Marcuse, Herbert

Marcuse, Herbert (märk`zə), 1898–1979, U.S. political philosopher, b. Berlin. He was educated at the Univ. of Freiburg and with Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer founded the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research. A special target of the Nazis because of his Jewish origins and Marxist politics, he emigrated (1934) to the United States and became a naturalized citizen in 1940. Marcuse served with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II and later taught at Harvard, Columbia, and Brandeis before becoming (1965) professor of philosophy at the Univ. of California at San Diego. He is best known for his attempt to synthesize Marxian and Freudian theories into a comprehensive critique of modern industrial society. In One Dimensional Man (1964), his most popular book, he argued for a sexual basis to the social and political repression in contemporary America; the book made him a hero of New Left radicals and provided a rationale for the student revolts of the 1960s in the United States and Europe. His other works include Reason and Revolution (1941), Eros and Civilization (1955), An Essay on Liberation (1969), and Counterrevolution and Revolt (1972).

Bibliography

See studies by A. MacIntyre (1970), P. Mattick (1972), J. Woddis (1972), C. Fred Alford (1985), and P. Line (1985); R. Wolin, Heidegger's Children (2001).

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Marcuse, Herbert

(born July 19, 1898, Berlin—died July 29, 1979, Starnberg, Ger.) German-U.S. political philosopher. A member of the Frankfurt school, he fled Germany after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. After working in U.S. intelligence in World War II, he taught at several universities, principally Brandeis University (1954–65) and the University of California at San Diego (1965–76). In his best known and most influential work, One-Dimensional Man (1964), Marcuse argued that society under advanced capitalism is unfree and repressive and that modern man has become intellectually and spiritually complacent through his psychological dependence on the blandishments of consumer society, a phenomenon he termed “repressive desublimation.” He was also hostile to the Soviet system. His works were popular among student leftists, especially after the 1968 student rebellions at Columbia University and the Sorbonne. His other writings include Eros and Civilization (1955) and Counterrevolution and Revolt (1972).

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Marcuse, Herbert (1898–1979) political philosopher; born in Berlin, Germany. Fleeing Hitler, he came to the U.S.A. in 1934 and was naturalized in 1940; much of his career was spent at Brandeis University (1954–65) and the University of California: San Diego (1965–70). A committed but critical Marxist, he made a synthesis of Marx and Freud in Eros and Civilization (1955). After the publication of One-Dimensional Man (1964), which criticized capitalist societies as repressive, he won notoriety as an inspiration to and apologist for the New Left movement of the 1960s. He retired in La Jolla, Calif., continuing to travel and lecture; in 1971 he was shouted down by European radicals, and he died in Germany where he had gone to lecture.

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Marcuse, Herbert 

Born July 19, 1898, in Berlin. German-American philosopher and sociologist.

With T. Adorno and M. Horkheimer, Marcuse founded the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research. He has lived in the USA since 1934. During World War II he worked in the news agencies of the American intelligence service, writing antifascist articles. Marcuse was an “expert” at the Russian Institute at Columbia University and at the Russian Center at Harvard University during the 1950’s. A professor at Brandeis University from 1954 to 1965, he has taught at the University of California since 1965.

Marcuse’s views were formed under the influence of the ideas of M. Heidegger and, especially, of Hegel and Freud. At the same time, he manifested an unflagging interest in the teachings of Marx, extensively utilizing his categories and certain of his ideas, which he often interpreted in the spirit of modern bourgeois philosophy and sociology. According to Marcuse, the development of science and technology makes it possible for the ruling class of contemporary capitalist society to form, through the mechanism of needs, a new type of mass, “one-dimensional man” with an atrophied capacity for social criticism. Thus, the capitalist ruling class is able “to restrain and prevent social changes.” Under the impact of “false” needs imposed on it, the working class of the developed capitalist countries enters the race to consume, becomes “integrated” into the social whole, and loses its revolutionary role. Thus, according to Marcuse, the revolutionary initiative in “developed” society passes to “outsiders” (members of the lumpenproletariat, persecuted national minorities, and the unemployed, for example), as well as to radical strata of the students and the humanitarian intelligentsia. On a worldwide scale the bearers of revolutionary initiative are the unfortunate masses of the “poor” countries, who stand in opposition to the “rich” countries, which, in Marcuse’s view, include both the imperialist and the developed socialist countries.

Viewing the institutions of bourgeois democracy as tools for the nonviolent suppression of opposition, Marcuse insists upon the “radical rejection” of legal forms of struggle as a “parliamentary game.” He denies the revolutionary role of the Marxist parties of the developed capitalist countries, as well as the revolutionary essence of their political programs. In objective terms, Marcuse’s Utopia, which is a manifestation of a variety of “post-industrial” romanticism, promotes the disunity and disorientation of anticapitalist forces.

WORKS

Hegels Ontologie und die Grundlegung einer Theorie der Geschichtlichkeit. Frankfurt Am Main, 1932.
Reason and Revolution. London, 1941.
Eros and Civilization. Boston, 1955.
Soviet Marxism, a Critical Analysis. London, 1958.
One-Dimensional Man. Boston, 1964.
A Critique of Pure Tolerance. Boston, 1965. (With B. Moore and R. Wolff.)
Das Ende der Utopie. Berlin, 1967.
An Essay on Liberation. Boston, 1969.
Counterrevolution and Revolt. Boston, 1972.

REFERENCES

Zamoshkin, Iu. A., and N. V. Motroshilova. “Kritichna li ’kriticheskaia teoriia obshchestva’ G. Markuze.” Voprosy filosofii, 1968, no. 10.
Batalov, E. Ia. Filosofiia bunta. Moscow, 1973.
Krasin, Iu. A. “Markuzianstvo v tupike protivorechii.” Voprosy filosofii, 1973, no. 6.
Steigerwald, R. Tretii put’ Gerberta Markuze. Moscow, 1971. (Translated from German.)
Woddis, J. New Theories of Revolution. London, 1972.

E. IA. BATALOV