The one-dimensional human

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The one-dimensional human being is one of the most famous works by the German-American sociologist and philosopher Herbert Marcuse . It was published in the USA in 1964 under the title One-Dimensional Man and three years later it was also published in Germany as a translation by Alfred Schmidt . The subtitle of the German edition is: Studies on the ideology of advanced industrial society . With the work, Marcuse became a mentor of the German student movement in the 1960s.

content

Marcuse states a “one-dimensional” and “positive” or “ positivist ” thinking in both science and public discourse . Science in particular took refuge in empirical and quantitative thinking out of fear of value judgments or political interference . Fundamental, qualitative reflection on social problems and tasks would not take place in this technocratic science of domination. Instead of questioning and criticizing the inequality in capitalism and the nuclear threat, these problems would only be managed and thus reproduced again and again. In this context, Marcuse particularly emphasizes an aspect of capitalism that has not yet been considered by classical Marxism: the manipulation of the individual, his instrumentalization through the suggestive power of consumer advertising. He sees no alternative in the Soviet- dominated systems of the Eastern Bloc , on the contrary: They are only apparently socialist , in truth there is a “negative convergence ” between western and eastern industrial societies , since both systems are characterized by “rule and conformity ”. Marcuse distinguishes between true and false needs. It is true that the question of what true and false needs are can only be answered by the individuals themselves, provided they are free from manipulation through advertising and mass culture.

Marcuse opposes manipulation with negation : on the one hand, negation through criticism, on the other hand, the refusal to play this game and the search for the qualitatively different. Marcuse is pessimistic about changing these relationships and emphasizes the stabilizing, affirmative power of one-dimensional thinking.

The often picked catchphrase of the Great Denial as a way out appears on the last pages. Many groups of the 1968 movement and the alternative scenes referred to this motif, but also to his other works and propagated an exit from the capitalist system. Marcuse's utopia is to justify a liberated society based on reason and drive theory, but at least to keep alive the possibility of another, freer society. In his essay Attempt on Liberation (1969), planned under the working title Beyond the One-Dimensional Man , Marcuse developed a more optimistic position following The One-Dimensional Man .

In his 1967 lecture given to students at the Free University of Berlin : The End of Utopia , this approach is carried out. In societies with highly developed productive forces, there is therefore the possibility of an upheaval through which poverty and misery and alienated work can be abolished. Contrary to what Marx had described, "the realm of freedom in the realm of necessity" can appear. Marcuse describes the negation of the existing society as a prerequisite for the transformation of human needs . What is needed is a new morality that goes beyond Judeo-Christian morality , one that fulfills the vital needs for joy and happiness and encompasses the aesthetic-erotic dimensions . He advocates an experiment in the convergence of technology and art as well as work and play .

Charles Fourier made the difference between a free and a non-free society clear for the first time by promising a society "in which even socially necessary work can be organized in harmony with the liberated, individual needs of people." Marcuse used the concept of the possible end of the story .

The work closes with the quote from Walter Benjamin : "Only for the sake of the hopeless is hope given to us".

reception

The book is one of the classics of social science. Marcuse was received with the book mainly in the student movement and in the new left . The New Social Movements were added later. The book is Herbert Marcuse's best-known work and has often been the first point of access to critical theory for readers.

The councilor communist Paul Mattick published a critical monograph on Marcuse's one-dimensional people, which appeared in German in 1969. Marcuse himself recognized this as the only serious criticism.

The British philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre criticized the One-Dimensional Man for the fact that Marcuse's statements remain free-floating, more suggestive than fully understandable, “although what is suggested cannot even be said with any accuracy . The effect is evocative and anti-rational, a more magical than philosophical use of language. "

According to Stefan Breuer , the book identified Marcuse as the heir and finisher of the classical theories of imperialism . Like them, Marcuse saw the dissolution of the " primacy of the economy " through the " primacy of politics " with the dissolution of all mediating authorities as a characteristic of the epoch . But in contrast to Kautsky and Hilferding, Lenin and Bukharin, he could no longer see any politicization of the class conflicts in which reality urges revolutionary ideas. Rather, capitalism has become a mere relationship of domination, "from which there was no way out, except for the will of the ruled".

expenditure

literature

  • Stefan Breuer : The crisis of the theory of revolution. Negative socialization and work metaphysics with Herbert Marcuse . Syndicate, Frankfurt am Main 1977.
  • Paul Mattick : Criticism of Herbert Marcuse. The one-dimensional man in class society . From the American by Hermann Huss. European Publishing House, Frankfurt am Main 1969.
  • Claus Rolshausen: Marcuse, Herbert: The one-dimensional man . In: Sven Papcke / Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff (Ed.): Key works of sociology . Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2001, pp. 306-308.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Franco Volpi / Julian Nida-Rümelin (ed.): Lexicon of philosophical works . Kröner, Stuttgart 1988, p. 482.
  2. ↑ Martin Jänicke : State theory of the present . In: Dieter Nohlen (Ed.): Lexicon of Politics, Volume 1: Political Theories. Directmedia, Berlin 2004, p. 606.
  3. ↑ Stuart Jeffries: Grand Hotel Abyss. The Frankfurt School and its time . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2019. p. 366.
  4. ^ Joachim Wurst: One-Dimensional Man . In: Samuel Salzborn (ed.): Classics of the social sciences. Portrait of 100 key works Springer VS, Wiesbaden, second edition 2016, p. 232.
  5. ↑ Joachim Wurst: One-Dimensional Man , pp. 229 and 232 f.
  6. ^ Alasdair MacIntyre: Herbert Marcuse. (Modern Theorists series), dtv, Munich 1971, p. 112.
  7. ↑ Stefan Breuer: The crisis of the revolution theory. Negative socialization and work metaphysics with Herbert Marcuse . Syndikat, Frankfurt am Main 1977. p. 174 f.