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Philosopher of a Lost Radicalism*

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Philosopher of a Lost Radicalism* HERBERT MARCUSE: PHILOSOPHER OF A LOST RADICALISM* JERZY J. WIATR MAY 1968 the Parisstudents took to the streetsunder the sloganof "the threeM's." The "threeM's" are Marx, Mao, and Marcuse.The seventy-yearold professor,the authorof subtlephilosophical works and keen journalisticarticles, until a shorttime ago knownonly to a narrowcircle of specialists,sudden- ly becamea symbolicfigure, a sortof prophet of the movement. His viewsare of greatimportance for understanding the natureof the studentmovement in capitalistcountries; that movement, it is true, has an abundanceof young ideologues who have borrowed more or lessconsciously from Marcuse but tryto maintainthe appearance of completeoriginality. Who is HerbertMarcuse, and whatis his philosophy? HerbertMarcuse was born in Berlinin 1898and studiedin Ber- lin and Freiburg.He was fascinatedby Hegelianismand its influ- enceon laterGerman thought, and gavespecial attention to Marx's youthfulwritings. It wasduring this period that he formedthat hos- tilityto the Social Democraticinterpretations of Marxismand to revisionismof the Bernsteintype that became manifest later on; and at the same timethere was formeda certaintheoretical atti- tude,very typical for many authors at about thattime, consisting in a contrapositionof the ethicalaspects of Marx'stheory to the scientificanalysis of actuality and thelaws of its development. If we inquireinto the influences affecting Marcuse at thisperiod, we have to lookparticularly into the connections between his views and those ofHenri de Man,and intothe influence on Marcuse(and on other Germanradicals) of GyörgyLukacs' Geschichteund Klassenbe- wusstsein(1923). By the end of the 1920s Marcuse was closely linked * Translatedby HenryF. Mins.Reprinted from and withpermission of NomeDrogi, 1968(9),Warsaw, Poland, pp. 137-46. 319 This content downloaded on Tue, 8 Jan 2013 17:28:47 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 320 SCIENCE AND SOCIETY withwhat is knownas the Frankfurtcircle, from which came many well-knownWestern philosophers and sociologistsand which had a veryimportant influence in the formationof Marxologyin the West.In additionto Marcuse,the groupincluded, at thattime, Max Horkheimer,Theodor Adorno, Karl A. Wittfogel,Friedrich Pol- lock, Erich Fromm,Gerhard Meyer,H. Grossman,and P. Lands- berg. Horkheimerhad the role of intellectualleader of the Frank- furtcircle. Strictlyspeaking, the Frankfurtcircle was not a philo- sophical school nor a political group, althoughit had certainfea- tures of both. There were certain philosophicaland political di- vergencesamong the members,although their conceptionof fun- damentalquestions was muchthe same. Some membersof the Frank- furtcircle came to the group by way of Hegelianism;others arrived thereby departingfrom Marxism. The prevailingattitude toward Marxism was not monolithicwithin the circle. Alongside people who regardedthemselves as Marxiststhere were otherswho would only go so faras to acknowledgethat Marxismhad been an impor- tant influencein their work. The factorsthat held the Frankfurt circletogether were: in philosophy,dialectics (as a result,sympathy for Hegel and Marx and opposition to the positivistictrend); in politics,anti-fascism, combined with a characteristicmixture of rad- ical-liberaland utopian-socialistviews. The Frankfurtcircle held aloof fromthe organizedlabor movement,although at that period theydid not wage war on communism;not only that,but the eval- uations of Lenin's contributionto philosophywere, in general, much more favorableamong the membersof the circle (including Marcuse) than is usually the case with bourgeoisMarxologists. On the otherhand, theywere farfrom recognizing the importanceand functionof the Lenin stage in Marxistphilosophy, far fromreal- izing the connectionbetween Marxist theoryand the practiceof the organizedworking class movement.Accordingly, I feel, the ac- tivityof the Frankfurtcircle should be regardedrather as a matter of the more or less directparticipation of Marxismin otherphilo- sophicaland sociologicaltrends than as a partof thehistory of Marx- ism,as PredragVranicki, the well-known Yugoslav historian of Marx- ism does.1 1 Predrag Vranicki, Historia marksizmu (Zagreb, 1961), pp. 359-64. It is hard to agree with him when, dealing with the postwar years, he unqualifiedly includes This content downloaded on Tue, 8 Jan 2013 17:28:47 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions HERBERT MARCUSE 321 In 1932 the Zeitschriftfür Sozialforschungbegan publicationin Leipzig. Marcuse and the other membersof the Frankfurtcircle wereamong its most active contributors. In 1933,after the Hitlerites had come to power,the membersof the Frankfurtcircle emigrated. Marcusewent to Geneva at first,and in 1934 became a memberof the Instituteof Social Research at Columbia University.He con- tinued his active collaborationwith the Zeitschriftfür Sozialfor- schung,which had moved to Paris; in it he publisheda numberof articles,including: "The Struggleagainst Liberalism in the Totali- tarianTheory of the State" (1934), "On the AffirmativeNature of Culture" (1937), "Philosophyand Critical Theory" (1937), "Con- tributionto the Criticismof Hedonism" (1938).2 In them Marcuse attacksfascism, although they already show thatin his criticismthe ethical elements,the problem of freedomand human values, are divorcedfrom the socio-economicand political mechanismsof the fascistdictatorship as the result of the power of the monopolies, carriedto theirextreme. Another prominent aspect in his thinking is his absolutizationof the questionof the individual,which he puts at the centerof what is knownas philosophicalanthropology. Marcusecontinued his interestin Hegel while he was an émigré. As earlyas 1932 he had publisheda studyof Hegelianism (Hegels Ontologie und die Grundlegungeiner Theorie der Geschichtlich- keit)) in 1941 he continuedhis interestalong theselines in his best- knownbook, Reason and Revolution:Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (publishedin Poland a quarter-centurylater). Reason and Revolutionis not merelyan analysisand expositionof Hegel's the- ory.It is primarilya studyof the influenceof Hegelianismon Euro- pean thoughtand a defenseof Hegel against fascism.Marcuse at- tacksthe view that Hegelianismwas the intellectualbackdrop for Hitlerism.He interpretsHegelianism in the liberal spirit. "The German idealism that culminatedin the Hegelian teaching,"Mar- cuse wrote,"asserted that social and political institutionsshould jibe witha freedevelopment of the individual."3From thishe con- Marcuse among "contemporaryMarxists" (p. 548). This is all the more surprising in that Vranicki makes his judgment, inter alia, on the basis of Marcuse's Soviet Marxism, a book whose anti -Soviet character is obvious. 2 These articles were later collected in a volume entitled Kultur und Gesellschaft (Frankfurtam Main, 1965) . 3 Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution (New York, 1941), p. 415. This content downloaded on Tue, 8 Jan 2013 17:28:47 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 322 SCIENCE AND SOCIETY eludes that "The social and political theoryresponsible for the de- velopmentof FascistGermany was, thenrelated to Hegelianismin a completelynegative way/'4 Marcuse stronglyemphasizes the con- nection between Marxismand Hegelianism,and in particularthe link betweenthe radical wing of the labor movementand the tra- dition of Hegelian dialectics.In this connectionhe gave a positive evaluationof Lenin's contribution,contrasting it to the positivistic conceptionof the revisionists.5By and large, it emergesthat Rea- son and Revolutionmarks the point in Marcuse'sintellectual career wherehe came closestto Marxism.In the postwaryears his philo- sophical developmentled him in the oppositedirection. The years 1942-1950 marked a close connectionon Marcuse's partwith the policies of rulingcircles in the United States.During thoseyears he workedas a sectionhead in the StateDepartment. He was also connectedwith the Sovietologicalcenter of Columbia Uni- versity(the Russian Institute)and the similar center at Harvard (the Russian ResearchCenter). The ideologicalorientation of these institutionsleaves no room for doubt as to Marcuse's having gone over to an anti-communistand anti-Sovietposition. In 1954 Mar- cuse became professorof philosophyand politicsat Brandeis Uni- versity. His philosophicalworks during the postwarperiod show a sharp turn towardFreudianism, especially in his book Eros and Civiliza- tion (1955). Interestin Freudianismand the effortto reconcile it with the principlesof Marxismare not characteristicof the philo- sophical positionof Marcuse alone; Erich Frommgoes in the same directioneven more emphatically.In Marcuse,however, the theme of Freudianismis combinedwith the socio-economicconception of ' capitalismas a 'repressive"system. Repression of the sex instinct is a phenomenon,and even the most significantmanifestation, of the "repressiveculture" that limitsand depresseshuman freedom. There is a clear expressionof the contradictionbetween the Marx- ist conceptionof freedomas liberationfrom the shacklescaused by a systembased on class exploitationand as man's completemastery of nature,and Marcuse'sconception, in whichfreedom is visualized as rebellion againstany social regulation,any limitationof the in- 4 Ibid., p. 418. 5 Ibid., p. 401. This content downloaded on Tue, 8 Jan 2013 17:28:47 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions HERBERT MARCUSE 323 dividualby controlon the partof society.Marcuse despises, as "Phil- istine,"any acceptanceby the individualof
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