''One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society'' is a 1964 book by the philosopher and
critical theorist
A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from socia ...
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse (; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German-American philosopher, social critic, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at the Humboldt University ...
, in which the author offers a wide-ranging critique of both contemporary
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
and the Communist society of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, documenting the parallel rise of new forms of
social repression
Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment or exercise of power, often under the guise of governmental authority or cultural opprobrium. Oppression may be overt or covert, depending on how it is practiced. Oppression refers to discrimination w ...
in both these societies, as well as the decline of revolutionary potential in the West. He argues that "advanced industrial society" created
false needs, which integrated individuals into the existing system of production and consumption via mass media, advertising, industrial management, and contemporary modes of thought.
This results in a "one-dimensional" universe of thought and behavior, in which aptitude and ability for
critical thought and oppositional behavior wither away. Against this prevailing climate, Marcuse promotes the "great refusal" (described at length in the book) as the only adequate opposition to all-encompassing methods of control. Much of the book is a defense of "negative thinking" as a disrupting force against the prevailing
positivism
Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. G ...
.
Marcuse also analyzes the integration of the industrial
working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
into capitalist society and new forms of capitalist stabilization, thus questioning the
Marxian postulates of the revolutionary proletariat and the inevitability of
capitalist crisis. In contrast to
orthodox Marxism
Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought that emerged after the death of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and which became the official philosophy of the majority of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until the Firs ...
, Marcuse champions non-integrated forces of
minorities, outsiders, and radical
intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the in ...
, attempting to nourish oppositional thought and behavior through promoting radical thinking and opposition. He considers the trends towards
bureaucracy
The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...
in supposedly Marxist countries to be as oppositional to freedom as those in the capitalist West.
''One-Dimensional Man'' bolstered Marcuse's fame as a contemporary Western philosopher.
Summary
Marcuse strongly criticizes
consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the supp ...
and modern "
industrial society
In sociology, industrial society is a society driven by the use of technology and machinery to enable mass production, supporting a large population with a high capacity for division of labour. Such a structure developed in the Western world i ...
", which he claims is a form of
social control. Marcuse argues that while the system we live in may claim to be
democratic, it is actually
totalitarian
Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regul ...
. A form of
technological rationality Technological rationality or technical rationality is a philosophical idea postulated by the Frankfurt School philosopher Herbert Marcuse in his 1941 article, "Some Social Implications of Modern Technology," published first in the journal Studies i ...
has imposed itself on every aspect of
culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
and
public life
''Public Life'' is the third studio album by singer Eddie Schwartz. It was released in 1984 by WEA in Canada.
Lead single "Strike" was a minor hit in Canada, reaching #47 on the RPM charts. The second single, " Special Girl", was a top 20 hit on ...
, and has become
hegemonic
Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one state over other states. In Ancient Greece (8th BC – AD 6th ), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the ''hegemon'' city-state over other city-states. ...
. Our identification with this
hegemonic ideology
Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one state over other states. In Ancient Greece (8th BC – AD 6th ), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the ''hegemon'' city-state over other city-states. ...
of
modern industrial society
Modern may refer to:
History
* Modern history
** Early Modern period
** Late Modern period
*** 18th century
*** 19th century
*** 20th century
** Contemporary history
* Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century
Phil ...
, this
ideology
An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...
doesn't only represent a form of "
false-conscious", yet rather has succeeded in becoming
reality
Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary. The term is also used to refer to the ontological status of things, indicating their existence. In physical terms, r ...
.
Modern industrial societies have furthermore created an "
affluent society
An affluent society is form of society characterized by material abundance for broad segments of the population.
A typical image for the affluent society is the literary topos of the Cockaigne, a mythical land of luxury goods. Similar terms, used ...
", which in increasing comfort have disguised the
exploitative nature of the system, and have therefore strengthened means of domination and control. Modern "affluent society" therefore limits opportunities for political revolution against capitalism.
In modern
consumer societies
A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. T ...
, Marcuse argues that a small number of individuals are empowered to dictate our perceptions of freedom by providing us with opportunities to buy our happiness. In this state of "unfreedom", consumers act irrationally by working more than they are required to in order to fulfill actual basic needs, by ignoring the psychologically destructive effects, by ignoring the waste and environmental damage it causes, and by searching for social connection through material items.
It is even more irrational in the sense that the creation of new products, calling for the disposal of old products, fuels the economy and encourages the need to work more to buy more. An individual loses his humanity and becomes a tool in the industrial machine and a cog in the consumer machine. Additionally, advertising sustains consumerism, which disintegrates
societal demeanor, delivered in bulk and informing the masses that happiness can be bought, an idea that is psychologically damaging.
There are alternatives to counter the consumer lifestyle.
Anti-consumerism
Anti-consumerism is a sociopolitical ideology that is opposed to consumerism, the continual buying and consuming of material possessions. Anti-consumerism is concerned with the private actions of business corporations in pursuit of financial and ...
is a lifestyle that demotes any unnecessary consumption, as well as unnecessary work, waste, etc. But even this alternative is complicated by the extreme interpenetration of advertising and
commodification
Within a capitalist economic system, commodification is the transformation of things such as goods, services, ideas, nature, personal information, people or animals into objects of trade or commodities.For animals"United Nations Commodity Trad ...
because everything is a commodity, even those things that are actual needs.
Reception
The critical theorist
Douglas Kellner
Douglas Kellner (born May 31, 1943) is an American academic who works at the intersection of "third-generation" critical theory in the tradition of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, or Frankfurt School, and in cultural studies in the ...
wrote that ''One-Dimensional Man'' was one of the most important books of the 1960s and one of the most subversive books of the twentieth century. Despite its pessimism, represented by the citation of the words of
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist.
An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...
at the end of this book that "''Nur um der Hoffnungslosen willen ist uns die Hoffnung gegeben''" ("It is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us"
), it influenced many in the
New Left
The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...
as it articulated their growing dissatisfaction with both capitalist societies and Soviet communist societies.
The philosopher Ronald Aronson wrote in 2018 that ''One-Dimensional Man'' is more prescient than Marcuse could have ever realized and that it is more relevant today than ever.
See also
*
Repressive desublimation Repressive desublimation is a term, first coined by Frankfurt School philosopher and sociologist Herbert Marcuse in his 1964 work '' One-Dimensional Man'', that refers to the way in which, in advanced industrial society (capitalism), "the progress ...
*
Totalitarian democracy
Totalitarian democracy or anarcho-monarchism is a term popularized by Israeli historian Jacob Leib Talmon to refer to a system of government in which lawfully elected representatives maintain the integrity of a nation state whose citizens, whi ...
*
Minority rights
Minority rights are the normal individual rights as applied to members of racial, ethnic, class, religious, linguistic or gender and sexual minorities, and also the collective rights accorded to any minority group.
Civil-rights movements ofte ...
*
J. L. Talmon
Jacob Leib Talmon (Hebrew: יעקב טלמון; June 14, 1916 – June 16, 1980) was Professor of Modern History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has been described as a 'Cold War liberal' because of the anti-Marxism which permeates h ...
* ''
Drux Flux
''Drux Flux'' is a 2008 animated short by Theodore Ushev, inspired by Herbert Marcuse’s treatise ''One-Dimensional Man''.
A film without words, ''Drux Flux'' uses figurative and abstract imagery to portray people as crushed by industry and pr ...
'', an animated short inspired by ''One-Dimensional Man''.
*''
Unflattening'', a scholarly graphic novel expanding on many ideas from ''One-Dimensional Man''.
*
Critical theory
A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from soci ...
*
Criticism of capitalism
Criticism of capitalism ranges from expressing disagreement with the principles of capitalism in its entirety to expressing disagreement with particular outcomes of capitalism.
Criticism of capitalism comes from various political and philoso ...
*
Inverted totalitarianism
The political philosopher Sheldon Wolin coined the term inverted totalitarianism in 2003 to describe what he saw as the emerging form of government of the United States. Wolin analysed the United States as increasingly turning into a managed dem ...
*
Superficiality
What social psychologists call "the principle of superficiality versus depth" has pervaded Western culture since at least the time of Plato.
Historical sketch
Socrates sought to convince his debaters to turn from the superficiality of a worldview ...
References
External links
Bibliographic listingincluding reviews and courses using the book
at marcuse.org
{{Authority control
1964 non-fiction books
Books critical of capitalism
Beacon Press books
English-language books
Frankfurt School
Sociology books
Works by Herbert Marcuse