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Título The Spectre of Liberation and its Failure to
Materialize: On Marcuse’s Critique of Utopian
Thinking
Autor(a) Arnold Farr
Tradutor(a) Fonte Dossiê Herbert Marcuse, Parte 1 (Dissonância:
Revista de Teoria Crítica, volume 2, número 1. 1,
junho de 2018)
Como citar este artigo:
Farr, Arnold. “The Spectre of Liberation and its Failure to
Materialize: On Marcuse’s Critique of Utopian Thinking”. Dossiê
Herbert Marcuse, Parte 1 (Dissonância: Revista de Teoria Crítica, v.
2, n. 1.1), p. 35-58, junho de 2018.
Publ
i
cadopel
apr
i
mei
r
avezem:
1
3f
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201
9
THESPECTREOFLI
BERATI
ON
AND I
TSFAI
LURETO
MATERI
ALI
ZE
ON MARCUSE’
SCRI
TI
QUEOFUTOPI
AN THI
NKI
NG1
Arnold Farr
University of Kentucky
1. The Dialectic of Presence and Non-Presence in
Marxian Theory
Karl Marx opens his revolutionary pamphlet “The
Communist Manifesto” with the following claim, “A spectre is
haunting Europe – the spectre of Communism. All the Powers of
old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this
spectre” (Marx 2000a: 245). The notion of spectre (ghost) suggests a
presence that is not yet present. The haunting is a persistent
hovering over as if to await the necessary conditions to present
itself in material form. This presence that is at the same time a nonpresence exists as a mere possibility that is contained in the very
present order of things. The presence of this possibility is indeed
recognized by those who benefit from the present oppressive order
of things. Hence, the desire by the Powers of old Europe to exorcise
1 This paper is dedicated to the memory of my good friend Maria Érbia. Maria
was a bright and shining young critical theorist who was about to make her
mark on the world when she was taken from us suddenly last year.
The Spectre of Liberation and its Failure to Materialize
it. However, exorcising this spectre is not so easy since those who
seek to exorcise it are those who created it. It is worth quoting
Marx at length here.
“The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of
the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of
capital; the condition for capital is wage-labor. Wage-labor
rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. The
advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the
bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to
competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to
association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore,
cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the
bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the
bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own gravediggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally
inevitable” (Marx 2000a: 255).
I will not address the last sentence of this passage here. We
will see later that for Marcuse Marx’s optimism regarding the fall
of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat was a bit
premature. While bourgeois society produces the mechanisms for
its own demise it also produces the mechanisms by which it avoids
its own demise. In other words, while bourgeois society produces
the need for social change, it also produces barriers to social
change. The above passage reflects Marx’s preoccupation with the
development of the need for social change in the absence of a
critique of the barriers to social change. However, The Communist
Manifesto was written for the purpose of stirring up a
revolutionary vision in the working class. The main point here is
that in producing itself and the mechanisms by which it operates,
bourgeois society also produces its own grave-diggers or its
possible demise. As Antonio Negri argues, capitalism necessarily
produces two classes that are antagonistic to each other. The ruling
or bourgeois class produces its own negation. For Negri this is the
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nature of the dialectic in the work of Marx and especially in the
Grundrisse.
“We thus see, throughout the Grundrisse, a forward movement
in the theory, a more and more constraining movement which
permits us to perceive the fundamental moment constituted by
the antagonism between the collective worker and the collective
capitalist, an antagonism which appears in the form of the
crisis” (Negri 1991: 4).
By necessity, capitalism produces the class of wage-laborers
who sell their labor power to the capitalists. The obsession of the
capitalists with profit results in the exploitation of the worker.
Hence, the relationship between the worker and the capitalist is
antagonistic. The collective worker develops into a revolutionary
class that has as its task the negation of the relationship between
collective capitalists and the collective worker. In this way, the
collective workers become the grave diggers. In producing class
antagonisms capitalism produces the possibility of its own demise.
This possible demise of capitalism haunts it like a spectre.
The spectre of communism that Marx speaks of is also the
spectre of liberation insofar as with the coming revolution the
working class will be liberated from a life of toil, exploitation,
alienation, and oppression by the capitalists. The working class will
control and manage the means of production. I-It relationships will
be transformed into I-Thou relationships. Workers will not only
have their basic needs met but they will have adequate resources
for self-development and self-determination. However, we know
that such a dream never came true for the working class. What is
to be made of this spectre that haunts Europe?
The spectre of communism is a presence that has not yet
materialized. That is, it is a possibility or condition that hovers as a
yet to come. This “yet to come” signifies three things in Marxian
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The Spectre of Liberation and its Failure to Materialize
theory. First, it is anticipation of the development of revolutionary
consciousness in the working class. Second, the development of
revolutionary consciousness leads inevitably to revolutionary
activity whereby the working class attempts to overcome its
condition of alienation and exploitation. Third, this revolutionary
activity ushers in a new form of economic and social organization
(communism) wherein the working class now controls the means
of production. However, none of these conditions ever
materialized. The question for later Marxists would be by what
social, political, economic, and psychological mechanisms are the
three forms of the “yet to come” contained. Further, are there any
possibilities for the kind of social and economic change that Marx
envisioned?
Although Marx was right to claim that capitalism produces
its own gravediggers, we must pause to ask ourselves where are
the graves? Are the gravediggers still digging? In the history of
western Marxism there are a variety of answers to these questions.
Here I will focus on the approach of Herbert Marcuse. Like Hegel
before them, Marx and Marcuse were dialectical thinkers. It is not
the case that the dialectic was a method that one could apply to the
study of phenomena. For Hegel all things were by nature
dialectical. Marx and Marcuse would focus purely on the dialectical
nature of human social reality. Hence Marx developed a form of
historical materialism which is dialectical, not dialectical
materialism (which sees dialectic in nature). For Hegel, Marx and
Marcuse the term dialectic refers to a series of contradictions by
which social phenomena is constituted. Contradiction is that by
which history moves.
For Marx, the contradictions by which capitalism is
constituted are the very contradictions that would lead to its own
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Arnold Farr
destruction, hence, capitalism produces its own gravediggers. The
proletariat, which necessary for capitalism, is at the same time that
class which will rise up and overthrow capitalism. However, no
such revolution has taken place. In fact, it seems that the class who
should be the negation of capitalism has conformed to its demands.
Does this mean that there is no longer a spectre of liberation that
haunts capitalist societies?
I believe that the work of Herbert Marcuse suggests that
capitalist societies are still haunted by the spectre of liberation. This
haunting occurs in three realms for Marcuse. These realms are the
realm of reason, the realm of desire or the instincts, and the realm
of social/political and economic organization. As a philosopher
Marcuse has to grapple with the faculty of reason. What is the
work of reason in the human subject? In Kantian philosophy a
distinction is made between theoretical reason and practical reason.
This distinction permeates all German idealism and is carried over
into the Marxist tradition. For Kant, it was theoretical reason
(scientific reason) that made knowledge of the world possible.
However, this form of knowledge is limited insofar as it cannot
provide knowledge beyond the finite ways in which human beings
encounter the world. This form of reason is not our concern here.
The function of practical reason is more important for us
here. While theoretical reason can only provide knowledge of how
things are in their finite constitution, practical reason transcends
the present order of things and present us with a blueprint of how
things ought to be. That is, practical reason is the faculty of
morality by which we govern ourselves according to rational
principles. Practical reason is also freedom insofar as it is not
determined by the way the world is organized. Rather, it attempts
to shape the world according to principles. However, while the
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The Spectre of Liberation and its Failure to Materialize
notion of practical reason in German idealism appeared to focus on
changing the world it never became a revolutionary force. The
idealists were still too abstract in their development of the notion
of practical reason. In his second book on Hegel, Reason and
Revolution, Marcuse traces the development of reason from Hegel
to its more revolutionary form in Marx. It is true that the French
Revolution represented an attempt to bring certain enlightenment
ideas about freedom and equality to fruition. However, the project
of human liberation was never complete as the new bourgeois
society came with its own restraints on individual freedom. The
German idealists did see in the French Revolution the
manifestation of their ideas. Marcuse writes:
“German idealism has been called the theory of the French
Revolution. This does not imply that Kant, Fichte, Schelling,
and Hegel furnished a theoretical interpretation of the French
Revolution, but that they wrote their philosophy largely as a
response to the challenge from France to reorganize the state
and society on a rational basis, so that social and political
institutions might accord with freedom and interest of the
individual”.
He continues:
“The ideas of the French Revolution thus appear in the very
core of the idealistic systems, and, to a great extent, determine
their conceptual structure. As the German Idealists saw it, the
French Revolution not only abolished feudal absolutism,
replacing it with the economic and political system of the
middle class, but it completed what the German Reformation
had begun, emancipating the individual as a self-reliant master
of his life. Man’s position in the world, the mode of his labor
and enjoyment, was no longer to depend on some external
authority, but on his own free rational activity” (Marcuse 1992:
3).
In German idealist philosophy, practical reason presents
itself as a demand for self-determination. To be self-determining is
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to have the freedom to give shape to one’s life without interference
from heteronomous forces. Hence, reason presents itself as a kind
of mental or intellectual drive toward self-determination. Human
life ought to be ordered by principles that every rational person
would agree on if thinking rationally and not by external authority.
Regarding Hegel’s view of reason Marcuse argues that the human
being as a thinking creature seeks to organize reality according to
the demands of free rational thinking rather than conforming to
the existing order of things (Marcuse 1992: 6). Hence, the function
of reason is to freely organize the world or social reality in a way
that meets the basic needs of the human person. Reason is not
bound by the facts of human life, it seeks to transform those facts.
Reason, therefore, is not based on how things are but rather on
how things ought to be. Reason is the negation of the present
reality principle. The following passage by Marcuse sums this up
well.
“The mark of this essential freedom is the fact that the thinking
subject is not chained to the immediately given forms of being,
but is capable of transcending them and changing them in line
with his concepts. The freedom of the thinking subject, in turn,
involves his moral and practical freedom. For, the truth he
envisions is not an object for passive contemplation, but an
objective potentiality calling for realization” (Marcuse 1992:
255).
The task of reason is first to produce concepts and then
attempt to transform the world according to those concepts.2 This
is important for our later discussion of Marcuse’s view of utopian
thinking.
As Marcuse transitions from his critique of Hegel to Marx we
get a transition from philosophy to social theory. If the ideas of
reason are to come to fruition, then an analysis of the conditions or
2 The work of J.G. Fichte is probably the best example of this view.
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The Spectre of Liberation and its Failure to Materialize
lack thereof for the manifestation of these ideas must be carried
out. The ideas of reason always present themselves within a
particular form of social organization. Hence, these ideas can be
used for purposes that violate the quest for liberation. For example,
if the ideas of reason come under the sway of technical progress
then such ideas may lead to the production of merely instrumental
rationality.
As Marcuse transitions from Hegel to Marx or from
philosophy to social theory In Part Two of Reason and Revolution
he discusses the negation of philosophy. This builds on Marx’s
view that the purpose of philosophy is to transcend itself. In
Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction, Marx
claims that one has to transcend philosophy to realize it and one
realizes philosophy by transcending it (Marx 2000b: 76). The point
is that philosophy produces the concept of freedom but philosophy
must be transcended if the concept of freedom is to be realized in
actual social life and in social relations. Marcuse follows this line of
thought in Reason and Revolution and in an earlier essay entitled
“Philosophy and Critical Theory.” In both texts Marcuse shows
how Hegel’s philosophical concepts become economic concepts in
the work of Marx. If freedom is to be actualized we must transition
from philosophical questions to economic, political, and social
questions. For it is the way in which economics, the political order,
and social relations are organize that either prohibit the material
manifestation of freedom or makes it possible. The utopian impulse
that permeates philosophy becomes a critique of the material
possibilities of its manifestation. Hence, reason turns from its
function of producing the concept of freedom to a critique of the
necessary conditions for the manifestation of freedom in the
material world.
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The second realm wherein the spectre of liberation haunts
our society is that of the instincts. In what some consider to be his
most optimistic and perhaps utopian books Marcuse attempts to
disclose the emancipatory potential of Freud’s theory of the
instincts. In the context of discussing the conflict between Thanatos
(the death drive) and Eros (the life instinct) Freud ends his
Civilization and its Discontents on a rather pessimistic note. It seems
that Freud takes these instincts to be hard wired in the human
being with no way to determine which instinct will win in their
battle for dominance. However, Marcuse argues that these instincts
are malleable and are subject to be shaped by the form of social
organization in which they exist. Marcuse actually uses Freud
against Freud. Freud himself makes Marcuse’s interpretation
possible. In his 1915 essay “Repression” Freud argues that the
repression is never a one-time thing. The repressed instinct always
attempts to reassert itself.3 Therefore, repression is an ongoing act.
The repressed instinct refuses complete erasure. While Freud
expressed uncertainty as to which drive, Eros (the life instinct and
the builder of culture) or Thanatos (the death instinct) would win in
their eternal battle, Marcuse argues that it is a matter of social
organization. That is, the way in which a society is structured and
the values of that society strengthens one of the drives and
weakens the other. For example, the capitalist obsession with
individualism and competition tends to strengthen the death drive.
However, Eros is never put under complete erasure. It
continues to assert itself in phantasy, art, imagination, and by other
means. Marcuse writes:
“However, phantasy (imagination) retains the structure and
the tendencies of the psyche prior to its organization by the
reality, prior to its becoming an ‘individual’ set off against
3 See Freud (1949: 84-97).
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The Spectre of Liberation and its Failure to Materialize
other individuals. And by the same token, like the id to which
it remains committed, imagination preserves the ‘memory’ of
the subhistorical past when the life of the individual was the
life of the genus, the image of the immediate unity between the
universal and the particular under the rule of the pleasure
principle” (Marcuse 1966a: 142-143).
However, in advanced industrial societies the instinctual
structure of individuals gets organized by the performance
principle of such societies. Hence, the feeling of unity with others
or the sense of connection is replaced by competition and conflict
between individuals. Nevertheless, “In and against the world of the
antagonistic principium individuationis, imagination sustains the
claim of the whole individual, in union with the genus and with the
‘archaic’ past” (Marcuse 1966a: 143).
The return of the repressed is like a haunting at the biological
level. The repressed instincts exist as the potential of another form
of life, they contain possibilities for a life that is opposite of the
present order of things. To this end, they serve as the possible
negation of the present performance principle. Marcuse’s use of
Freud’s theory of human instincts leads him to argue that there is a
biological basis for liberation and socialism. In An Essay on
Liberation He writes:
“Prior to all ethical behavior in accordance with specific social
standards, prior to all ideological expression, morality is a
‘disposition’ of the organism, perhaps rooted in the erotic drive
to counter aggressiveness, to create and preserve ‘even greater
unities’, of life. We would then have this side of all ‘values’, an
instinctual foundation for the solidarity among human beings
—a solidarity which has been effectively repressed in line with
the requirements of class society but which now appears as a
precondition for liberation” (Marcuse 1969: 10).
Marcuse argues that even the concept of morality is shaped
by the social demands of capitalist societies. While morality was
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perhaps a drive to counter aggressiveness and strive for a higher
unity within human life, a class-based society demands disunity
and competition between individuals. Class society opposes a
society built on solidarity and mutual recognition. The politics of
corporate capitalism and consumer economy has produced in
human beings a second nature which puts under erasure the drive
toward unity and solidarity (Marcuse 1969: 11). However, the
erasure of the drive toward higher unities cannot be completely
erased. It continues to haunt the individual as the possible negation
of the second nature created by a class society. Herein lies
Marcuse’s hope for possible social change.
So far we have located and discussed two distinct areas or
human functions wherein we might find the spectre of liberation.
They are reason and the instincts. However, in a repressive and
oppressive society these two human functions can be put against
each other. Marcuse addresses this conflict in Eros and Civilization.
It is interesting that for the first four chapters of the book Marcuse
discusses and revises Freud’s theory of the instincts to reveal their
emancipatory function. However, chapter five, “A Philosophical
Interlude” represents a break in the text. In this chapter Marcuse
backs up a bit to articulate the importance of Freud. Here Marcuse
challenges what we might call a mis-development of reason. In the
western philosophical tradition, reason (Logos) has been
transformed into a logic of domination. This idea is similar to what
Horkheimer and Adorno called instrumental reason. Here, reason
(Logos) is isolated from Eros and used to subdue Eros. Marcuse
does not seek to establish the dominance of Eros over Logos but
rather to restore Eros to its rightful place alongside of Logos.
“The struggle begins with the perpetual internal conquest of
the ‘lower’ faculties of the individual: his sensuous and
appetitive faculties. Their subjugation is, at least since Plato,
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The Spectre of Liberation and its Failure to Materialize
regarded as a constitutive element of human reason, which is
thus in its very function repressive. The struggle culminates in
the conquest of external nature, which must be perpetually
attacked, curbed, and exploited in order to yield to human
needs. The ego experiences being as ‘provocation, as ‘project’;
it experiences each existential condition as a restraint that has
to be overcome, transformed into another one” (Marcuse
1966a: 110).
“Reason is to insure, through the ever more effective
transformation and exploitation of nature, the fulfillment of
human potentialities. But in the process the end seems to
recede before the means: the time devoted to alienated labor
absorbs the time for individual needs—and defines the needs
themselves. The Logos shows forth as the logic of domination”
(ibid.: 111).
It is unfortunate that the Western philosophical tradition has
developed in such a way that reason (the source of the idea of
freedom) has been used for that sake of repression. While some
repression is needed just so human beings can co-exist (Marcuse
calls this basic repression) capitalists societies develop in such a
way that individuals are repressed beyond the level need for
human co-existence. Marcuse calls this extra degree of repression
surplus repression. Hence, reason or Logos is use to force
individuals to conform to the present performance principle. As we
saw earlier, reason or Logos now operates within the context of a
consumer economy and as such it creates in the individual a
second nature that ties the individual libidinally and aggressively to
the commodity form (Marcuse 1969: 11).
The purpose of this philosophical interlude is to use Freud as
a corrective to the logic of domination that has been produced by
Western philosophy. With Eros restored to its rightful place
alongside Logos we have the unity of two sources as the ground
for liberation. The result of this unification is what Marcuse calls
the new “rationality of gratification.” The struggle for happiness
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and reason converge in the rationality of gratification. Reason and
the instincts are now capable of working together to envision a
qualitatively better and non-repressive form of life that is designed
to meet the needs of the human individual.
I said earlier that the third domain in which there is a
haunting and quest for liberation is society itself. After all, it is the
structure and form of organization of a given society that either
conceals or discloses the possibility for liberation. It is the structure
and form of organization of a society that makes liberation possible
or impossible. The question is, what type of haunting is there in
capitalist societies that might open the door for liberation. This will
be addressed in our next section.
2. Utopia as Ideology and as the Negation of the
Possibility of Liberation
What is the status of the concept of utopia in the work of
Marcuse? This question must be asked not because Marcuse was a
utopian thinker nor because he did use the term from time to time.
It must be asked because of its ideological use against
emancipatory projects. While there is a tradition of utopian
thinking and literature in the Western world, the term is often used
to shut down discussions of the possibility of real social change.
Many of us who fight for social change are accustomed to being
labeled utopian. In Eros and Civilization Marcuse says: “The
relegation of real possibilities to the no-man’s land of utopia is
itself an essential element of the ideology of the performance
principle” (Marcuse 1966a: 150). We saw in an earlier passage that
Marcuse believed that the imagination produces an image of a lost
unity between the individual and the universal. That is, it produces
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The Spectre of Liberation and its Failure to Materialize
an image of a subhistorical past prior to the principle of
individuation. He also speaks of a subhistorical unity between the
pleasure principle and the reality principle.
However, more important than the image of our
subhistorical past is what can be imagined and fulfilled in the
present. Marcuse writes: “The historical factor contained in Freud’s
theory of instincts has come to fruition in history when the basic
Ananke (Lebensnot) – which, for Freud, provided the rationale for
the repressive reality principle – is undermined by the progress of
civilization” (Marcuse 1966a: 151). Here we get to the heart of
Marcuse’s critique of the concept of utopia as a form of ideology.
The distinction that Marcuse makes between basic repression and
surplus repression in Chapter Two of Eros and Civilization is
relevant here. We know that a certain amount of repression is
needed just for human beings to co-exist. Further, the struggle for
life compels us to repress certain drives insofar as we must engage
in labor to overcome scarcity. However, both Marcuse and Marx
anticipated a form of technological development that would make
it possible to decrease labor time and engage in more fulfilling
activities. Marcuse even believed that the realm of necessity (labor)
and the realm of freedom (pleasure) would no longer have to be
separate realms. However, what we have witnessed instead is the
perpetual growth of the mechanisms of repression and the
reduction of the realm of freedom. Under capitalism the reality
principle in its historical form becomes a performance principle
that demands more repression for the sake of domination.
One of the principle mechanisms used by the performance
principle is the notion of scarcity. Marcuse argues that in advanced
technological society scarcity is no longer a problem. Instead, the
distribution of scarcity is the problem. That is, the basic structure of
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capitalist society produces scarcity in one segment of society and
enormous wealth in another. In fact, most capitalist societies
already have the necessary resources to end poverty and useless
toil. However, the notion of scarcity is employed to maintain the
present level of toil and poverty among the majority of people.
Therefore, people are further exploited for the financial gain of the
most wealthy members of our society. The concept of scarcity
continues to drive competition among and division among
members of the working class.4 Members of capitalist societies are
asked to perform as if scarcity is a reality. Hence, the present
performance principle is maintained and any possible social change
is contained. Therefore, according to the present performance
principle, any talk of social change or expansion of the realm of
freedom is an appeal to an impossible utopia. The practice of
referring to calls for qualitative social change as utopian functions
to shut down any political discourse that points out the real
possibilities for social change. As such, it functions to maintain the
status quo or the present order of things and is therefore merely
ideological.
3. The End of Utopia
Marcuse believed that capitalist societies have developed in
such a way that they have made certain concepts and world views
obsolete. Notions such as scarcity and utopia have both become
obsolete. Capitalism is now haunted by its own “other” the
possibility for a socialist society. The historical development of
capitalism has produced a new kind of grave digger. It has
4 “Class” here is used in a broader sense than Marx’s notion of the industrial
proletariat. In the last decade of his life Marcuse began to work with a
concept of the working class that included white collar workers.
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The Spectre of Liberation and its Failure to Materialize
produced the material resources that undermines its own narrative
regarding scarcity. The very presence of an abundance of material
resources and technology makes obsolete the degree of repression
present in capitalist societies. Hence, the demand for a qualitative
better form of life is not a blind utopian dream but it is a real
material possibility. In a lecture from 1967 entitled “The End of
Utopia” Marcuse writes:
“Today any form of the concrete world, of human life, any
transformation of the technical and natural environment is a
possibility, and the locus of this possibility is historical. Today
we have the capacity to turn the world into hell, and we are
well on the way to doing so. We also have the capacity to turn
it into the opposite of hell. This would mean the end of utopia,
that is, the refutation of those ideas and theories that use the
concept of utopia to denounce certain socio-historical
possibilities” (Marcuse 2014: 249).
Marcuse’s point is that the present social order contains
within itself its own possibility for transformation. Things could be
otherwise for better or for worse. To refer to the present order of
things as if things cannot be otherwise is oppressive and is itself a
form of utopianism. It is to say that the present order of things is
the best possible order of things. He writes in “A Note on Dialectic”
“This power of facts is an oppressive power; it is the power of man
over man, appearing as objective and rational condition” (Marcuse
2007: 71) The power of facts is oppressive insofar as it becomes
totalitarian and absorbs all opposition to the present social order
(ibid.: 67). In capitalist societies those who have no wealth and do
not own, control, or manage the means of production are
dominated by those with wealth and the power to own, control, or
manage the means of production. Hence, our social reality becomes
one of class conflict and the domination of one group by another.
This social order is a social fact. However, it is a fact that contains
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the possibility of being otherwise, that is, it contains the possibility
of ending the domination of some human groups by others.
According to Marcuse, one-dimensional thinking only sees social
facts, that is, things are they are. Two-dimensional or dialectical
thinking sees in the present order of things its potential to be
otherwise. The view that the facts are all that there are is an
ideological view that establishes and protects the dominant group.
Opposition to the present order is declared to be utopian thinking
because a new and better order is taken to be impossible.
This way of thinking is rejected by Marcuse. For this reason
he believes that the concept of utopia is obsolete and serves
ideological purposes. Marcuse’s notion of the great refusal is the
rejection of the idea that the facts of the oppressive social world are
the only possible mode of human existence. These facts contain the
undeveloped possibilities for a better world. Critical consciousness
rejects the narrative that suggests that the present form of social
organization is fixed or final. The vision of a qualitatively better
society can no longer be called utopian since real possibilities for a
qualitatively better form of life do exist. However, the refusal to
bring these emancipatory possibilities to fruition may also create
the conditions for a qualitatively worse form of life. This we will
explore in the next section.
4. Another Haunting: The Dialectic of Liberation
and Barbarism
Unfortunately, this paper must end on a very sobering note.
This sobering note is not written in the spirit of pessimism, but
rather, in the Marcusean dialectical spirit. While capitalist societies
are haunted by the spectre of liberation, the critical theorists must
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The Spectre of Liberation and its Failure to Materialize
also be cognizant of another haunting or spectre, the spectre of
barbarism. While there is a possibility that with the proper use of
present resources and technology things could get better, there is
still the possibility that things can get worse. In a paper entitled
“Marcuse’s Concept of Dimensionality: A Political Interpretation”
Marcuse’s son Peter Marcuse (2017) attempts to expand that
concept of dimensionality in a way that reveals a tension between
four dimensions of our society. I will address three of them here.
We’ve already talked about one-dimensionality which refers to a
kind of flattening out of critical consciousness. This type of
thinking reduces reality to the bare facts and fails to see within
those facts alternative possibilities. Marcuse opposes to this form of
thinking two-dimensional thinking wherein one is capable of
seeing real, concrete possibilities for a new and liberated form of
life.
We must be aware that the kind of society that produces
one-dimensional thinking is an oppressive society with a social
agenda driven by the need for total social and political domination.
Such a society does not stand still, it is always in motion as the
forces of domination seek to draw every space for critical thinking
and resistance into its orbit. The forces of domination never stand
still. Hence, the same society that is haunted by the spectre of
liberation is also haunted by the spectre of barbarism. While this
thesis is not developed by Herbert Marcuse, he does open the door
for the critique that has been carried out by Peter Marcuse. In a
passage cited earlier H. Marcuse said, “Today we have the capacity
to turn the world into hell, and we are well on the way to doing so”
(Marcuse 2014: 249). Marcuse turned his attention to our capacity
to turn the world into the opposite of hell. He was more concerned
with revealing and bringing to fruition the specter of liberation.
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However, today we find ourselves in a position similar to that of
the Frankfurt School in the 1920s and 1930s. While they had to
address not only the failure of the Marxian/Marxist revolution to
materialize, they also had to deal with the fact that those who
would most benefit from the revolution were most likely to resist
it. Today, we have to face not only the failure of the revolution or
liberation to materialize, we have to address the possibility of new
forms of barbarism. In his article Peter Marcuse sees liberation and
barbarism as two different dimensions of the present social order.
The critical theorist must not only examine the possibility of
liberation and the mechanisms of one-dimensionality, she must
also examine the possibility of new forms of barbarism that are
equally present in the present order of things. I will conclude this
paper by briefly addressing the present condition of the United
States. I hope that my brief statements about the US will be useful
for critical theorists from other parts of the world.
It is no secret that Donald Trump and his administration has
set the US back generations. The country that once saw itself as the
champion of democracy is now threatening to erupt into a form of
barbarism that most Americans did not believe possible. The rise of
blatant forms of white supremacy, the disrespect for women, the
attack on environmental agencies, the cutting of ties with some of
our most important allies, self-imposed isolation from the rest of
the world, the replacement of negotiation with threats and
bullying, the hostility that fills political discourse in America are
just a few developments in our stride toward barbarism. So, it
seems as if the spectre of barbarism may win out over the spectre
of liberation.
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 caught most
Americans off guard. After the election a dark mood of depression
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The Spectre of Liberation and its Failure to Materialize
and utter disbelief fell on America. Some on the left were tempted
to give up in despair. On the other hand, many Americans who had
never before been politically active became anti-Trump activists.
However, there were a few among us who were not surprised and
did not enter a period of despair. This was so because the ascension
of Trump should have come as no surprise for the critical theorist
who understands the two spectres that haunts American society.
The very refusal to allow the possibility of liberation to materialize
only strengthens the possibility of barbarism. Marcuse himself
makes a similar point in his discussion of the struggle between
Thanatos and Eros. In an oppressive society the aggressive instincts
are nourished at the expense of the life instincts. Hence, such a
society tends toward barbarism. The need of the oppressive society
to produce one-dimensional thinking by flattening out the
possibility of critical thinking also produces the trend toward
barbarism. Trump is the logical outcome of a society that has
systematically put under erasure the possibility of liberation for the
oppressed, repressed, exploited, and alienated in that society.
Prior to Trump, racism was used to manipulate poor
working class white people. Using race to divide and conquer poor
working class blacks and whites protected the power elite who rob
both working class blacks and whites of the necessary resources
for self-development and self-determination as well as their
humanity. The election of Barak Obama in 2008 and 2012 led to a
form of race based fear that was protected and nourished by
republicans in the US. The “othering” of Obama, the rise of the Tea
Party, the cry “take our country back,” and the birther movement
(led by Trump) all brought to the surface America’s deep seated
race problem and the way that politicians have always used racism
to further economic exploitation. While America had developed
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the resources and technology to end poverty in the country it
increased the exploitation of the worker and poverty continued to
increase. At every turn policies were put in place to whittle down
critical consciousness. For example; programs in the Humanities
are being defunded all over the country. More and more citizens
are encouraged to get a trade. This is all done under the façade of
helping Americans get jobs. Hence, education is reduced to
acquiring a skill set for getting a job and not the cultivation of
critical consciousness. As a result uneducated white workers suffer
from the lack of critical consciousness and are victims of economic
injustice and exploitation. They then are encouraged to blame
blacks, Hispanics, and other people of color for their economic
suffering.
With regard to the potential for liberation and the co-existence
of a tendency toward barbarism we find ourselves standing almost in
the place where Freud stood at the end of Civilization and its
Discontents when he despaired that we do not know who the winner
will be in the eternal battle between Eros and Thanatos. Marcuse’s
Eros and Civilization was an attempt to rescue Frebud’s drive theory
from this apparent pessimism. The repressed human drives, Eros
especially, refuses to simply surrender to the performance principle
of repressive societies. They live in fantasy and in the imagination.
They may very well come to fruition when the conditions for their
possible liberation are present. However, we have seen that capitalist
societies perpetually respond to the possible liberation of human
beings with greater mechanisms of oppression. Even after
recognizing the revolutionary potential of various social groups
Marcuse made us aware of the possibility of barbarism. Toward the
end of One-Dimensional Man Marcuse expresses hope in what he
calls “the substratum of the outcasts and outsiders, the exploited and
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The Spectre of Liberation and its Failure to Materialize
persecuted of other races and other colors, the unemployed and the
unemployable” (Marcuse 1966b: 256). These above groups live
outside of the democratic process. Although they may vote, the can
only vote for one master or the other. Marcuse has reminded us that
this form of voting does not abolish the masters nor the slaves (ibid.:
7). These groups are members of our society live under intolerable
conditions and therefore are in opposition to the system that
produces these intolerable conditions.
These groups mentioned by Marcuse can be interpreted as
capitalism’s contemporary grave diggers. It is in their opposition to
the system that the specter of liberation haunts capitalist societies.
According to Marcuse, their opposition is revolutionary because
their existence violates the rules and reveals that the game is rigged.
That is, the intolerable conditions under which they live discloses
that the system is designed to work for a small few while producing
misery for the majority. At this point Marcuse begins to sound more
like the Freud of the end of Civilization and its Discontents. At the
end of One-Dimensional Man Marcuse continues to hope for the
development of revolutionary consciousness and social change.
However, he is also aware of the tendency toward barbarism.
Nevertheless, the spectre of liberation is never completely put under
erasure and the capitalist system continues to produce new grave
diggers. Even while misery increases, the resources needed to end
unnecessary human suffering also increases.
In America it was a pre-Trump form of normalcy that gave
birth to Trump and the present crisis, the stride toward barbarism.
Many middle-class Americans and some progressives were not
inclined to expose and overthrow the oppressive and repressive
forces in American society because they were comfortable. Since
the election of Trump many of these same people have become
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activists because their lives are now threatened. Is it too late? The
conditions for a Trump presidency and all that comes with it has
existed in America for decades. Even members of the Frankfurt
School knew that there were fascist possibilities at work in
America. Trump and America’s stride toward barbarism is the
result of ignoring the presence of real possibilities for a
qualitatively better society. My hope is that what is happening in
America will shed light on the problem of ignoring the potential of
a society to develop social mechanisms for liberation while at the
same time ignoring its possibilities to fall into barbarism. The
demand for a qualitatively better society is not empty utopian
thinking when a given society is critically evaluated not just on the
facts but in light of the real potential for change contained in those
facts.
References
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________. One-Dimensional Man. Boston: Beacon Press, 1966b.
________. An Essay on Liberation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969.
________. “A Note on Dialectic”. In: The Essential Marcuse:
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