Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man

Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man



Herbert Marcuse in One Dimensional Man speaks out against what he feels are the injustices and manipulations of advanced industrial societies. Technological advancement and bureaucracy impose an all encompasing social control over the people in promotion of the establishment’s interests. What emerges is a society of contradiction that superficially appears to promote liberty, possibility, and comfort but actually asserts its control and domination. In the examination of his key concepts of “true” vs. “false” needs, the “Great Refusal,” the unhappy consciousness, Eros vs. sexuality, and the “new historical Subject,” it is apparent that Marcuse believes that these societies, through their manipulations, are limiting freedom of the individual and thus diminishing the potential for revolution and social change.
Liberation from the economics, politics, and public opinion (absence of individual thought) of industrial...