García Echeverri, Mauricio. The critical commitment of philosophy. On Marcuse´s critical project Vol. IV, No. 4, enero-junio 2017

The critical commitment of philosophy. On Marcuse´s critical project

de Marcuse

“Recibido el 26 de abril, aceptado el 10 de mayo de 2017.”

Mauricio García Echeverri*

Abstract

The present essay is not intended to be something new about . As a personal exercise to clarify concepts, its aim is to provide an over- view of Marcuse’s conception, based especially from his book One-Dimensional Man, about an advanced industrial society and how our thinking is being more and more rooted in what social elites want us to believe. At the same time, the article provides a basis to think this problem in an increasing posmodern society that is forgetting the most important critical authors of 20th century and its main preoccupation: the identity between subject and society.

Keywords: Marcuse, , technological rationality, repres- sion, negative thinking.

* Graduated from Instituto de Filosofía, Universidad de Antioquia.

123 Vol. IV, No. 4 Revista Ciencias y Humanidades Enero-junio 2017

Resumen

El presente ensayo no tiene ninguna intención de ser algo novedoso so- EUH+HUEHUW0DUFXVH&RPRHMHUFLFLRSHUVRQDOGHFODUL¿FDUFLHUWRVFRQFHSWRVVX propósito es dar un panorama sobre la concepción de Marcuse, basada especial- mente en su libro El hombre unidimensional, acerca de una sociedad industrial avanzada y cómo nuestro pensamiento está cada vez más enraizado en lo que las élites quieren que creamos. Al mismo tiempo, el artículo da bases para pensar este problema en una creciente sociedad posmoderna que está olvidando los au- tores críticos más importantes del siglo XX y una de sus máximas preocupacio- nes: ¿cuál es la identidad entre sujeto y sociedad?

Palabras clave: Marcuse, teoría crítica, racionalidad tecnológica, repre- sión, pensamiento negativo.

Introduction time and freetime, on the material and intellectual culture”1 For Marcuse, individual li- This is why for Marcuse liber- berty is reached when the productive ty has to be reconceptualized. It can apparatus is organized and centralized not be established in the same way not by the social forces of the advan- as it was posed, for example, in 18th ced industrial societies, but by a sta- century with french enlightenment. te that considers that autonomy is the Although it was a political view of base of a life that has to be guided by human freedom, the circumstances the own thinking of the subject. This and the power of technology over the will suppose the end of technological individual are too far different from rationality, that is to say, the end of the 18th century. As a hegelian, Marcu- se´s view about freedom is negative. establishment of living standards and The negative terms that allow acting judgment that make people act with as a counter part of politics and eco- an entire sumission to the social appa- nomy is the path to liberation, which UDWXV DQ DSSDUDWXV WKDW ³LPSRVHV LWV implies that positivity has to be rejec- economic and political requirements ted. However, this is one of the main for defense and expansion on labor problems of modern societies. Here

1 Marcuse, Herbert. One dimensional man. Stud- ies in the ideology of advanced insutrial society. New York: Routledge. 2002, p.5

124 García Echeverri, Mauricio. The critical commitment of philosophy. On Marcuse´s critical project Vol. IV, No. 4, enero-junio 2017 the question is posed: How can the circumstances that this concept has to subject, as an alienated person, reject EHXQGHUVWRRGLW¶VKLVWRU\DQGKXPDQ positivity? interaction the ones that create repres- Before arriving to the argu- sion, and not always our human natu- ment of Marcuse about how positive re. In an agressive society, repression WKLQNLQJFDQEHUHMHFWHGZHPXVW¿UVW refers to the fact that social inpositions of all, try to understand the ways in upon our lives makes us believe that which that positivity is rooted in our the relationship with the environment thinking. For the german author, the is true. This was possible in previous implanting of material and intellectual stages of society, for example that one needs is the way in which we are in- stablished by german romanticism, in creasingly controlled, we think about which social impositions were not so ourselves as free subjects that can go VWURQJ WKLV LV ZK\ WKH VXEMHFW FRXOG to the market and establish what we see with suspicion the political appa- want to do. However, one aspect of ratus and stayed against it. advanced industrial societies is that Marcuse is against those who of a high degree of repression. It’s think that the concept of ideology hi- the kind of repression that makes us des a conspiration or an illusion of see that we are happy, that we belie- the world. If this is true, that would ve that our thoughts are an individual remind us the rationality of industrial construction of our reason and desires, VRFLHWLHVEXWIRU0DUFXVHVRFLDOLP- but hides the imposition of social inte- positions are so strong, that the way of rests. False needs, being these the so OLYLQJLVQRWDQLOOXVLRQLVVRPHWKLQJ called gadgets, ideas about art and cul- that we believe in, that we think is ture, conceptions and transformations true. The reminding of the irrational of our bodies, in general everything rationality of technological progress that is stated as the material and inte- is true. llectual excedent of capital, is the new Technological progress, the way of repression. new way of control, shows the con- Since Freud´s psychoanalysis, tradiciton of this society. But this repression is seen as an indispensable contradiction is assumed by human way of acting to the maintenance of beings as a non contradiciton. They culture. To appease one part of our dual think that social antagonisms are over nature, Eros and Thanatos, is essential and that there is no need to struggle to a harmonious life between men. No- against misery, injustice, poverty, bad WZLWKVWDQGLQJ0DUFXVHVDI¿QLW\ZLWK education, and so on. Things are like Freud´s ideas, he saw another level of this because we believe that the sys- repression. Is in order to ideological tem is abolishing them. Now, we are

125 Vol. IV, No. 4 Revista Ciencias y Humanidades Enero-junio 2017 confronted with a social apparatus that sociologist Charles Wright Mills3, the puts us in a stage in which we think state, the corporations and the army about ourselves according to our pos- were the modern institutions that ru- sessions, “the term introjection per- led other institutions, such as the fa- haps no longer describes the way in mily, universities, church, and so on. which the individual by himself re- The political universe is also an ideo- produces and perpertuates the external logical stage in which we believe we controls exercised by his society. In- DUHIUHHWRHOHFWRXUVHUYDQWVEXWWKH\ trojection suggests a variety of relati- were already elected by an economic vely spontaneous processes by which power in which we do not have any a Self (Ego) transposes the outer into chance to participate. the inner”2. When this introjection, or A welfare and warfare state mimesis, is our life style, we no longer was one of the consequences of the accept other life styles. We no longer ¿UVWSDUWRIWKFHQWXU\ZDUV,QWKH accept qualitatively changes, but we School, the state is seen see our lives according to cuantitative from the analysis of Friedrich Pollock, conditions, such as possesions or the especially during the period of post attempt to size experiences and fee- World War II, with his essay about lings like love and hate. state capitalism. Either in his condi- tion of democratic or totalitarian, the The closing of the political universe basic about state capitalism is that the market is deposed of his controller One question raises at the mo- function, in order to be a function of ment of posing the structure of alie- the state, through a general plan that nated individual thinking: What is the manages the actions of consumers. Its social structure in which those people REMHFWLYHLVWRLQFUHDVHWKHEHQH¿WVRI exist? Related to the political stage, WKRVHZKRKDYHLQÀXHQFHLQWKHJHQH- the new society is for Marcuse the ral plan. “No state capitalistic gover- union between Welfare and Warfare nment can or will dispense with the state. In the new way of doing politics, SUR¿W PRWLYH IRU WZR UHDVRQV )LUVW economic power is held by private HOLPLQDWLRQRIWKHSUR¿WPRWLYHZRXOG corporations, with an executive power destroy the character of the entire sys- more and more controlled by an elite, tem, and second, in many respects the although not directly, but with its eco- SUR¿W PRWLYH UHPDLQV DV DQ HI¿FLHQW nomic force able to buy the political class. As it was stated by the american

3 Mills, C.W. The power elite. United States: Ox- 2 Ibíd., p.12 ford University Press, 2000.

126 García Echeverri, Mauricio. The critical commitment of philosophy. On Marcuse´s critical project Vol. IV, No. 4, enero-junio 2017 incentive”4. No matter if the state has Marcuse resort to the marxian analysis a stronger power in the economic or- that contemplates the production appa- der of society, or that the welfare state ratus as the one that creates the techni- UHSUHVHQWHGEHQH¿WVIRUHYHU\RQHWKH cal rationality. This technical rationali- VWDWHZDVQRWDXWRQRPRXVPRUHWKDQ ty is shown not only in factories, tools that, the aforementioned elite hoarded and the exploitation of resources, but the political sphere. Moreover, as it also in labor time. In order to achie- was established recently by the french ve human freedom, socialist society economist Thomas Piketty5, between proposes that those immediate pro- 1970 and 1980, there was a growth ducers should manage the productive deceleration, specially demographic, a apparatus. It is not the nationalization movement in privatization and trans- or the socialization the way to break ference of public wealth to private the technological structure, the end of wealth, and the recovery of real es- the existing social structure implies an tate and stock exchanges actives, has alienation of the laboring classes from led to an advent of certain social elites the universe. that hoarded the public power. To understand this transforma- In that order of ideas, state ca- tion, Marcuse actualizes the marxian pitalism, based on welfare and warfare concept of labor. Mechanization redu- institutions, do not tolerate, according ces physical energy expended in labor. to Pollock, a high degree on the stan- To Marx, workers are exploited under dard of living to the masses. The de- conditions in which private corpora- mocratic state is, of course, more sus- tions of surplus value is joined with FHSWLEOHWRWKLVEXWLQKLVQDWXUHWKHUH the appropriation of physical ener- is the possibility for totalitarianism. gy that is expended under subhuman Capitalist economy, with a reserve conditions. Despite the technological army, that is to say, unemployment, advances made by social forces, 20th cannot be maintained in peace. Crea- century labor is not so different, in re- ting the conditions of welfare is, at the lation to human conditions. Given that same time, conditioning people to war. Marcuse’s thesis is the one dimensio- In order to understand the po- nality of thinking and behavior, labor litical universe of capitalist society, time serves to the process of standar- dization that makes the new working 4 Pollock, Friedrich, State capitalism: its possi- class does not sees it as a denial of bilities and limitations. The essential Frankfurt their society. 19th century working School Reader. New York: The Continuum Pub- class, according to marxian theory, lishing Company, 1990. ZDV WKH QHJDWLRQ RI WKH VRFLHW\ KLV 5 Piketty, Thomas, El capital en el siglo XXI. Mé- class consciousness stand against ca- xico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2015

127 Vol. IV, No. 4 Revista Ciencias y Humanidades Enero-junio 2017 pitalist consciousness. “The machine WKDWFUHDWHVVXUSOXVYDOXHLWLVWKHPD- process in the technological universe chine. That is why, in order to know breaks the innermost privacy of free- what is the cost of production, there dom and joins sexuality and labor in is no need to measure work, but just one unconscious, rhythmic automa- to measure the equipment utilization. tism-a process which parallels the as- However, if industrialization was de- similation of jobs”6 termined by the measurement of job, Due to the labor force chan- what happened with the institutions ged along 20th century, the blue co- that created it? The institutions that llar labor force declines and the white created the technological progress collar increases. However, there are are of course changing, but with this more ways to increase the level of life, change, the conscience of human be- ZKLFKLVUHODWHGWRWKHOLIHWHFKQL¿FD- ings is at the same time being trans- tion, human consciousness is not re- formed, with the condition that we ODWHGDVDPHPEHURIDVSHFL¿FFODVV no longer perceive that it changes. In Because there is no longer an identi- this way the change of consciousness ¿FDWLRQRIWKHSURIHVVLRQDOZLWKVRPH can not be understood if there is not VRUW RI DXWRQRP\ LW LV PRUH GLI¿FXOW consideration of the changes in the to create a negative force that goes societal existence. This conscience, as against the enslavement forces. As the manifestation of bourgeois mora- a marxist, Marcuse believed that the lity, requires the appeasement of our new technological circumstances that intellectual and body pleasures. Social determined the production were trans- H[LVWHQFHLVSULRUWRRXUH[LVWHQFHEXW forming human consciousness and pu- is also the limit of our thinking. But as tting it into a state of total alienation of a social change, it could not be deve- autonomous thinking. loped without the interference of the Concerning the relation be- people who hoarded the political uni- tween workers and machines, Marcuse verse. pointed out the following. According The new organizers lose any to Marx, it was human labor force the kind of responsibility for his owners- RQH WKDW FUHDWHG VXUSOXV YDOXH IURP hip of the modes of production. They here is where the antagonism between are a minority increasingly bigger in the alienated laborers and the owners the relation capital/ingress. As the new of modes of production comes. But class of administrators are not deter- in 20th century, Marcuse’s arguments mined in the same way as the others pointed out that it is not the labor force (right now called the 99%) by the unidimensionality of thinking. Rather than a capitalist, they are bureaucrats 6 Marcuse, Op. Cit., p. 30

128 García Echeverri, Mauricio. The critical commitment of philosophy. On Marcuse´s critical project Vol. IV, No. 4, enero-junio 2017 that do not see the misery in which gap between rich and poor. Although thousands of people have to live in this is not true, this standard of living order to exist. Politics and economy generates in human beings the one di- are no longer administered by the ones mensionality of thinking and behavior. ZKRZHUHUHDOO\LQWHUHVWHGLQWKHPLW is the time for technicians, planners The prospects of containment of and scientists who believed that free- change, offered by the politics of dom comes from the freedom of choi- technological rationality, depend on the prospects of the Welfare state. ce that they predetermined. “Egoism Such a state seems capable of raising characterizes the aggressive tenden- WKHVWDQGDUGRIDGPLQLVWHUHGOLYLQJ cies of little groups of societies, and a capability inherent in all advanced it has nothing to do with happiness of insutrial societies where the streamli- the majority”7 ned technical apparatus […] depends According to these aspects, it IRULW¶VIXQFWLRQLQJRQWKHLQWHQVL¿HG can be said that for Marcuse the pro- development and expansive of pro- ductivity8 blem is the way in which the state has been organized. It is not a vain critique But welfare state could not of technology what Marcuse did, his work without the coercitive system critique consists in the analysis of this that is inherent to it. Technological progress as a source of alienation by progress has been created by welfare itself, as if it were build in an orwe- and warfare state. State that was not llian world that does not allow us to only in american society, but also in see the vital principle of a real relation soviet socialism. As one of the most with others. It has to be considered important theorists of 20th century the technological process as a process marxism, Marcuse did not see stalinist PDGHLQ¿UVWLQVWDQFHE\DZHOIDUHDQG socialism as the realization of free- warfare state in order to be used for its dom. Capitalism, as well as socialism, purposes. were both systems builded on the ba- American capitalism, for sis of a certain productive apparatus, example, is a welfare state because it but also on the ideology that conceives has the capacity to increase the life le- the other as the enemy. vel, understood as more access to edu- cation, to better jobs, more free time, and an apparently diminution of the

7 Horkheimer, Max. “Egoísmo y movimiento lib- erador”, En: Teoría Crítica, Argentina: Amorror- tu Editores, 1974, p.159 (author´s translation) 8 Marcuse, Op. Cit., p.52

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The conquest of the unhappy writing in fascist time (remember that consciousness for them, american mass culture had related aspects of authoritarian condi- To understand the unhappy tions of german fascism11) and culture consciousness that is held in an advan- was a problem because they saw in ced industrial society, Marcuse refers it certain mechanisms of oppression. to the difference between high culture The maintenance of culture implies, in of pre-technological society and cul- its dynamic conception, to be seen as ture created in an advanced industry D¿UHLPSRVLWLRQRIDSK\VLFFRDFWLRQ society. Marcuse said: “What is ha- on peoples mind. His legitimate main- ppening now is not the deterioration of tenance is held in the family, school, higher culture into mass culture but the church and the state. Authority, in refutation of this culture by the reality. Marcuse’s case, the technological ra- The reality surpasses its culture. Man tionality, is the way in which people today can do more than the culture he- think they are free, but in fact they are URVDQGKDOIJRGVKHKDVVROYHGPDQ\ just free to obey what social elites say soluble problems”9 to them what is to be obeyed. The development of cons- In Marcuse´s thought, Freu- cience would be analyzed not by the d´s psychoanalytic theory and its two interference of the state, as it was principles, reality and pleasure, give made previously, but from the space the base to understand the state of where social processes are held: cul- the unhappy consciousness. Reality WXUH VRPH FRQWULEXWLRQV DUH QHFHV- sary before Marcuse´s arguments. The distinction between high culture and of Adorno’s , the be- mass culture was one of the principal lieved that it was going to be a leftist aesthetic. However, that would be impossible, insofar as topics of , especially Adorno was opposed to that aesthetic, repre- in Adorno and his 1947 essay with sented by soviet realism. For a discussion about called Cultural in- this, see: Adorno et al. Aesthetic and Politics. Af- terword by Fredric Jameson. New York: Verso, dustry. For all of them, the discussion 2010 was not about making a difference of 11 “Today, tragedy has vanished in the nothing- ZKDW FXOWXUH LV DQG ZKDW LV QRW DQG ness of that false identity of society and subject, was not, as many people think, to crea- ZKRVHKRUURUVWLOOEULJKWVÀHHWLQJO\LQWKHHPSW\ te an elite culture just enjoyable for appearance of the tragic. But the miracle of the 10 integration, the permanent act of grace of the one the bourgeoisie . Because they were who has the power to welcome the one who does not stand against any resistence and swallows its RZQUHOXFWDQFHVLJQL¿HVIDVFLVP´,Q$GRUQR  9 Ibíd., p. 60 Horkheimer. La Industria cutural. Madrid: Akal, 10 For example, with the postumous publication 2007, p. 167 (author’s translation)

130 García Echeverri, Mauricio. The critical commitment of philosophy. On Marcuse´s critical project Vol. IV, No. 4, enero-junio 2017 principle, like the determinations of book that said to him how to commit politics, economy, production, etc., a suicide without nobody realizing it. has been imposed over culture, that is In spite of the level of life of 17th and to say, over the libidinal nexus of the 18th centuries, reality was not above subjects. Immediacy between them , and the artists has been lost, making our conscious- knew it. For Marcuse, artistic aliena- ness mediated by those determina- tion makes reference to the conscious tions. In capitalist societies, the world power to transcend social positivity. of the metaphysical subtleties, which What makes 20th century high to the eyes of a one-dimensional man culture is the manifestation of the is posed as a social structure, is able same things that happens in society. WR¿[HYHQRXUWKRXJKWV:HVWHUQKLJK It is not alienated art, but positive art. culture was build into a feudal and Even places were that art is represen- romantic world vision, remote of the ted is different from romantic places. LQÀXHQFHRILQGXVWULDOL]DWLRQEXVLQHVV Theaters, temples, cathedrals, were and the productive system. Romantic places were people could experience a novels, for example, used images of totally different dimension of the one people who were distanced even from that manifest to themselves every day. their world. As in Schiller´s drama and Architecture, for Adorno and Horkhei- poetry, the visions about the romantic mer in “The cultural industry”, is ba- heroe gave to the reader another di- sed upon the fact that cities have to be mension of reality. It was not intended EXLOGHGLQRUGHUWREHQH¿WWKHSURGXF- WREH¿FWLRQEXWLWZDVDFRQVWUXFWLRQ WLYH DSSDUDWXV KRXVHV DQG IDFWRULHV of the reality principle led by the plea- DUH QRW HYHQ SODQL¿HG WKH\ DUH MXVW VXUHSULQFLSOHLQWKHDUWLVWFDVHLWZDV EXLOGHGLQRUGHUWRJXDUDQWHHVSHFL¿F the rol of imagination that gives the HFRQRPLF EHQH¿WV  0DNLQJ D GLIIH- possibility to reconcile our reason with rence with certain types of artistic ma- our happiness, reality with the subject, nifestations, Marcuse, who has a debt the one that led the construction of the with Adorno´s aesthetic theory, poin- work of art.12 In the case of the young ted out the importance of alienated art. Raskolnikov of Dostoyevky´s Crime His main function is to be opposed to and Punishment, the inner struggle for the positive aspects of society. Art has his own subsistence and to determi- WR EH QHJDWLYH LW KDV WR GHPRQVWUDWH ne who knew about the crime, was a how our pleasure principle can stand MREIRUKLPVHOIWKHUHZDVQRVHOIKHOS against the reality principle. But it is QRWMXVWWRVWDQGDJDLQVWLWLVWRWU\WR reconcile both principles, because in 12 See: Marcuse, , chapter that way we can experience a return VII.

131 Vol. IV, No. 4 Revista Ciencias y Humanidades Enero-junio 2017 to the repressed. Artistic imagination his reality principle avoiding the in- gives us an unconscious memory of ternal contradiction of Eros and Tha- the lost path of liberation. In a state of natos, sublimation is referred not just affairs in which there is no liberty, art WR DQ DVWRQLVKLQJ DUW UHSUHVHQWDWLRQ puts an image of a free man. Surrea- it is rather that pleasure principle that lism, in the case of Eros and Civiliza- stands upon reality principle13. What tion, with the psychoanalytical images makes this argument strength enou- of man, gives us a political interpreta- gh to be taken into account is that the WLRQRIWKH2HGLSXVFRPSOH[EXWQRW artistic sublimation is a phenomenon as Freud´s conception of the submis- that plays with our instincts, that is to sion of the son to the father, but rather say, with the way of living. Althou- LVWKHLPDJHRIWKHVRQZKRFDQ¿JKW gh the discussion is in the aesthetic and destroy the authority. realm, for the Frankfurt School there However, technological ra- LV DQ LQÀXHQFH RI WHFKQRORJLFDO SUR- tionality, with the cultural industry, gress into artistic manifestations. The has permeated artistic manifestation. social apparatus creates a dimension Romantic art is, of course, not even in which human activities are redu- DYDLODEOHLWVWLPHKDVSDVVHG%XWDG- ced and in which pleasures are redu- vanced industrial societies have not ced too. Instinctual experience is, by created a new type of art according to consequence, reduced but not withs- the new circumstances. For Marcuse tanding, has to be relocalized. This there is no possibility for the Great relocalization is put in terms of sexual Refusal that was stated by Marcuse experience, but not as an erotic ex- in Eros and Civilization. This refu- perience. It is clear, since Freud, that sal, stated by surrealism, is the protest erotic relationships are different from DJDLQVW DQ XQQHFHVVDU\ UHSUHVVLRQ LV sexual relations, whose purpose is just the prospect of a life without anguish. sexual satisfaction or reproduction. As Art is no longer the negation of socie- long as the latter is just the accompli- ty but only the ideological manifesta- shment of partial impulses, erotism re- tion of the welfare and warfare state. fers to a wide range of impulses that An unconscious manifestation which include not only sexuality, but also the people assume as true. Positive art is JUDWL¿FDWLRQRIJRRGOLIH7KLVLVZK\ totally opposed to sublimation. The images created by sublimated oeuvres Diminishing erotic and intensifying d´art are useful because they represent sexual energy, the technological rea- to the audience the negative part of lity limits the scope of sublimation. It society. However, the negation does not intend to reconciliate people with 13 See: Horkheimer, Authority and family.

132 García Echeverri, Mauricio. The critical commitment of philosophy. On Marcuse´s critical project Vol. IV, No. 4, enero-junio 2017

also reduces the need for sublmation: oXUFRQVFLHQFHLVLQWKLVZD\UHL¿HG In the mental apparatus, the tension Our world representations are based betweem that which is desired and in things and not in what human be- tjat which is permited seems con- ings are. It’s just the general necessity siderably lowered, and the Reality Principle no longer semms to require RIWKLQJV%HFDXVHUHL¿HGFRQVFLHQFH a sweepong and paoinful transforma- is not longer autonomous conscience, tion of instinctual needs. The indivi- responsibility of our actions decreases dual must adapt himself to a world and we think that what we are doing which does not seem demand the de- corresponds to a social manifestation nial of his innermost needs- a world and not to an individual subjectivity. 14 which is not essentially hostile . This is why we no longer feel guilty for our actions. “Today, the mark of This adaptation of the indivi- ideologies is rather the absence of this dual into the reality principle that is autonomy than the fraud of its pre- imposed on him, presupposes the re- tension. With the crisis of bourgeois jection of the possibility of his own society, the same concept of ideology pleasure principle. seems to lost its object”16 This unconsciouss rejection is used for political mobilization. People The historical commitment of are seen, not as the modern subject, philosophy but as a subject used for political pur- poses. It is the individual more a neu- Insofar the ideological pro- rotic person than an individual stru- blem is whether we can know what ggling with Eros and Thanatos. The is true or not, what is happiness and neurotical personality15 is formed by ZKDW LV DQ LPSRVHG KDSSLQHVV WKH the controlled desublimation product FRQÀLFWDSSHDUVDWDSKLORVRSKLFDOOH- of the social apparatus. This is why, vel of what is real and what it seems to as Marx pointed out, people tend to be real. To Marcuse, this philosophi- ¿QG WKHPVHOYHV DV FRQVXPHUV RI WKH cal question is evident since platonic productive apparatus and not trying to and Aristotle´s formal logic. UHVROYHWKHLQQHUFRQÀLFWVRIKXPDQV In ancient Greek philosophy, reason In this transfer, that is to say, to give is the cognitive faculty to determi- to external factors what has to be re- ne what is truth and false, being this solved internally, the social apparatus contraposition the conditions of Being DVVXPHV WKH UROH RI D PRUDO DJHQW and Reality. As man would be able to

16 Adorno, Theodor, “Contribución a la doctrina 14 Marcuse, One-dimensional man, op.cit, p.77 de las ideologías”, En: Escritos sociológicos I. 15 See: Eros and Civilization, chapter 10. Madrid: Akal, 2004, p. 443 (author´s translation)

133 Vol. IV, No. 4 Revista Ciencias y Humanidades Enero-junio 2017 act according to what is real, he would Although Marcuse explores be acting pursuant to what is true. The his ideas since the greeks, what is also problem is not just at an epistemolo- clear for him is that he is not wanting gical level, it is clear how since greek to give an scholar account of Plato and philosophy, epistemology and ethics Aristotle. What he wants to make clear were part of the same problem, that of is that no matter the historical gap, man and how he can develop his own philosophy is to have a compromise faculties involved in certain space-ti- ZLWK ZKDW LV WUXWK DQG LQ WKDW FDVH me conditions. Epistemology cannot the more simple epistemological fact stay apart from ethics. Those who shows us that truth cannot be discove- think that philosophy is just a mere re- red just by the use of our senses. If this ÀHFWLRQRQZKDWDUHLGHDVVXIIHUIURP would be the case, advanced industrial the same trivialization of those who societies would not have any kind of are embedded in the cultural industry UHSUHVVLRQLWZRXOGEHVRHYLGHQWIRU standards: they are afraid of knowing us the one-dimensionality of thought what they are. and behavior, that nobody would ac- However, more than giving an cept his own repression. However, erudite analysis of greek philosophy, that is not the case. In this order of what Marcuse tries to develop, since ideas, the rejection of positivism is at the origins of greek philosophy, is how WKH VDPH WLPH WKH FRQ¿GHQFH RQ RXU human thought is determined by duali- reason and in metaphysics. How can WLHVDGXDOLW\WKDWWKHVDPHWKLQNLQJKDV something really important as our li- to resolve. This is why the ontological berty be explained just from experien- categories, like truth, falseness, being, ce? Did not Descartes metaphysics nothingness, reality, reason, and so on, show us the importance of skepticism are the ones who build human beings DQGVHOIUHÀHFWLRQ",QH[SODLQLQJDQ- forms. “Philosophy originates in dialec- cient philosophy, Marcuse tries to link tics, its universe of discourse responds it with modernity, which is the stage to the facts of an antagonist reality”17 of consciousness in which individuali- No matter the historical gap between ty can develop itself with the dialectic Marcuse and ancient philosophy, what relation with the universality. “Cons- is clear is the dialectic conception of cience is aware of itself as thought, and SKLORVRSK\FRQFHSWLRQWKDWLVJRLQJWR knows that my thought is for me the be developed by Marcuse according, only thing that is binding”18 Philoso- not just to Plato´s dialectic, but more phy is the believe that the own thought from Hegel´s conception of what is real

18 Hegel, Philosophy of right. New York: Pro- 17 Marcuse, One-dimensional man. Op.cit., p.130 metheus books, 1996, p.130.

134 García Echeverri, Mauricio. The critical commitment of philosophy. On Marcuse´s critical project Vol. IV, No. 4, enero-junio 2017 is capable, from a critical judgement, nality, the imposition of standards of to understand the true content of rea- living and acting, is the type of ratio- lity. Philosopher is not a person who nality imposed on advanced industrial stands against his reality and rejects VRFLHWLHV D VRFLHW\ EDVHG LQ DQ H[- DQVSHFL¿FSRVLWLRQRQLWKHLVQRWD cessive production of what we do not person who is always in the pejorative really need, but we think that we do. world of ideas, on the contrary, philo- This is why Marcuse called it techno- sopher is the one who wants to know logical rationality. We think our world how can reality has a rational basis, based on a technique, in how can we and with this knowledge create a good SURGXFH PRUH DQG PRUH EXW QRW EH- life for him and for the others. This is cause we really want to produce, but the concrete problem of philosophy. because we need to have a role in our However, as history has shown us, are society. It has not to follow our dreams not philosophical values the ones who the purpose of capitalist societies, be- JRYHUQ UHDOLW\ FRQYHUVHO\ WKH SRZHU cause, insofar as dreaming is a free of a surplus-repressed civilization was human activity, our freedom depends imposed upon them. In Plato and Aris- RIH[WHUQDOFRQGLWLRQVWKRVHRIWKHLP- totle philosophy, the problem is stated posed necessities. in their conception about movement, Marcuse is not just one of the th of what is in potentiality and actuali- great thinkers of 20 century that the ty, as a manifestation of Being. That is nervous, fearful and an ignorant pos- why “The philosophic quest proceed modernity educational system is tr- IURPWKH¿QLWHZRUOGWRWKHFRQVWUXF- \LQJ WR IRUJHW KH LV DOVR D URPDQWLF tion of a reality which is not subject to thinker who believed in immediate hu- the painful difference between poten- PDQUHODWLRQVWKRVHZKRGRQRWQHHGD tiality and actuality, which has maste- market between them to be “real” rela- red its negativity and is complete and tions. The commodity production has independent in itself-free”19 made this. In this order, the new hu- Despite the great effort that man needs are those who establish in ¿UVWLQVWDQFHKXPDQWKRXJKWDQGWKHQ philosophy has made to introduce his is the development of the latter. This philosophic value of reason into the is the commitment of philosophy. Our world, it is not the convergence be- thinking has to be developed in order tween Reason and Liberty what makes to establish a state of affairs in which a society a rational organization. As men no longer need to spend an angui- we have shown, technological ratio- sh life in the realm of necessity. If this is the case, truth, as a concept, would be realized in a true human existence, 19 Marcuse, Op. Cit., p. 131

135 Vol. IV, No. 4 Revista Ciencias y Humanidades Enero-junio 2017 that of a real universality. Philosophy ment of thought and of action. It is a think about a world in which human theoretical and a practical energy”20. beings could be equal, denying the ac- Marcuse believed that univer- tual equality. sals cannot be understandable without With the problem of univer- the whole they belong to. That is why sality, Marcuse returns to Hegel´s such analysis requires the understan- approach in which thought should ding of that whole. As it was stated not be alien to his object. Although before, this is not only on behalf of there is a rejection of formal logic, SKLORVRSKLFDO WKLQNLQJ LW LV DOVR RQ what Marcuse´s dialectic requires is behalf of those people on which uni- a logic system that allows it to move versals act. “If philosophy does not into the laws of the Real, of concre- comprehend these processes of trans- te. But these forces, laws, tendencies, ODWLRQ DQG LGHQWL¿FDWLRQV DV VRFLHWDO elements, are developed in their inner processes, as a mutilation of the mind oppositions. Marcuse saw the solution DQG WKH ERG\  LQÀLFWHG XSRQ WKH LQ- that Marx gave to the problem of He- dividuals, their society- Philosophy struggle only with the ghost of the gel´s dialectic: too much idealism. In- substance which it wishes to demys- sofar as experience is presented to the tify. The mystifying character adhe- individual as a false experience, that res, not to the concepts of mind, self, is to say, as an objectivity that hides consciousness, etc. but rather to their its causes, the development of things, behavioral translation” 21 In this trans- history, has to be understood as a men lation, social analysis have to take into practice. A practice understood not in account Marcuse´s concept of Real. If terms of productivity that is to Mar- the analysis of universals begins from cuse the way in which this term is the presupposition that these concepts th understood in 20 century capitalist could be understood as modes of ac- society. As an intellectual and mate- tual behavior, it falls in the mistake rial activity, practice begins from the that actual behavior is the real one, data of experience but goes deeper and and consequently the appearance that put that experience in the colander of irrational is rational. In this sense, phi- a dialectical thought that understands losophy is not just merely the inter- the different dualities in which expe- SUHWDWLRQRIWKHZRUOGLWLVDVLWZDV rience resides. Once human thought established by Marx on his “Theses on notices this, reason becomes not only Feuerbach”, the assumption that the historic reason, but also the negation actual conditions have to be changed. of the established order. Thereby, “the idea of reason pertains to the move- 20 Ibíd. p.146. 21 Ibíd., p.208.

136 García Echeverri, Mauricio. The critical commitment of philosophy. On Marcuse´s critical project Vol. IV, No. 4, enero-junio 2017

That is philosophy´s commit- It is the actual conformation PHQW FRPPLWPHQW WKDW LV JXLGHG E\ of social institutions that made un- the concept of liberty, that presupposes thinkable this liberation, to the extent real possibilities of a qualitative chan- that mutilated individuals defend the ge. It is the real possibility of libera- chains that attach them to undemocra- tion. It is not what commonly people tic institutions. Democratic planning think about utopia, a mere illusion. No. serves to certain interests, hiding its We cannot reject the historical chan- totalitarian attitudes. It would be an ges that are upon our eyes. Qualitative organized, rational and fair society changes, which presuppose a change when the historical subject of modern in the social productive apparatus, a societies could achieve the purpose of reduction of unnecessary repression, freedom as a real possibility. Marcu- it’s at the same time the change of hu- se´s arguments are not in defense of man behavior. The construction of a SKLORVRSK\E\LWVHOISKLORVRSK\LVUD- new life implies the construction of a ther committed with those who were new sensibility. As an aesthetic dimen- deprived of a good life. This is why sion, this construction is not an aesthe- RXUSXUSRVHLVWRNHHS¿JKWLQJIRUXWR- tic sensibility that stagnates himself in SLD0DUFXVHVUHÀHFWLRQJLYHVXVWKH a positivist appreciation of the world. arguments to support the idea that mi- As is stated in Eros and Civilization, serable people cannot continue main- especially in the chapter the aesthetic taining the actual system just because dimension, the new sensibility is a po- an intolerable egoism of social elites. litical factor, like in Schiller´s On the 7KH¿JKWDJDLQVWHFRQRPLFVRFLDOSR- aesthetic education of man. The as- litical, and even academic forces has sumption that man has impulses which to be carried out with new arguments. go beyond direct sexuality implies that 7KH1HZ/HIWLVULJKWQRZROGLWGLG erotic impulses are the ones that can not work. But it has to be restored. The stand against aggressiveness and guilt. actual experiences of Greece, Spain, “Freedom, in this sense, would beco- and Ecuador give us the illusion of a me the environment of an organism new life. “It is [in Benjamin´s words] which is no longer capable of adapting only for the sake of those without hope to the competitive performances requi- that hope is given to us”23. red for well-being under domination, no longer capable of tolerating his ag- gressiveness, brutality, and ugliness of the established way of life”22.

22 Marcuse, Herbert, An essay on liberation. 23 Marcuse. One-dimensional man. Op.Cit., p. United States: Beacon Press, 1971, p.9. 261.

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