This Body, This Civilization, This Repression: an Inquiry Into Freud and Marcuse
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University of Windsor Scholarship at UWindsor Electronic Theses and Dissertations Theses, Dissertations, and Major Papers 2008 This body, this civilization, this repression: An inquiry into Freud and Marcuse Jeff Renaud University of Windsor Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd Recommended Citation Renaud, Jeff, "This body, this civilization, this repression: An inquiry into Freud and Marcuse" (2008). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 8272. https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/8272 This online database contains the full-text of PhD dissertations and Masters’ theses of University of Windsor students from 1954 forward. These documents are made available for personal study and research purposes only, in accordance with the Canadian Copyright Act and the Creative Commons license—CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivative Works). 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THIS BODY, THIS CIVILIZATION, THIS REPRESSION: AN INQUIRY INTO FREUD AND MARCUSE by JeffRenaud A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies through Philosophy in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Windsor Windsor, Ontario, Canada 2008 ©JeffRenaud Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-47084-8 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-47084-8 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada Author's Declaration of Originality Thereby certify that I am the sole author of this thesis and that no part of this thesis has been published or submitted for publication. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge, my thesis does not infringe upon anyone's copyright nor violate any proprietary rights and that any ideas, techniques, quotations, or any other material from the work of other people included in my thesis, published or otherwise, are fully acknowledged in accordance with the standard referencing practices. Furthermore, to the extent that I have included copyrighted material that surpasses the bounds of fair dealing within the meaning of the Canada Copyright Act, I certify that I have obtained a written permission from the copyright owner(s) to include such material(s) in my thesis and have included copies of such copyright clearances to my appendix. I declare that this is a true copy of my thesis, including any final revisions, as approved by my thesis committee and the Graduate Studies office, and that this thesis has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other University or Institution. 111 ABSTRACT Beneath the veil of our affluent, sexually permissive capitalist society, Herbert Marcuse identifies a deep-rooted contradiction concerning how sexuality is made to operate in this system. On his account, our current civilization is characterized by the wholesale incorporation, or "containment," of all dimensions of human life into a system that seeks to control and dominate individuals. With regards to sexuality in particular, Marcuse maintains that the increased liberalization of sexuality represents its effective containment within a system that reduces all human interests and activities to their market value and binds individuals to a market system structured to maximize profit and impoverish human experience. In the following thesis, I explore the development of Marcuse's thought on sexual repression under late capitalism and explicate the connections between his position and that of Sigmund Freud. iv For Brenna, Liam, and Gavin v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I wish to thank my family for their love, encouragement, and indefatigable patience: Mom, Dad, Aaron, Shannon, Nicole, Jeff, Brenna, Liam, and now Gavin. I would also like to thank my friends for their support and insight, especially T.J. Hucker, Shawn Bourgeois, Tina Sauro, Nick Chronopoulos, Adam J. Langton, Sean Hamdon, Mel Aravena-Edwardh, Michael Walschots, Jordan Bartol, Neil Langshaw, Alexander Leferman, Marnie Dumouchelle, Colin Wysman, and Lucia Costa. Both individually and collectively, they have been indispensable to my happiness and growth over the past several years. Many thanks also go out to friends and colleagues from the Department of Social and Political Thought and the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies at York University, Toronto, for offering criticisms and suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper: Jamie M.A. Smith, Colin Lennard-White, James McMahon, Emilie Dionne, Lee Kuhnle, Emilie Bernier, and Elliot Buckland. I am particularly indebted to the faculty and staff in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Windsor, especially Dr. Philip Rose, Dr. Jeff Noonan, Terry Whelan, and Dr. Stephen Pender from the Department of English. Thanks also to Dr. Ronald Aronson for his critical insight. Above all, I wish to thank my supervisor, Dr. Deborah Cook, for strengthening me at a time when I was tempted to give up on myself. The majority of this thesis was written after the loss of my close friend Candice Beth Lucier. In the final months of her short, profound life Candice offered me much guidance and love. Living with her absence has revealed to me what it means to struggle against the flux of time. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS AUTHOR'S DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY iii ABSTRACT iv DEDICATION v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi PROLOGUE 8 CHAPTER I. THE BILDUNGSMACHTE OF MARCUSE'S CRITICAL SEXUAL THEORY: SIGMUND FREUD 12 Pleasure and Reality 13 Life and Death 21 Repression 30 Sublimation 36 Concluding Remarks 41 II. MARCUSE'S CRITICAL APPROPRIATION OF FREUD: EROS AND CIVILIZATION 43 Surplus Repression and the Performance Principle 46 From Sexuality to Eros 60 Marcuse on Time 71 Concluding Remarks 75 III. THE CONTAINMENT OF SEXUALITY IN ONE-DIMENSIONAL SOCIETY 77 Technological Rationality and Containment 79 Repressive Desublimation 84 Sexual Liberalization and Destructiveness 95 Concluding Remarks 101 CONCLUSION 103 BIBLIOGRAPHY 106 VITAAUCTORIS 109 vn PROLOGUE The claim that sexuality has become increasingly liberalized over the past several decades in advanced industrial civilization is hardly controversial. Indeed, it would be virtually impossible to proceed through an ordinary day without confronting various images, advertisements, and products which make use of and appeal to sexuality. Television programs and commercials, billboards and magazines inform us how we might become more attractive, marketable, productive members of society and provide us with the means for completing our otherwise inadequate sexual image. Countless self- help books prescribe various ways to appeal to potential partners and highlight the appropriate techniques with which to complete our sexual transactions. Considering the ubiquity of sexuality both in and outside of the work place, one might conclude that our libidinal drives have been emancipated from the repressive clutches of Puritanism and that the current social order has liberated sexuality to an unprecedented extent. Throughout much of his work, Herbert Marcuse takes this conclusion to task. In One-Dimensional Man, he remarks that "advanced industrial civilization operates with a greater degree of sexual freedom—'operates' in the sense that the latter becomes a market value and a factor of social mores."1 On his account, late capitalist society is characterized by the wholesale incorporation of all dimensions of human life into a system which seeks