Herbert Marcuse (redirected from Marcusian)

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