Herbert Marcuse
German-American philosopher of the Frankfurt School (1898 to 1979); wrote One-Dimensional Man.
At a glance
Main ideas
One-dimensional society, Repressive desublimation, Marx and Freud …
See all 4Criticism
Leszek Kołakowski
Books to start with
Eros and Civilization, Soviet Marxism, One-Dimensional Man
See all 3Connections
C. Wright Mills and One-Dimensional Man
See all 2
Also on this page: Key facts · Links · Sources · Related pages
- Marcuse was a Frankfurt School critical theorist who studied under Martin Heidegger and fled Nazi Germany.
- He criticised capitalism, modern technology, Soviet communism and popular culture as new forms of social control.
- Eros and Civilization (1955) and One-Dimensional Man (1964) made him the leading theorist of the 1960s New Left.
- He taught at Brandeis and the University of California, San Diego.
Why it matters
- He is the thinker most associated with the New Left's critique of consumer society and of tolerance as a form of control.
Key facts
- Born
- 19 Jul 1898, Berlin1
- Died
- 29 Jul 1979, of a stroke, ten days after his 81st birthday, on his way to visit the Max Planck Institute in Starnberg1
- Education
- Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin; PhD, University of Freiburg (1922); habilitation work under Heidegger1
- Emigration
- Left Germany in 1933; reached the US in June 1934; US citizen from 19401
- War
- Office of War Information, then the OSS's Research and Analysis Branch from 1943; later the State Department1
- Teaching
- Columbia; Harvard; Brandeis from 1954 to 1965; UC San Diego from 1965 to 19701
Main ideas
-
One-dimensional society2
Advanced industrial society creates false needs and absorbs opposition.
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Repressive desublimation1
Mass culture's sexual provocations reinforce political repression.
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Marx and Freud1
Eros and Civilization joined the two to criticise capitalist society.
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Repressive tolerance1
His 1965 essay on how tolerance can serve domination.
Criticism
-
Leszek Kołakowski1
Said Marcuse dropped class struggle for the claim that material questions were solved and moral rules no longer mattered.
Books to start with
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Connections
Links
Sources
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