor of brainwashed self deception, welcomed, enthusiastic exploitation, zombie consumerism run amok, repression and lunatic militarism.

He uses words in a manner of stark clarification, refusing to allow modern society to slip the proverbial noose, and find comfortable, convenient excuses, denials and justifications. As the "Newsweek" review quoted on the cover appropriately exclaims: "A bitter cry of social protest, fortified by uncommon erudition and rationality."

What honest chance for our civilization, for our species, remains in such endless cycles of lunacy? Your hair would stand on end if you knew how many times we've come seconds close to accidental nuclear holocaust. That is reality, and to passively ignore it is to do so at our own peril. I wonder just how few people can actually comprehend that?...what is says about us.

The corporations and the 'Few Big' dominate the globe, and next they want the full militaristic dominance of outer space with their astonishingly psychotic "Star Wars" missle defense plan, which naturally has NOTHING to do with defense and everything to do with parting ways with long standing non proliferation treaties, and of course, global domination. Billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars are pathologically spent on nuclear weapons every year...gee, with the Soviet Union gone, who or what do ya s'pose they're gearing up for when they've already amassed enough weapons to implement race suicide a hundred times over?

This is the crucial point Marcuse is making: the populace is strategically marginalized into apathy and indifference, out and away from the concerns of policy making decisions by vested interests who strive to make huge profits by 'dumbing down' standards of humanity, tricking the public into subsidizing high end military technology, and appealing to base attractions and distractions(greed, superficiality, apathy)in order to secure the compliance of a mass of stunningly indifferent, dumb people who are actively participating in their own degredation and ultimate demise, if only by their inability and/or unwillingness to acknowledge what should be flagrantly obvious. We're all guilty of this to some degree. People tend to talk about what matters to them most...or, what they've been conditioned and programmed to care about most, right? So when you *don't* hear many around you discussing these common sense issues, life and death issues, think of the potential consequences for our species. Encourage those around you to read Marcuse's book, it outlines a lot of basic groundwork for what we, if we're to be honest, face today.

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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

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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

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