On the philosophy of Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt School

On Marcuse and suppression

Departing from my own feeling of discontent or disharmony in relation to some facets of today’s society, I wanted to take a closer look at the theory of the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, who in his book One-Dimensional Man (1964) analyses this discontent in the context of our contemporary culture.

Born in Germany in 1898, Marcuse served as a soldier during the World War I. In the 1920s he studied with Husserl and Heidegger, and in 1932 he joined the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt, later known as the Frankfurt School. Other prominent theorists associated with the Frankfurt School are Theodore Adorno, Jurgen Habermas and Walter Benjamin. Their influence can clearly be seen in postmodernism, today’s theoretical paradigm represented by thinkers like Foucault, Derrida, Heidegger, Gadamer, Sartre and Lyotard.

The Frankfurt School became famous for their introduction of critical theory, which may be defined as social critique that is aimed at change and emancipation through enlightenment, and which does not stick dogmatically to its own doctrinal assumptions. They distinguished “critical” from “traditional” theory saying that a theory is critical to the extent that it seeks to explain all the circumstances that enslave humans. The Frankfurt School saw modernity and enlightenment joining hands to create a new universal myth that entrapped us with its appeal, while controlling us and diminishing our freedom at every step. 

Due to his Jewish background, Herbert Marcuse had to flee to the United States in 1933, never to live in Germany again. The social theories of Marcuse and the Frankfurt School were developed on the backdrop of the rise of the fascist movement in mid-war Europe.

In the US, Marcuse taught at American universities, becoming explicitly political, resonating with the concerns of the student movement of the 1960s and thus making him the father of the American New Left movement.

In his work One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse claims that while enlightenment in the Renaissance intended to disclose the structures of society that stood in the way of human emancipation, enlightenment today is used to maintain status quo in a totalitarian system.  In this process, technology and science are used as suppressors and not liberators. He states that capitalist, basic principles such as reason, freedom and individuality are betrayed by late-capitalism, and that a symptom of this is the smoothness of the cultural industry, which reduces the ability of critical thought in the population. According to Marcuse, the masses are being kept in check, not by force and surveillance, but by entertainment and consumption.

Like both Benjamin and Adorno, Marcuse is of the opinion that art promises resistance to social repression (The Aesthetic Dimension, Marcuse, 1977) Through detachment, the successful artist will attain truth in his work. True art must invoke a longing for something utopian and the promise of happiness represented by beauty. This symbolic longing for fulfilment will awaken us from complacency.