Marcuse& Habermason New Science

Ben Agger Bishop's University

Marx's meaningof materialismas wellas theextent of Hegel's influence on his thoughthas been in thecenter of controversyamong Marxists eversince thepublication in 1923 ofLukdcs' Historyand Class Con- sciousnessand Korsch'sMarxism and Philosophywith the , includingMarcuse, embracing the Hegelian interpretation.The controversyhas resurfacedwithin the Frankfurt school in Habermas' critiqueof Marcuse's conceptof a "new scienceand new technology." Agger'sanalysis leads himto theconclusion that it is Marcuse'sposi- tionwhich reflects the thinkingof Marx whileHabermas' rejection of Marcuse's antipositivisticattack logically implies an un-Marxian politicalreformism.

Ben Aggerteaches in theDepartment of Sociology at Bishop's University,Lennoxville, Qudbec. He has contributedarticles to various journalsand anthologies.

I. CriticalTheory's Raison d'Etre Ever since Lenin describedcognition as the reflectionof an objective realityin his 1908 text,Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,Marxism has been torninternally by epistemologicalconflicts. Today, these epis- temologicalquarrels have resurfacedin the splitbetween Herbert Mar- cuse and many of his critics.Especially notoriousare Marcuse's argu- mentsagainst positivism and fora "new science"based on an epistemol- ogy opposed to Marxism-Leninism'sreflection-theory of knowledge. Essentially,Marcuse and othersfrom the originalFrankfurt school (,Theodor W. Adorno, , ) have triedto broadenthe focus of economismin the beliefthat Marx's critiqueof dominationwas definitelynot restrictedto purely economicfactors. So-called criticaltheory is an attemptto rehabilitate Marx's complex,nonmechanical analysis of relationsbetween economics

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Ben Agger 159 and culture.Indeed, Marcuse's attackon positivismis a vitaldimension of a dialecticalsocial theorywhich transcends economism and Marxism- Leninism'snaturalism, systematized by thephilosophical Lenin.' Below, I wantto examinesome of Marcuse'sviews on scienceand technology in counterpointto Jiirgen Habermas' 1968 critiqueof Marcuse's concept ofa "newscience and new technology." I rejectHabermas' position for its failureto appreciateMarcuse's

1. Lenin had not yet read Hegel when he helpedcreate correspondence-theory in his 1908 texton the empirio-critics.Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks were not to appear untillater, and the sectionon Hegel was writtenin 1914. The Philo- sophicalNotebooks, in spite of appearancesto the contrary,do not representa clean breakwith the naturalismof Lenin's pre-Hegelwritings. "Cognition is the eternal,endless approximation of thoughtto the world." [V. I. Lenin, Collected Works,Volume 38, "PhilosophicalNotebooks" (Moscow: Foreign Languages PublishingHouse, 1961), p. 195.] But he also writes"that man by his practice provesthe objectivecorrectness of his ideas,concepts, knowledge, science." (Ibid., p. 191.) In otherwords, Lenin flirtedwith a nonpositivistepistemology inspired by Hegel's destructionof the dualism of noumenonand phenomenon.Yet he could not ultimatelyshed the crudenaturalism of his 1908 text.His Philosophical Notebookshave been a source of officialSoviet Marxism'scanonization of the "dialecticalmethod" and dialecticallogic, almost a religiousformula for deter- miningpolitical sin and beatitude.Had Lenin emergedfrom Materialism and Empirio-Criticismto read Hegel's Phenomenologyof Mind insteadof Science of Logic, he mighthave brokenthrough epistemological naturalism and its conver- sion into a cosmic principleof Soviet Marxism. salvages from Hegel not the conceptof a "unityof opposites"and its crystallizationas the AbsoluteIdea in Science of Logic but Hegel's earlierargument for a negative rationality,a negativephilosophy, in Phenomenologyof Mind. Unfortunatelyfor Lenin,he chancedupon thoseof Hegel's worksmost easily distorted as a tool of Soviet ideologists:a dialecticallogic, designedto reconcileall-perhaps irrecon- cilable--contradictions.It is in the Phenomenologyof Mind thatcorrespondence- theoryis givenits death-blowin Hegel's unremittingcritique of Verstand(naive commonsense). In Marx's hands,dialectical thought could strivefor the elimina- tion of exploitation;indeed, Hegelian Marxismis rooted squarelyin the Phe- nomenologyof Mind. Yet dialecticallogic foundin the Hegel read by Lenin and in Engels' of Naturewas a conservativeformula for justifying existent reality,merely a dialecticof conceptsaccording to which A and not-A were identical.It was only a shortstep fromLenin's paean to Hegel in Philosophical Notebooksto the officialDialectical Materialisminvoked by Stalin in his-un- Marxian--crusadesagainst iconoclastic self-criticism such as thatof Trotskyand Bukharin.It is especiallysurprising that Lenin, who in his politicalpractice was highlysensitive to empiricaltendencies (eschewing pregiven strategies), could have retrievedthe highlyspeculative and empiricallyarbitrary ' of matter' fromthe ontological Hegel. It was impossiblefor Lenin's hard-headed pragmatism and empiricismin politicalmatters to have had a moderatingeffect on Stalin when Stalin could turnto the "dialecticalmethod," canonized in Philosophical Notebooks,and on the strengthof its authoritylegitimize any politicalstrategy.

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 160 Marcuse& Habermason New Science critiqueof science.Throughout, I contend that Marcuse is faithfulto Marxin reproducinga complex, nonlinear theory of dominationcom- biningeconomic and cultural factors. In analyzingpositivist epistemology as a factorin moderndomination Marcuse does not vitiatethe basic Marx but onlyfurther develops Marx's analysisof the determinative effectof ideologyand consciousnesson materialsocial relations. Thus,Marcuse and thecritical theorists are not opportunistsor re- formistsocial democrats in theircritique of science as a hegemonicform of social ideology.I maintainthat Marcuse is no moreutopian or romanticthan Marx whenhe calls fora new scienceand technology; indeed,Marxism has beencrippled by theoristssince Lenin who have entertaineda crude correspondence-theory ofknowledge. Critical theory, emanatingfrom the original Institute for Social Researchin Frankfurt, aroseprecisely out of Lukics' and Korsch's1923 attackson theneo- Kantianismof EduardBernstein and on Lenin'snaturalism.2 Lukics, Korsch,and the Frankfurttheorists argued that official Marxism- representedby theComintern under Zinoviev's and Lenin'sdirection- was a counterrevolutionarymode of ideologywhich merely served to protectBolshevism's political authority. Critical theory opposed a crude naturalistepistemology-according to which the conceptreflects the givenobject-in attemptingto rescue Marx's latent theory of a dialecti- cal, postpositivistcognition. My thesisis thatMarcuse extends and bringsto a conclusionthe original'Hegelian Marxian' critique of Bernstein'sand Kautsky'sneo- Kantianismand Bolsheviknaturalism; and thatthis in no wayrenders himantimaterialist. I wish to showhow the argument for a newscience is oneof the most timely forms of creative Marxian theory; how, indeed, the critiqueof positivismadvanced by Marcuseis one of the most potentmodes of the critique of ideology, the model for which is definitely foundin Marx'swritings on Germanidealism and religion. I shallargue thatto be a Marxisttoday one musttreat cognition and technologyas vitallyself-expressive forms of humanlabor whichmust be liberated fromthe dominionof positivism.In otherwords, positivism is not a legitimateepistemological strategy for theorists who retain Marx's vision offundamental human liberation. One of theissues often raised in currentdiscussions of criticaltheory is therelation of theFrankfurt theorists to Marx.I believethat Marx wasnot an economicdeterminist and that his model of relations between

2. Georg Lukics, History and Class Consciousness (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1971); Karl Korsch,Marxism and Philosophy(New York: MonthlyRe- viewPress, 1970).

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'base' and 'superstructure'(economics and culture)orients the work of Marcuse,Horkheimer, and Adorno.Marx's modelcomprehends the reciprocalinfluences of ideology and economicstructures. In thissense, theFrankfurt critique of positivism-exemplifiedby Horkheimer's and Adorno'sDialectic of Enlightenmentand Marcuse'sOne-Dimensional Man-is directedat thesocial functionof positivistcommon sense in divertingattention from the inhumanity and contradictions ofcapitalism. Habermas,however, rejects Marx's model of criticaltheory, arguing thatMarx reduced reflection to laborin renderingstatic the relation of cultureand economics.He believesthat Marx did notprovide for the functionof consciousnessin readyingrevolutionary agents for political practice,indeed, that Marx reduced consciousness to an epiphenomenon automaticallyspringing from economic relations. I believethat Marx providedanalytically for the catalyst of self-reflectionthrough his con- ceptof critique.In thisvein, Marx was thefirst critical theorist. Yet Frankfurtcritical theory diverges from Marx's historically specific readingof the potentiallyrevolutionary industrial proletariat. While criticaltheory accepts Marx's model of thedialectic between theory and practice,it does notnecessarily accept as validtoday his readingof the revolutionarypotential of the blue-collarworking class. Marcusehas explicitlytried to go beyondthe industrial proletariat in searchingfor newtransitional agents.3 He suggeststhat the "new sensibility" is itself a linkbetween rebellion and thecreation of a newsocialist order. An aspectof the "new sensibility"-Marcuse'srevolutionary agent reducedto livinghuman form-is new science, a cognitionfreed from positivistfact-fetishism and a dualisttheory of knowledge.The new scienceis a modeof thoughtand imaginationwhich engages in specula- tionfor its own sake, a formof nonalienating work activity. This neces- sarilyclashes withHabermas' notion that cognitionis in principle orientedto themastery of nature(society and theenvironment), and thatonly "communication" breaks out of thisbondage to whatWeber called"purposive rationality." Habermas is essentiallyless radicalthan Marcusein suggestingthat the natureof sciencecannot change-that scienceis instrumentallabor, not a potentiallyhealthy mode of self- expression-butonly the uses to whichscience is put. Habermasdeparts both from Marx's analysis of the proletarian revolu- tionand fromhis modelof thedialectic of theoryand practice.This is a complexissue, because Marcuse himself argues that Marx was notbold

3. HerbertMarcuse, An Essay on Liberation(Boston: Beacon Press,1969), pp. 49-78. 4. ,Grundrisse (New York: Vintage,1973).

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 162 Marcuse& Habermason NewScience enoughin foreseeingthe psychological and social consequencesof de- stroyingthe division of labor.Yet in Marx'sGrundrisse4 as well as in theEconomic and PhilosophicManuscripts5 there are ample-if merely suggestive-hintsabout the qualitatively different socialist life. Although Marcusewould probably oppose Habermas' reading of Marx as a deter- minist-preferringto read Marx as a dialectician6--hegoes further than Marx in sketchingconcretely how socialismmight emerge from the present"damaged life." 7 It mattersnot how we returnto Marx but ratherhow we preserveMarx's ideal of ending the division of labor and its separationof manualand mentallabor whiletranscending Marx's focuson theindustrial proletariat. Neither Marcuse nor Habermas re- tainsMarx's transitional schema in unaltered form; I submitthat Marcuse understandsbetter than Habermas the new requirements of subversive practice,namely, that the development of a "newsensibility"-able to

5. Karl Marx, Economicand PhilosophicManuscripts of 1844 (Moscow: For- eignLanguages Publishing House, 1961). 6. HerbertMarcuse, "The Foundationsof HistoricalMaterialism," in Studiesin CriticalPhilosophy (Boston: Beacon Press,1973), pp. 3-48. 7. TheodorW. Adorno, (London: NLB, 1974). Adorno'scol- lectionof aphorisms,Minima Moralia, has as its subtitle"Reflections from Dam- aged Life."All of theFrankfurt theorists believed that reproduced itself throughthe creationof distorted,false needs whichprepared the consumerfor infiniteconsumption. Marx did not explicitlyforesee the extentto whichcom- modity-productioncould expand unfettered.Adorno's phrase "damagedlife" re- flectsthe conditionof the subjectwho has been totallymanipulated by corporate prerogatives.The nuancesof criticaltheory emerge from differing responses to the phenomenonof heteronomouspersonality: Marcuse, in spite of the vulgar readingof his work as irremediablygloomy and thereforeun-Marxian, actually remainsthe most hopefulof all the Frankfurt-orientedtheorists about the au- tonomyof the subjectand its capacityfor resisting the damaged life. As I see it, criticaltheory has been dividedinto two broad factions,the one relinquishing revolutionaryhopes and retreatingto abstractnegation (Adorno) and the other reassessingMarx's transitionalschema and his conceptof class (Marcuse and Habermas). Regrettably,many younger theorists have become preoccupiedwith textualanalysis and the historiographicalreconstruction of Hegelian Marxism. This is not 'wrong',only insufficient;if carried to extremes,it risksbecoming a left-wingversion of scholasticism.Partly because the originalFrankfurt theorists, especiallyAdorno, wrote widely on a vast range of subjects,it is-wrongly- assumedthat they have the 'last word' on all contemporaryissues. The resulting tendencyto eschewempirical social researchhas promptedthe charge that critical theoryis merely"philosophic" and untrueto its Marxianbeginnings. Just as it was necessaryduring the 1920's and 1930's to liftthe dead hands of Marx and Lenin fromMarxism, so todaymust the dead handsof Adornoand Horkheimer be liftedfrom critical theory. "Damaged life" mustnot become criticaltheory's sole leitmotif,preventing its re-engagementwith the issuesof theoryand practice.

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Ben Agger 163 resistthe proscriptionsof theone-dimensional whole, and yetalways awareof thepossibility of happiness-is the most direct way to combat thedivision of labor. All aspectsof society are perceived by the critical theorists as political. The scientificethos is groundedin the divisionof labor because the scientistis cast as an expert.The adoptionof the bourgeoisconcept ofscience by Marxists has beendisastrous because the role of theexpert is self-perpetuating.Marcuse in hisconcept of "new science," in contrast to officialMarxism-Leninism, treats everyone as capableof deep and profoundcognitive acts and thusopposes Lenin's hypothesis that the proletariatcould only aspire to "trade-unionist"consciousness and thus neededsomething "from without," from experts. Marcusechallenges the role of the expertmore directly than does Habermas,who has an emotionalaffinity for the role of thetechnocrat, albeit a reformistone. The "new sensibility"by its veryexistence challengesthe divisionof labor whichremains the primarysource of alienation.Marcuse's "Great Refusal" essentially denies the division of labor.Although Marcuse challenges Marx for having been too reluctant to speculateabout socialism, he shareswith Marx the beliefthat the divisionof labor is themotor of alienation. The impactof thisdebate on criticaltheory is to demarcate"radical reformism,"as Habermascalls it,from a thorough-goingradicalism. I believethat Marx was sucha radical,as theentire Economic and Philo- sophicManuscripts suggests; indeed, Marx envisaged a "naturalscience of history,"assuming that nonhuman nature and humannature were umbilicallyrelated, and thatfreedom was a functionof cognitivelyex- ploringnature's deepest secrets. I side withMarx's and Marcuse'sradi- calismbecause it moreeffectively challenges the social division of labor predicatedon a technocratichierarchy and professionalism. When people whohave been excluded from roles of political,economic, and cultural responsibilitylearn that they can be 'newscientists', nothing stands in the wayof theirdestroying the division of laborand transformingalienated labor into an unfetteredmode of interactionwith the cosmos: an interactionwhich Marx called .

II. The Critiqueof Science The contemporarydebate within Marxism on the critiqueof science largelycenters around the recent work of Marcuse.In fact,when Louis Althusser,Lucio Colletti,and Nicos Poulantzascharge the Frankfurt school theoristswith being romanticHegelian idealists,they usually

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 164 Marcuse& Habermason New Science referto Marcuse.8Marcuse has achievedsome notorietysince One- DimensionalMan forhis radicalcritique of scienceand technology,a critiquewhich is themost radical of anyin neo-Marxism. Fromthe second-generation ofthe so-called Frankfurt school, Jiirgen Habermashas criticizedMarcuse's conception of science and technology9 for its allegedidentification of dominationand technicalrationality. Habermas'position locates itself between Marcuse's radical hopeful- nessabout creating a newscience and, for example, the French Marxist- LeninistLouis Althusser's complete mistrust of the "ideological" critique of science.Habermas believes that we can salvagethe instrumental rationalityofscience (and itstechnical applications in industrialdevelop- ment)without giving up thecritical role of socialphilosophy. Much of Habermas'earlier epistemological work1' was directedto elaborating sucha perspective. Other"friendly" critics have attacked Marcuse for his seemingly ideal- ist,pre-Marxian critique of science.,in a book on Marcuse editedby Habermas,has criticizedMarcuse in muchthe same way as Habermasdoes." AlfredSchmidt, the current director of the Institute forSocial Research in Frankfurt,has in thesame volume examined the putativeconnection between Heideggerian ontology and Marcuse'sver- sionof criticaltheory. In Telos,a numberof criticshave charged Mar- cuse withan illegitimateand un-Marxianborrowing of Heideggerian, Kantian,and Hegelianthemes.12 Indeed, Adorno in the1930's was not completelyconvinced that Marcuse had yetshed the idealist parapher- nalia of Hegelianism,enunciated in Marcuse'sHabilitationsschrift on Hegel'stheory of historicity.13

8. Louis Althusser,For Marx (New York: Vintage,1970); Louis Althusserand Etienne Balibar, Reading Capital (New York: PantheonBooks, 1970); Lucio Colletti,Marxism and Hegel (New Jersey:Humanities Press, 1973); Nicos Pou- lantzas,Political Power and Social Classes (London: NLB and Sheed and Ward, 1973). 9. JirgenHabermas, "Technologyand Science as 'Ideology',"in Toward a RationalSociety (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970), pp. 81-122. 10. JiirgenHabermas, Knowledge and Human Interests(Boston: Beacon Press, 1971). 11. Claus Offe,"Technik und Eindimensionalittit.Eine Version der Techno- kratiethese?";and AlfredSchmidt, "Existential-Ontologie und historischerMa- terialismusbei HerbertMarcuse," in Antwortenauf HerbertMarcuse (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp,1968). 12. MitchellFranklin, "The Ironyof the BeautifulSoul of HerbertMarcuse," pp. 3-35; and Paul Picconeand Alex Delfini,"Marcuse's Heideggerian Marxism," Telos, 6 (Fall 1970): 36-46. 13. Cf. MartinJay, The Dialectical Imagination(Boston: Little,Brown and Company,1973), pp. 28-29.

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Marcuse,thus, does not have many allies in his critique of science and technologicaldomination. Admittedly, Horkheimer's and Adorno'sown 1944 work'4was basedupon a critiqueof enlightenment,which, it now appearsin retrospect,was itselfa thinly-disguisedcritique of the ide- ologicalfunctions of science.Marcuse in his critiqueof positivismhas notattacked all possibleforms of cognitionas contributingto domina- tion;indeed, he has theorizedthat we can createa "new" cognition whichwill no longersatisfy the ideological needs of capitalism.In fact, Marcusehas also conceiveda "new" technologywhich could liberate nature.In thissense, he is perhapsmore hopefully utopian than were Horkheimerand Adorno. Marcuse'sconcepts of "surplusrepression" and "one-dimensionality" themselvesconstitute radical innovations in criticaltheory. Yet the mostcontentious part of Marcuse'swork for Marxists is his critiqueof technicalrationality. The mostcommonly expressed worry is thatMar- cuse shiftsthe focus of thetraditionally economic analysis of capitalism froma critiqueof theextraction of surplusvalue (allegedlyMarx's only concern)to a critiqueof technologyand sciencein general.Thus, it is fearedthat Marcuse loses the specific weapon of Marxian analysis which is the critiqueof politicaleconomy. I shall arguethat Marcuse does notreject Marxist political economy or thecritique of dominationbut onlybroadens its focusto includesuperficially noneconomic factors. Thisis at onceto defendhim against his scientistic critics and to super- sede a certaintentativeness in his formulationsof new science. I shall attemptto displaythe relevantpassages wherein Marcuse explicitlytheorizes about science and technology. Over time Marcuse has becomeprogressively more radical in his criticism.One-Dimensional Man harborsan attackon the"use" of technology.An Essayon Libera- iton,however, charges technical rationality with containing an inherent functionof domination,leading Marcuse to speculateabout a nonex- ploitativescience and technology.The essayon Weberwhich has oc- casionedso muchcritical response echoes the more radical critique of technique.In One-DimensionalMan, Marcuse at leastgave the impres- sionof being eclectic with respect to assessingthe possible uses of tech- nology.Some uses arebetter or worsethan others. Technological domi- nationis anotherchapter in thedevelopment of capitalism.He has never relinquishedthis view. Yet he has becomeless eclecticwith respect to his attackon science.He nowviews technical rationality as thoroughly perniciousfor what it does to the"sensibility" of theperson who ap-

14. Max Horkheimerand Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Herderand Herder,1972).

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 166 Marcuse& Habermason New Science prehendsand appropriates the external world under what he believesare themorally neutral categories of science.It is no longerfor Marcuse a questionof decidingwhat the uses of technologyshould be exceptin a verylong-range sense. Critical speculation should instead assert that there can be a scienceand technologywhich respect the rights of nonhuman (and by implication,human) nature.This is Marcuse'smost radical contention,as mostsocial theoristsafter Weber have been contentto viewscience and technique as unchangingforces in capitalistand social- istdevelopment. Yet hisconcern with technological domination does notsplit him off fromthe critique of politicaleconomy. It onlyadds anotherdimension to thecontemporary critique of domination.In thissense, Marcuse is notun-Marxist; Marcuse accepts the materialist dialectic of Marx,the postulatethat being conditions consciousness but that consciousness can alterbeing. Yet he is uncommittedto the letter of Marx'sclass analysis as it has been crudelytransported from the mid-and late-nineteenth centuryto thepresent by certaintheorists of theSecond International like Bernstein,Kautsky, and Hilferding(who opposedMarx), and by theoristsof theThird International like Bukharin,Lenin, and Trotsky (who'accepted' Marx). The critical theory of society has self-consciously connectedthe critiques of culture and of economics. Marcuse (like Marx) is convincedthat capitalism cannot be analyzedsimply in termsof its economicdysfunctions. Critique must also attackthe cultural and ideo- logicaldomination which arises in one-dimensionalthought, domination whichhides exploitation. Marcuse sees positivismas one of thefactors in the 'superstructure'which protects the fundamentallystructural ir- rationalityof social productionfor private consumption. He wantsto destroythe conservativefunction of sciencein analyzingits systemic roleas an insidiousthought-mechanism forhiding domination in mystifi- cationsand "naturallaws." In thinkingof a "newscience" Marcuse engages in vitallynecessary criticalspeculation. He sees thatdomination has penetratedour basic libidinaland psychicconstitution. Science and techniqueas species- specificfaculties must become modes of "play"in thefree society. With therevolution our relationto thingsand to our bodiesand mindswill change.Marx himself envisaged the qualitative transformation of labor, indeed,the elimination of alienated labor. Thisessay only deals with Marcuse's critique of science.Yet implicit inMarcuse's critique is an importantdimension of critical theory, a mode of theorywhich recognizes that the historical dialectic has notstood still since Marx wroteCapital. As Marx recognized,economic exploitation is not the only mode of domination.The economic systemand corporate

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Ben Agger 167 needs for expanded marketsare protectedand reproducedby a layer of apparentlynoneconomic domination. Marcuse sees thatthe secretof the staying-powerof capitalismlies in its abilityto hide economic ex- ploitationin the culturalmyth that the actual is rational.Only by break- ing thismyth, by showingthat science and techniqueas formsof human labor can be radically humanized,can we ever begin to attack the structuralcauses of exploitation.The hegemonyof the economyis re- affirmedby a mode of positivistcommon sense which cannot funda- mentallychallenge 'reality's' hold on people. We are taughtthat to be healthyhuman beings and good citizenswe mustaccept the facts.Cap- italism survivesas long as this mythremains intact. The critique of science is the firststep along the road towardsthe critiqueand over- comingof domination.

III. Marcuseon Science,Technology, and Weber Marcuse has not writtenmuch of a systematicor specificnature on the subjectof science and technology.An Essay on Liberationcontains some of the most explicitand vivid passages. One-DimensionalMan itselfprefigures much of his later work on technology,and it would be usefulto see whathe has writtenabout science.Although Marcuse's re- marksare oftenvague, they nonetheless form an importantbasis forthe critiqueof science. An Essay on Liberationcontains passages whichecho his view that science and technologycontribute to the closure of one-dimensional society.But the oppressivefunctions of science and technologycan be brokenand theseforces pacified and humanized.The root of Marcuse's indefinite,inchoate hopefulness about transformingone-dimensional soci- ety is preciselylocated in his view thatscience and technologycan be fundamentallyreconstructed. While he has oftenbeen chargedwith "one- dimensionalgloom" and unwarrantedpessimism, it is clear fromexamin- ing his viewson emancipatorytechnology that he is farfrom resigned to theultimate fate of one-dimensionality.Technologization can be qualita- tivelyinformed by humandesign, something which Marx himselfnearly recognizedin the Grundrisse.It is an interestingfact that Marcuse is one of thevery few Marxists to have read and understoodthe fullimpli- cationsof Marx's Grundrisseand its passages on technologicaldomina- tion. The orthodoxview, given life by Lenin's naturalisticepistemology, is that Marx conceivedof science and technologymerely as factorsin thecontrol of natureand society. Marcuse linkswhat he calls the "new sensibility"to the development of a pacifiedtechnology and science. His view is thatdomination infil-

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 168 Marcuse& Habermason New Science tratesthe psyche,changing the person into an automatoncharged with the infiniteconsumption of unneededgoods. The new sensibilityis the subject,or theagent, of new science. The liberatedconsciousness would promotethe developmentof a science and technologyfree to discoverand realize the possibilities of thingsand men in theprotection and gratificationof life,playing withthe potentialitiesof formand matterfor the attainmentof this goal. Techniquewould thentend to become art,and artwould tend to formreality: the oppositionbetween imaginationand reason, higherand lower faculties,poetic and scientificthought, would be invalidated.Emergence of a new RealityPrinciple: under which a new sensibilityand a desublimatedscientific intelligence would combinein thecreation of an aestheticethos.15 This is one of the mostincendiary passages in the whole of Marcuse's work.Here he practicallyidentifies a new scienceand artin termsof the "aestheticethos." He is influencedby Kant's view in the Critique of Judgementthat the ultimateunion of moral freedomand necessityis containedin art. Marcuse's idea of "desublimatedscientific intelligence" is no longercongruent merely with a science whichis responsiblyap- plied. Marcuse does not mean onlythat nuclear physicists should refuse to engagein war-relatedresearch, although he would agree withthis as a piece-mealgoal. Rather,the desublimatedscientific intelligence con- ceives of the naturaluniverse as an object of beauty and mystery,an object in which men see their own reflection.By damaging nature, technicalrationality damages the human spirit. The aestheticposture taken by Marcuse was influencedby French Surrealismand its recrudescencein the May Movementin 1968. I would arguethat this concept of new cognitionis legitimatelycompatible with the critiqueof political economy.Much of Marcuse's writingon science is of a metaphoricand suggestivecharacter. He wants merely to pointout thatthe re-orderingof emancipatorypriorities will include the speculationof a new science no longer beholden to the loveless, instrumentalistconcept of cognitionprevalent since Francis Bacon. While science can be used to dominatenature and society,so too can it be used to liberatethem, indeed, to be a mediumof self-expression once the veil of distortingdomination is lifted.Marcuse does not make the identificationof the aestheticethos and new sciencelightly. He real- izes fullwell thathe thusundermines one of the most deeplyingrained

15. , An Essay on Liberation,p. 24.

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Ben Agger 169 positivistassumptions, namely, that science is a neutral,preprejudicial toolfor the architecture and manipulationof society. The ultimategoal of an aestheticizedscience would be "societyas a workof art."16 Marcuse is not a casual phrase-monger."Society as a workof art"is a phrasecarefully chosen to expressthe possible identity of a heretoforesurplus repressive social order and theideal of beauty. In theParis manuscripts Marx wrote about the same thing. But Marx sub- mergedhis own aesthetic vision of a freesociety in thescientific political economywhich was thena moreforceful mode of critique. For Marcuse today,the concept of an aestheticpolitics is themost potent mode of critiquein the way it joins two apparentlyirreconcilable concepts: societywhich demands deference to an oppressivesuperego, and beauty. In thesame way, by hypothesizing a beautiful, happy cognition, Mar- cuse does violenceto thebelief that cognition must be a sterile,unmeta- physicalbusiness, performed without moral or aestheticconsciousness. Marcuseelsewhere calls this a lessonin "politicallinguistics": we attack one-dimensionalideology by turningits categorical language against it. By demonstratingthat science can be nonrepressivelyimaginative, we subvertone of the basic assumptions of dominant ideology. Marcuse has, of course,demonstrated nothing, for his is utopianspeculation the proof of whichwill only be foundin thefuture when all of thiswill be made possible.He is not sayingthat we can createa new sciencewithout makingthe revolution, only that we shouldtreat this task as one of the importantemancipatory priorities. But Marcuseis engagedin somethingmore profound than itemizing thegoals of the revolution, although that is itselfimportant. He is trying to arguethat the dialecticbetween given conditions and subjective spontaneitycan onlybe activatedin theelectric moment when people realize"that they have nothingto lose but theirchains." The chains todayinclude the heavily proscriptive ideology of thedivision of labor, reinforcedand strengthenedby the ideologyof professionalismand scientism."New science"is thestate of mindof peoplewho recognize theunnecessary character of theirbondage, who choose not to believe thatexperts and professionalsmust constitute a political 61ite. The then-timelyinjunction by Marx and Engels againstutopian speculationis rejectedby Marcuse.17Marcuse believes that science and techniquecontain within themselves the forbidden fruit of freedom.The gloomin someof his earlierwork is vitiatedby thiskind of optimism

16. Ibid.,p. 45. 17. Ibid.,p. 5.

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 170 Marcuse& Habermason New Science about reconstructingthe very basis of technicalrationality according to the needs of the life-instincts. It would be usefulto returnto One-DimensionalMan whichis more explicitabout technologicaldomination as the highestform of exploita- tion.It is importantto note thatthe whole of the Frankfurtschool used the words 'domination'and 'exploitation'nearly synonymously.This indicates a subtle revision and extensionof Marx's categoryof the exploitationof labor. No longeris this the only crediblemode of de- humanization.Domination is the hiddenexploitation of humanity.Tech- nologicaldomination is based on the fetishismof commodities.People buyproducts because theproducts express themselves, or so theybelieve. The fact that exploitationin the stricteconomic sense has metamor- phosed into domination,Marcuse argues,in no way means thatit loses its embeddednessin a class-structure.Domination is based on profit- imperatives,now as before;in advancedcapitalism profit is extractedby manufacturingfalse needs and by deludingconsumers into infinitecon- sumption.Domination is the lived-ideologywhich rationalizes exploita- tion. In One-DimensionalMan, Marcuse systematizedhis critiqueof tech- nological domination.This is less well-developedthan his speculation about a new science in An Essay on Liberationand Counterrevolution and Revolt. Marcuse thenconceived of the "Great Refusal" as the only crediblemode of escape fromhomogenization. When he wrote One- DimensionalMan, he was intenton illuminatingthe shakycoalition be- tweenreason and unreasonwhith characterizes the dominantideology of late capitalism.It is fairto say thatMarcuse was then still agnostic about new or old science. He talks here of the "use" of technology. Should we bomb Hiroshimaor harness hydroelectricpower? This is surelynot a problematicquestion any longerin An Essay on Liberation. In his earlierbook, Marcuse wanted to show that technologicalde- velopmentcould actuallybring an end to want and scarcity--butnot necessarilya new technology,directed by the cognitivefantasies of non- Cartesian scientists;perhaps the same old technology,yet one which would not spew out useless productsand extractthe worker'ssurplus value. At the time One-DimensionalMan was written,the critiqueof technicaldomination was virtuallyunheard of in left-wingthought, apart fromsome of WalterBenjamin's allusive writings on the technologyof culturewhich themselvesdefinitely influenced Marcuse. Concern with thefoibles of technologywas oftenequated withromantic Luddism. Yet Marcuse is no Luddite. He wantedsomehow to preservethe productive functionof factorieswhile changingthe entiresocial structurewhich definedthe use of factories.He came to see, however,that the tech-

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Ben Agger 171 nology could not be left intact (for example, the assemblylinewould have to be transformed).It would itselfhave to be reconstructedin termsof the "aestheticethos," accordingto a "rationalityof gratifica- tion."Marcuse has come to see thattechnology could stillbe intrinsically oppressivein the matrixof corporatecapitalism even if it providedfood forthe world'spoor-something which it failsto do now. What matters is the way thatthe ideologicalsuperstructure produces false needs and thus perpetuatesthe productiveprinciple of capitalism.Planned ob- solescenceand thecreation of false needs are keysto thelife of monopoly capitalism. Marcuse essentiallyargues thatscience and technologyhave become factorsboth in the 'base' and 'superstructure'of capitalism.He contends thatto disregardthe oppressive capacity of technologyis wronglyto con- ceive of the transitionto socialismstrictly in politicaleconomic terms. Accordingto economisticMarxism, the present-daySoviet Union is a socialistsociety. While in a superficialsense the Bolshevikrevolution was politicallysuccessful, Marcuse doubtsthat there has been a qualita- tive change in the daily life of workers,who are still chained to the oppressivetechnology built duringand afterthe Stalin period.18 This establishesthe distance of Marcuse from orthodox Marxian economicswhich fails to conceiveof techniqueand scienceas factorsin the 'base', the 'mode of production'.Socialized means of productiondo not by any means guaranteethe end of domination,which may live on in therepressed motivational structures of people,but, theoretically, only of the exploitationof labor, definedin termsof surplusvalue. Exploita- tion, however,becomes dominationunder the command-economyof the USSR.Workers do not lose theirsurplus value in the orthodoxsense, but theyare nonethelessvictims of dominationand surplusrepression. Their labor is expropriatedby the state and turnedagainst them. Marcuse's aestheticconcerns in An Essay on Liberationand Counter- revolutionand Revolt mustbe read nextto his analysisof technological dominationin One-DimensionalMan. The presentreality is rooted in technicalrationalization; and this rationalizationcan only be exploded by radicalspeculation about alternativeuses of the productiveapparatus and of science. Marcuse's speculationcan be summarizedin the image of "societyas a workof art." This is completelyat odds withHabermas' more conventionallyKantian-Weberian position on techniqueand sci- ence. There is anotherdomain in whichMarcuse has advanced his critique of technicalrationality. His essay on Max Weber, firstpublished in

18. Herbert Marcuse, Soviet Marxism (New York: Vintage Books, 1961).

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1964, raisesall of thesequestions in a compactform. Weber was the prophetand sociologistof rationalization.Although he recognizedthe dysfunctionaltendencies of bureaucraticcapitalism, he was a "nostalgic liberal"who couldnot fundamentallyoppose the society to whichhe was normativelycommitted. Marcuse has arguedthat Weber's concept of rationalitydoes not exhaust the universe of possible rationalities. One can conceiveof nonexploitativemodes of rationalitywhich are not vehiclesof domination,such as a "rationalityof gratification." Societyis irreducibleto thepredetermined, naturalistic logic of the physicaluniverse, for it is malleableand changeableby humandesign. Its operativerationality can be altered,especially if it is an irrational rationality. In theunfolding of capitalistrationality, irrationality becomes rea- son: reasonas franticdevelopment of productivity,conquest of nature,enlargement ofthe mass of goods.19 Weber,the most prescient prophet of advancedcapitalism, eternalizes whatis historical.He makesthe instrumental rationality of profit-maxi- mizationbased on mathematicalaccounting procedures and thecultural "disenchantmentofthe world" a universalrationality. In thesame vein, he conceivesscience as themost rational mode of social ordering. Value- freescience, systematized by Weber in hiswritings on theobjectivity of science,supports certain political interests. Weberwas one of themost perceptively positivist of all sociologists. The conceptof a newscience, freed from unmetaphysical fetters, might have been developedprecisely in oppositionto Weber'saustere con- ceptionof science,a "value-free"science which nonetheless sells out its freedomto thehighest and mostpowerful bidder. Not onlyis science not politicallyneutral, it mightone day embodyaesthetic perspectives on a naturalworld which is notto be thoughtlesslyplundered. As a will- ingpartisan of bourgeoisinstrumentality, thiswould have been lost on Weber. For Weber"occidental reason becomes the economic reason of capi- talism."20 This "economicreason" is concretizedin the "methodical- scientificapparatus." 21 Thefinal blow to theidea of an apoliticalscience is this: The veryconcept of technicalreason is perhapsideological. Not onlythe application of technologybut technology itself is domina-

19. HerbertMarcuse, Negations (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), p. 207. 20. Ibid.,p. 205. 21. Ibid.,p. 205.

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tion (of natureand men)-methodical,scientific, calculated, cal- culatingcontrol. Specific purposes and interestsof dominationare notfoisted upon technology "subsequently" and fromthe outside: theyenter the very construction of thetechnical apparatus. Tech- nologyis alwaysa historical-socialproject: in it is projectedwhat a societyand its rulinginterests intend to do withmen and things. Sucha "purpose"of dominationis "substantive"and to thisextent belongsto the very form of technical reason.22

Thislong quotation summarizes Marcuse's view of scienceand tech- niqueas a transmission-beltbetween human sensibility and the economy. This passage,as we shall see, is preciselythe battlegroundbetween Habermasand Marcuse. Marcuse asserts that science is domination,that sciencehides exploitation in ideologicalmystifications. Science as we currentlyunderstand it-scientists observing a mute,inert universe of exploitableobjects-blunts the critical spirit. Indeed, science wants to dominate;it rationalizesdomination by offeringuseful knowledge. New sciencewould shed thisquiescent, distorted role; it wouldreject the reflection-theoryof knowledge. Thereis yetanother source of Marcuse's indictment ofpositivism and technicalrationality as handmaidensof domination.In his book on Freud,,Marcuse laid thegroundwork for his cri- tiqueof technicalrationality. While the book treatsanother theme, it does containthe germs of Marcuse'slater, more articulate position on scienceand technology. Marcuseargues that science fetishizes facts and denouncesthe idea of an "earthlyparadise." With the nonsurplusrepressive release of the eroticlife-force, Marcuse believes that science could be transformedinto a modeof playfulness, drawing upon Schiller's concept of playas a self- expressiveform of freedom. Marcusein hisbasic study of theliberating insights of psychoanalysis wantsto reversethe cult of instrumentalreason by releasingthe sensu- ous capacitiesof theperson. He believesthat Eros couldbe releasedin sucha waythat our fundamental modes of interacting with nature would be changed.This is Marcuse'sfirst full-fleshed articulation of thedom- inationof nature. The "aestheticdimension" can be one mediumfor the liberatorydesublimation of Eros,which would entail the reconstruction of scienceand techniqueaccording to a "rationalityof gratification." The "play-impulse"is themotive-force of humanlabor, utilized to buildan eroticand liberated society. Nature would become an objectof

22. Ibid.,pp. 223-224.

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 174 Marcuse& Habermason New Science contemplationand fantasy,while cognition would become a productive forceof imaginationand art.Cognition would refuse to exploitnature forshort-run instrumental purposes in pretendingthat concepts can ex- haustan inexhaustiblereality. Moreover, the contemplation and adora- tionof naturewould be an end in itself,a modeof self-creation.Mar- cuse does notoppose the domination of nature'only' because it causes ecologicalcrises. He is concernedwith redirecting the eroticforce of labor towardsinstinctually gratifying tasks. The dominationof nature undercapitalism is bad ,giving rise to whatMax Hork- heimercalled the "revolt of nature,"23 whilethe contemplation of na- tureis healthysublimation.

IV. Habermas'Critique Habermas'critique of Marcuse's"romantic" idealism with respect to scienceturns on theissue of therelation between work and interaction. Habermasconceives natural science according to a logicwhich makes it irreducibleto communicativerationality. In this,he opposeshis concep- tionof scienceto thatof Marcuse,who thinks of scienceas amenable to retranslationinto the communicative situation and the"rationality of gratification."Habermas elsewhere accuses Marcuse and thewhole of theoriginal Frankfurt school of confusingthe logic under which nature couldbe apprehendedwith the logic under which another person could be understood.

The resurrectionof naturecannot be logicallyconceived within materialism,no matterhow much the early Marx and thespecula- tiveminds in theMarxist tradition (Walter Benjamin, , HerbertMarcuse, Theodor W. Adorno)find themselves attracted bythis heritage of mysticism. Nature does not conform to thecate- goriesunder which the subject apprehends it in theunresisting way in whicha subjectcan conformto theunderstanding of another subjecton thebasis of reciprocalrecognition under categories that are bindingon bothof them.24 Marcusemight not disagree with this. Yet his conceptionof science wouldin factallow for some sort of 'dialogue'between nature and men. Habermas'original idea thatthe "speculativeminds" from Frankfurt wantedto "resurrect"nature is incomplete.Marcuse wants to resurrect

23. Max Horkheimer,"The Revolt of Nature", in Eclipse of Reason (New York: SeaburyPress, 1974), pp. 92-127. 24. JiirgenHabermas, Knowledge and Human Interests (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), pp. 32-33.

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Ben Agger 175 humanity.Only by treatingall otherness(be it natureor otherpeople) as potentiallyintimate with human subjectivity can theperson co-exist withthe rest of theworld nondestructively. In the strict sense, the per- son cannottalk with trees or animals.But in anothersense, the person learnsto treatother people gently and responsiblyby thinkingof trees and cats as possessingsome inherent worth, even 'natural rights'. I disputethe claim that Marcuse is concernedwith the domination of naturefor any otherreason than to rehabilitatehumanity.25 Marcuse believesthat science can be madenondominating with respect to itssub- ject matter,that science need not belong to thearsenal for the assault on nature.For scienceitself to engagein a GreatRefusal of reflection- theorywould take us a stepcloser to theimminent destruction of posi- tivism. Habermashas ulteriormotives for calling Marcuse and the others mystical.He wantsto showthat Marx himself did not clearly distinguish betweenthe logic of laboringand thelogic of self-reflection.Had Marx doneso, he wouldnot have created a scientismutterly purged of imag- inative,creative subjectivity. He wouldnot have given birth to Marxian naturalism.Yet as Habermashimself allows in thepassage just quoted, the"early Marx" too was partyto themystification of nature. This de- mandsof us a decisionas to whetheror not thereare two Marxs,a 'humanist'and a 'scientist'.A colleagueof Habermasagrees with him about Marx'shidden positivism which emerges in the latereconomic works.26Yet thereis also a sizableand authoritativeliterature which contendsthat there is onlyone Marx,one whichincludes the "mystical" earlyMarx as wellas thelater economic one.27 If thisis so, theremay notbe groundsfor charging Marx withhidden positivism or, in Hab- ermas'terms, with the identification of labor and self-reflection. This is nota purelyscholastic quarrel for it is preciselythe ground on whichMarcuse splits off from critics like Habermas who wish to pre- servepositivist epistemology within Marxian critique. Marcuse believes thataesthetic and eroticinterests can co-existwith instrumental ones in sucha waythat we can no longerdistinguish analytically between the logicsof labor and self-reflection. In an essayentitled "Technology and Science as 'Ideology',"28 Haber- maschallenges Marcuse again, but this time with fuller force. Habermas

25. WilliamLeiss, The Dominationof Nature (New York: G. Braziller,1972). 26. AlbrechtWellmer, Critical Theory of Society (New York: Herder and Herder,1971). 27. JohnO'Neill, "On Theoryand Criticismin Marx," in Sociologyas a Skin Trade (London: HeinemannEducational Books, 1972), pp. 237-263. 28. JiirgenHabermas, "Technology and Science as 'Ideology',"in Toward a RationalSociety (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970), pp. 81-122.

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 176 Marcuse& Habermason New Science arguesthat the Marcuseof One-DimensionalMan envisagesa "new" technologyand science.Habermas is worriedthat a newscience is in- conceivableaccording to certaintranscendental criteria. He arguescor- rectlythat Marcuse's indictments of scienceand technologyas toolsof dominationare intimately related.29 Habermasin hisown work has triedto distinguishbetween two levels of cognition,the one orientedto instrumentalcontrol, the other to com- municativediscourse and enlightenment.But Marcusesays implicitly thatwe can conceivenature itself as a partnerin thehuman enterprise, albeita silentpartner. This is whatHabermas so dislikesabout Mar- cuse'sposition. His summaryjudgment is: The idea of a New Sciencewill not stand up to logicalscrutiny any morethan that of a New Technology,ifindeed science is to retain themeaning of modern science inherently oriented to possibletech- nicalcontrol. For thisfunction, as forscientific-technical progress ingeneral, there is no more"humane" substitute.30 Did Marcuseever mean to say thatthe actualnature of toolsand machineswould change? Yes, he wouldanswer, the tools must change. Techniqueswhich are rootedin the dominationof naturewould be abandoned,although technique itself-the very manipulation of nature -would be preserved.He is not sayingthat we shouldrenounce the masteryof nature but that we mustnot conceive of nature as something whichcan be arrogantlyexploited. Marcuse proposes an almosttheolog- ical perspectiveon nature,yet his is clearlyMarxian theology. Why does thisspiritual, religious perspective on naturehave to be viewedas either necessarilypreindustrial or mystic-conservative?After all, as young Marxsaid, we too are partof nature.By violatingnature thoughtlessly weviolate ourselves as potentiallynatural subjects. Habermasreads Marcuse as sayingthat machines themselves would vanishinto thin air. This allows him to dismissas utopianthe idea that we couldcreate a newtechnology. Marcuse, however, is carefulto ob- servethe ban on gravenimages, the ban on drawingup specificblue- printsof thefuture. Like Marx,he does not wantto offera detailed pictureof thefuture before it is uponus. This Judaicreluctance does notmean that Marcuse is necessarilyunrealistic. It may be theonly real- isticway to confrontthe complex, indeterminate problems of planning fora neworder without violating the self-determining, exuberant nature of therevolutionary transition.

29. Ibid.,p. 87. 30. Ibid.,p. 88, emphasisadded.

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Habermasdid nothave the advantageof havingread An Essay on Liberationwhen he wrotethe essay on scienceand technology.I have said thatOne-Dimensional Man is vague and ratherunderdeveloped comparedto Marcuse'slater, more explicit writings on newscience and technique.In One-DimensionalMan, he sometimesseemed to be saying simplythat industrial processes should be leftunchanged but thatthe usesof technologymust change. Yet in hislater work, Marcuse is clearerabout the need for new tech- nologyand science,technology and sciencewhich operate with a new rationality.Marcuse has come to recognizethe aesthetic,libidinal po- tentialof politics,science, and industry.He says thatthe interestin beautyis equallyas importantin a potentiallyaffluent society as thein- terestin freedom.No longeris he concernedonly with reorienting the politicaluses of technique,as Habermascorrectly claims. Habermas'critique of Marcusebelongs to his overallattempt to re- constructMarx's critique of politicaleconomy in transcendentalterms. The attackon Marcuse'sconcept of newscience is a dimensionof his generalattack on Marx'sassessment of relationsbetween base and su- perstructure.Is Marcuse as radicallyrevisionist as Habermasin reas- sessingMarx's model of critique?Marcuse retains Marx's categorical frameworkyet tries to analyzethe new capacities of thesuperstructure to veileconomic dysfunction in illusions and to createfalse needs. Ha- bermaschooses to elaboratehis critiqueof Marxprimarily in termsof thedistinction between work and interaction.Marcuse does not share Habermas'view that critical theory needs to reviseMarx in termsof Marx'sbasic category of labor.Marcuse follows Marx in implyingthat workcan be reconstructedto resembleintersubjective discourse, or at least,to resemblethe aesthetic model of artistand object.This is the partof Marcuse'sand "earlyMarx's" position which Habermas expli- citlyrejects on transcendentalgrounds. Whatdoes Habermasreject in Marcuse'sposition? It is something quitefundamental. Habermas should be read as one of themost per- ceptive,even dialectical, theorists of technicalrationality. It wouldbe superficialto call hima positivist;he is indeedcommitted to thecri- tiqueof domination.Yet Habermasrejects the "mystical" radicalism of Marx and of theoriginal Frankfurt school. Marcuse for him is onlya vehiclefor his denunciationof these'romantic utopians' who believe thatthey can liberatefundamental human nature as wellas laborpower. Habermashas developeda KantianMarxism. It is Kantianin theway thathe transcendentallydivides communicative-reflective frommaterial- instrumentalmodes of rationality.Speaking is not laboring,says Ha- bermas.We can fundamentallychange the natureof society,make it

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 178 Marcuse& Habermason New Science moreenlightened and rationalthrough a therapywhich corrects "dis- tortedcommunication" and overthrowsthe positivisttaboo on meta- physical,political "reflection." Yet we cannotchange the relationbe- tweenhumanity and natureby changingthe nature of labor (Arbeit). Habermasfeels that there will never be a "new"science or technology, onlythe same old apparatusesused differentlyby enlightened techno- cratsand "rational"interlocutors. Habermas,as we have seen,criticizes Marx for collapsing the cate- goriesof labor and self-reflection. Marx allegedly contributed to therise of positivismwithin dialectical theory by assimilatingthe self-reflective basisof speech and social philosophy to a crudematerialist model of la- boring.For Habermas,rational self-reflection is designed precisely to revealthe hidden unity of "knowledge"and "interest,"and thevalue- commitmentand ideologicalpresuppositions of particular cognitive ap- proaches.Marx, by transforming science and self-reflectioninto a mode of production,dissolved the unity of knowledgeand interest,or at least prevented"science" from reflecting on itsown methodologicaland po- liticalauspices. Habermasrejects Marcuse's position because he wantsto reseparate thefunctions of labor and speech, joined illegitimately byMarx. Yet the Frankfurtapproach is to acceptMarx's unification of workand science in suggestingthat all modesof self-objectifyinglabor must be liberated undera neworder. Marcuse suggests that the liberation of scienceand technologymust accompany the liberation of labor; science and technol- ogyare notabstract social forces, they are twoexpressions of thelife- instincts,two forms of labor. Scienceis a surplusrepressed form of thecognitive 'instinct', the in- stinctor driveto use the mindfreely and creatively.This is where Habermassteps in to remindthe Frankfurttheorists that science "as such"must always remain a formof technicalrationality, a dispassion- ate, purposively-rationalmode of instrumentalcalculation. No more can sciencechange than can thefundamental cosmos change. He says thatwe mustreserve our energyfor the possible tasks such as trans- formingpolitical economy and enhancing the rational capacity to engage in undistortedcommunication. By no meansare thesetrivial or unim- portantgoals in themselves.Habermas is notsimply a reactionary.Yet hiscritical perspective is muchnarrower than that of Marcuse.He does notallow for the liberation of sciencefrom positivist fetters, for he does not believethat our fundamentalrelation to the object-worldcan be altered.For Habermas,the object will always be a somewhatimposing residueof our inabilityto knowall things;with Kant, we cannotal- legedlyknow the noumenon, the thing-in-itself. Therefore, we mustre-

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Ben Agger 179 strictour critical commitmentto the remediablematters of political economy and rational speech. Marcuse's "mystical"utopianism with respectto theliberation of cognitionand technique(not to mentionsex- ualitywhich, interestingly, Habermas rarelymentions) must be rejected. Habermas reads a Weberian Marx, a Marx who should have ap- plauded technicalrationality and the methodical"disenchantment of the world" while preservingthe interestin liberatingcommunication from ideological distortions.Habermas seems to accept the Weberian hier- archyof rationalitywhich places "rational-legal"at the top. His "Marx" would not changethe fundamentalnature of humanexistence, he would only providea tool for destroyingpositivism and revealingthe unityof knowledgeand interest.Habermas would rejectWeber's value-freedom but would accept Weber's concept of rational-legalauthority. Marcuse by contrastaccepts neitherrational-legal authority nor value-freedom. For him,there must be a new science as well as a new orderof ration- ality (which,in Eros and Civilization,he tentativelycalls a "rationality of gratification"). Ultimately,Habermas wantsto challengenot the logic of positivism but onlyits hegemonyover otherforms of cognition(like self-reflection, which positivismdisallows). Marcuse, contrastingly,wants to destroy positivismby showingthat positivism's fact-fetishism is a symptomand agent of a one-dimensionalsocial order. Cognitionfor Marcuse is a formof life-givingself-objectification. Positivism is damaged cognition; the cognitivefaculty will only be liberatedwhen dominationis over- come. Habermas wants to reservesome of the fieldfor positivism,for he feelsthat dispassionate, objectivist science is one of the legitimatecom- petingepistemological strategies. On the face of it, this seems reason- able. But it is unreasonableif we treat science as anothervictim of domination.Positivism is a productof the overrepressionof our basic imaginativeenergies and drives.Marcuse wantsto shatterpositivism be- cause it is a momentof the generalpathology of domination.Habermas would supersede dominationby rational discussionsamongst experts. The bourgeois,fact-fetishizing human characterwould then be leftin- tact. Marcuse would challengethis very 'human nature' as unnaturalby fightingany unnecessarilyharsh repressionof the basic drives. These drives,when liberatedfrom surplus repression,will issue in rational formsof nondestructivepersonality, such as, new science. New science will emerge,Marcuse implies,from the abolitionof the divisionof labor. Cognitionwill no longerbe bound to system-support- ing functionsoriented merely to accomplishingtechnical tasks. Instead, cognitionwill blossom as a naturalfunction enjoyed for its own sake;

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 180 Marcuse& Habermason NewScience indeed,science will be transformedfrom a fragmentedform of labor intoa self-expressiveform of creative speculation. The explosivecharacter of Marcuse's work in leftistcircles is owedto his implicitrejection of thedivision of labor.Habermas by contrastis contentto preservestructures of expertiseand authorityas longas tech- nocratsand politiciansare democraticin temperament.The conceptof a newscience is explosivebecause the Left, since Leninism infiltrated thewestern communist movement, has internalizedelitist models of the- oryand practice.The separationof Marxiantheory and practicesince 1917 and the collapseof the revolutionaryproletariat have made it doublyhard to destroythe leftist intellectual's elitist political role. In- deed,by inveighingagainst new science,Habermas has almostlegiti- matedthe transformationof Marxism into a formof sentimentally democraticWeberian sociology rooted in theassumption that there must be a divisionof laborand professionalism.Critical theory today is di- vidednot merelybetween different styles of readingMarx but by the issueof thedivision of labor. Marxismhas containedits own left and right wings ever since Lukics and Korschbroke from the official Marxism of theComintern in 1919. Initially,the Frankfurtschool inheritedthe mantleof Lukaicsand Korschwithout much difficulty; but in theintervening half century criti- cal theoryhas beentorn by the emergence of its own right wing. I char- acterizethis wing as "Weberian."While the differencebetween Ha- bermasand Marcuse might seem to outsidersas one of quantityand not quality,there are veryexplosive issues involved which take us back to theoriginal conflict between Marxism and bourgeois social science. Now as before,the central issue is thestruggle of reformismagainst radical- ism,this time hinging on Habermas'reaction to Marcuse'scritique of thedivision of labor. Habermas'growing appeal can bestbe explainedby thesmoothness withwhich he reducesrevolutionary concepts such as thesameness of manualand mentallabor into concepts alien to Marxism.Habermas' eruditionhas enabledhim to makeMarxism acceptable to manyprag- matistsand bourgeoisphilosophers of science;yet his translation of or- thodoxy-whileit has had thesalutary effect of divertingattention from "whatMarx really said"-has expungedorthodoxy's basic radicalism. In otherwords, Habermas attempts the impossible in aimingat a balance betweenMarxism's revolutionary appeal and bourgeoissocial science's acquiescencein thegiven. Marxistshave foundit nearlyimpossible to relinquishtheir self-con- ceptionas experts,albeit criticalones, in a worldwherein they are ob- jectivelyisolated. Marxismby maintainingepistemological barriers be-

This content downloaded on Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:46:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Ben Agger 181 tweenscience and philosophynecessarily cuts the ground from beneath its own critiqueof the divisionof labor.Habermas goes a long way towardsmaking the Marxist philosophy of historya respectablephilo- sophicalalternative to an affirmativepositivism; yet in theprocess he forgetsthat Marx's ultimate goal was thedestruction of socialdifferen- tiationsuch as thatwhich exists between the philosopher and thescien- tist. Perhapsthe most lasting negative mental effect of oppression is our near inabilityto discussseriously the divisionof labor without eithersome retreat into utopia or the acceptanceof its inevitable anomaly.Domination shrouds the fact of anomalyand mocks utopiaas immaturefantasy.31

V. Conclusion The Marcuse-Habermasdebate on scienceand technologyturns on po- liticalconsiderations. Habermas is a reformistwho does notbelieve that the'mode of production'and itsoperative principle of technicalration- alitycan change,but onlythe political and intellectualsuperstructure. My argumenthas been thatMarcuse like Marx neverseparates 'base' and 'superstructure';thus, Marcuse hopes to transformthe ensemble of capitalistsocial relations: relations between man and machine,man and nature,man and man,man and concepts.His 'newscience' is a form of emancipatedintellectual labor, given life through the conquest of the mind'sdomination by positivistepistemology. Marcuse only broadens Marx'sconcept of 'labor'in remainingfaithful to theyoung Marx's vi- sionof theemancipation of the'five senses' and unificationof manual andmental labor under socialism.32

31. Alkis Kontos,"Domination: Metaphor and Political Reality,"in Domina- tion,Alkis Kontos,ed. (Toronto: Universityof TorontoPress, 1975), p. 220. 32. This essay has been improvedsignificantly by my friendsChristian Bay and Gad Horowitzof the Universityof Toronto.Bay helpedstrengthen the Habermas sectionand improvedmy prose style. He also urgedme to rescuethis paper from the dustyobscurity of the desk-drawer.Horowitz read the essay verycarefully, using a sharp scalpel and enormouscritical acumen. The argumentfor a new scienceemerged from long discussions with him during 1974 and 1975. Sinceideas belongto no one, I cannoteasily discernwhich of these ideas are "mine" and which"his." It does not matter.

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