Towards a Critical Theory of Society: Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse

257 Pages·2001·1.478 MB·English

by  Kellner, Douglas, Marcuse, Herbert

T O WA R D S A
C R I T I C A L T H E O RY
O F S O C I E T Y
COLLECTED PAPERS OF HERBERT MARCUSE
EDITED BY DOUGLAS KELLNER
Volume One
TECHNOLOGY, WARANDFASCISM
Volume Two
TOWARDSACRITICALTHEORYOFSOCIETY
Volume Three
FOUNDATIONSOFTHENEWLEFT
Volume Four
ARTANDLIBERATION
Volume Five
PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOANALYSISANDEMANCIPATION
Volume Six
MARXISM, REVOLUTIONANDUTOPIA
TOWARDS A
CRITICAL THEORY
OF SOCIETY
HERBERT MARCUSE
C O L L E C T E D PA P E R S
O F H E R B E RT M A R C U S E
Vo l u m e Tw o
E d i t e d b y
D o u g l a s K e l l n e r
L o n d o n a n d N e w Yo r k
First published 2001
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.
© 2001 Peter Marcuse
Selection and Editorial Matter © 2001 Douglas Kellner
Afterword © Jürgen Habermas
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage
or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Marcuse, Herbert, 1898–
Towards a critical theory of society / Herbert Marcuse; edited by Douglas Kellner.
p. cm. – (Collected papers of Herbert Marcuse; v. 2)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Sociology–Philosophy. I. Kellner, Douglas, 1943– II. Title.
B945 .M298 1998 v. 2
[HM585]
301′.01–dc21 00–053357
ISBN 0-203-20660-6(cid:13)Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-26676-5 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–13781–0 (Print Edition)
C O N T E N T S
Foreword
PETER MARCUSE vii
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction
Herbert Marcuse and the Vicissitudes of Critical Theory
DOUGLAS KELLNER 1
I The Problem of Social Change in the Technological Society 35
II The Individual in the Great Society 59
III The Containment of Social Change in Industrial Society 81
IV Political Preface to Eros and Civilization, 1966 95
V Beyond One-Dimensional Man 107
VI Cultural Revolution 121
VII The Historical Fate of Bourgeois Democracy 163
VIII Watergate: When Law and Morality Stand in the Way 187
vi Contents
IX A Revolution in Values 193
X Letters 203
Herbert Marcuse to Leo Löwenthal,
March 26, 1955 207
Herbert Marcuse to Leo Löwenthal,
September 9, 1955 208
Herbert Marcuse to Leo Löwenthal,
February 16, 1961 209
Leo Löwenthal to Richard Popkin,
March 31, 1964 210
Herbert Marcuse to T.W. Adorno,
January 24, 1960 212
Max Horkheimer and T.W. Adorno to Herbert Marcuse,
February 12, 1960 213
Herbert Marcuse to T.W. Adorno 215
Herbert Marcuse to Max Horkheimer and
T.W. Adorno (unsent letter) 216
Herbert Marcuse to Raya Dunayevskaya,
August 8, 1960 219
Raya Dunayevskaya to Herbert Marcuse,
August 16, 1960 220
Herbert Marcuse to Raya Dunayevskaya,
August 24, 1960 226
Frederick Pollock to Herbert Marcuse,
December 8, 1960 227
Memorandum: Herbert Marcuse and Frederick Pollock,
November 10, 1960 228
XI Afterword
The Different Rhythms of Philosophy and Politics
for Herbert Marcuse on his 100th Birthday
JÜRGEN HABERMAS 231
Index 239
F O R E W O R D
P e t e r M a r c u s e
In reading these largely unpublished manuscripts of my father’s, I am struck
by two things. The first has to do with the relationship of current events to
long-term analysis that the selections in this volume, in particular, reveal.
The second has to do, superficially, with style, but, more significantly, with
the thought processes that the style reveals.
Many of these pieces were composed (some for talks, others as draft
manuscripts) during the Vietnam war, as my father actively engaged himself
in the day-to-day protest against it. His contribution was not particularly
to marshal the arguments against the war, but rather to put it in the broader
framework of developments in the economy of capitalism, in bourgeois
democracy, and in the possible forms of resistance. Some of his judgments
as to the extent of developments may seem today, with hindsight, to have
been in part erroneous: the extent of formal repression, or the inability of
the economic system to continue to produce. But the underlying analyses
still ring very true. I would argue it is perhaps even more important today
to develop a radical social critique, perhaps because the day-to-day conflicts
do not seem as profound as they were then. Today, because the possibility
of serious long-term change seems so remote, we tend to think less about
the underlying problems and their importance, and the need for radical
structural transformation.
But, as my father wrote elsewhere, utopias are no longer utopias because
they can realistically be achieved today. It is thus important to consider what
could be, alternative and better modes of social organization, even though,
unlike then, such reflections are on the back burner today.
viii Foreword
Above all, the theme that runs through virtually everything in this volume
is the importance of the political, the fight against the depoliticization of all
spheres of action, from academic economics to culture to politics itself. In
later work, to be published in a subsequent volume in this series, he dealt
explicitly with the political content of art in terms of a dialectic of form and
content, rejecting the view that art, to be political, should be ornamented
propaganda; there are hints even in the present pieces of his developing
absorption in the role of art and the aesthetic dimension in the process of
liberation. In the essays collected in this volume, he is concerned with the
sources of social change, and sees in the growing material prosperity that capi-
talism has produced an increasing dehumanization that needs to be addressed
in moral terms, and that means in political, rather than narrowly economic,
struggle. The new 1966 preface to Eros and Civilizationis called “Political
Preface,” and ends: “Today the fight for life, the fight for Eros, is the political
fight.” It is a moral and a political position that is grounded in a sharp theo-
retical analysis of current developments, and holds up well even where current
developments have not gone entirely in the direction he anticipated.
As to style, I remember often, on first reading something he had published,
swearing at the ambiguities of many phrases. I was trained as a lawyer, and
sharpness of expression, precision, clarity, are highly prized, terms are given
specific definitions, conclusions are drawn sharply and pressed one-sidedly.
The result is often complex sentences, multiplication of qualifications to
simple statements, difficult and inelegant reading, but, if the effort succeeds,
clear and unambiguous results. Reading the Internal Revenue Code is tough
going, but any lawyer would defend it as an attempt to state very precisely
what is and what is not taxed, under what circumstances, with what
exceptions, for what type of entity, when, and how.
My father’s writing (and speaking) were, to my then professional
eyes, quite the opposite. One trick he often used was to say the same thing
two or three different ways, to add to a noun another noun, separated
by commas, or added parentheses: “relations between things have become
rational (or rather: are rationalized).” OK, but if you mean rationalized,
why not say it in the first place? Because he wants first to present the
appearance, then contrast it to the reality.
“American culture is still sometimes described as a ‘death-denying culture’
– nothing could be further from the truth. Or, rather, the neurotic death-
denial hides the profound ‘understanding’ of death.”1Well, which, asks my
lawyerly training, is it or isn’t it death-denying? Of course, the answer isn’t
a simple “yes” or “no”; it both is and, at another level, isn’t. This is not
1 Historical Fate, ms. p. 22.
Foreword ix
careless writing; it is writing that accepts contradictions, subtleties,
ambiguities.
In other cases, the style exposes the content more directly: “the struggle
against [aggression] ...involves, not the suppression but the counter-
activation of aggression.”2 A paradox? Yes, indeed, but a substantive
paradox. An inconsistency in thinking? By no means.
Or: “modes of existence rendered possible and at the same time precluded
by the given society.” Both at once? Interesting; yes, that is exactly what he
means and this indeed accurately describes a society that increasingly makes
possible growing goods and services for all that are, however, restricted
to those who can afford to pay. Or: “...one of the most vexing aspects of
advanced industrial civilization: the rational character of its irrationality.”
Or: “...by values...I mean norms...which motivate...behavior...
In this sense,...they express the exigencies of the established production
relations ...However, at the same time, values express the possibilities
inherent in but repressed by the ...established society.” Well, asks the
frustrated lawyer, who wants a word to mean one thing and one thing only,
make up your mind, in which sense are you talking? The answer is: both,
and the tension between them is a dialectical tension, which runs throughout
the essay on values printed here.
It is a style that accepts ambiguities, that indeed sees contradictions within
concepts, multiple dimensions within single acts and events; a style one might
indeed call dialectical writing. For it is not, I would now say, unclear, and
certainly not sloppy. Rather, it reflects the ambiguities and contradictions
of reality, the fact that events in fact have multiple meanings and multiple
outcomes, some inconsistent (or rather: in tension – the style is catch-
ing!) with others. Sometimes, I have the feeling, my father formulated the
contradictions deliberately for their shock value: what’s new in bourgeois
democracy is “(a) the strength of its popular base, and (b) its militant
reactionary character.”3 Sometimes the formulations are striking precisely
because they appear to be oxymorons (“civilized barbarism,” “profitable
bondage,” “repressive affluence”), or simply logically absurd (“the revoca-
tion of the Ninth Symphony,” “occupation without work,” “facts which
are substantially incomplete”). The unusual form of the statement forces the
reader to stop and think, and, with effort, the meaning becomes clear.
In part, I am led to these reflections by the very physical form of the
manuscripts reprinted here. Remember, they were (almost all) unpublished;
2 Historical Fate, ms. p. 25. I have elided, I think not unfairly, to make the point
sharper.
3 Historical Fate, ms. p. 34.