One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
By: Scott Gray
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Herbert Marcuse is a well-read intellectual who set out to write a theoretical philosophical volume, about the nature of understanding and thought and society, but with a very specific aim, to justify the overthrow of Western society.
One-Dimensional Man suffers in that it's most radical propositions are laid out as givens and first premises, Which are not analyzed or questioned anywhere in the work. Marcuse starts out with the presumption that certain aims and ideals represent the “true needs and desires” of people, of which those people are themselves ignorant and refuse to admit are their "true” needs and desires – but that he happens to know precisely what those true ends and desires are.
He presents this as self-evident truth – ignoring the distinct possibility that he does *not* know better than people what the actual aims and ends of those people are. He refuses to present any reason to believe that he knows what the true interests of these hapless victims of commercial society better than they know themselves.
Despite the intellectual weakness of the arguments, I found the book interesting. Not in and of itself, but as an historical piece.
Marcuse is the original thinker behind neo-Marxist thought – the modern effort to divorce Communist ideology from the failures of Communism as practiced in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, East Germany, Laos, North Korea, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, etcetera, etcetera. Marcuse's book is an effort to answer the question “why would the Communism you envision be different?” His answer is, apparently, that *he* would be a fine philosopher king, because he *truly* knows what people *truly* want.
Reading the book, which forms the backbone of post-modern Maxist thought, does help one to understand the sorts and styles of thought which have informed those in the post-Modern movement.
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Herbert Marcuse, German born Marxist, who many regard as the father of the New Left and the originator of "Critical Theory," which found it's way into American Law schools. This happened during that critical period of the late 50's to the early 70s, which gave rise to the New Left movement on America's college campuses.
Critical Theory was the first component in what became CRT. What is Critical Theory? It is the idea that all law is written by the dominant culture.
This shall be part 1