Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcusewas a German-American philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at the universities of Berlin and then at Freiburg, where he received his Ph.D. He was a prominent figure in the Frankfurt-based Institute for Social Research – what later became known as the Frankfurt School. He was married to Sophie Wertheim, Inge Neumann, and Erica Sherover. In his written works, he criticized capitalism, modern technology, historical materialism and...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth18 July 1898
CountryGermany
Herbert Marcuse quotes about
Hypostatized into a ritual pattern, Marxian theory becomes ideology. But its content and function distinguish it from classical forms of ideology; it is not false consciousness, but a rather consciousness of falsehood, a falsehood which is corrected in the context of the higher truth represented by the objective historical interest.
When the whole is at stake, there is no crime except that of rejecting the whole, or not defending it. ... Those who identify themselves with the whole, who are installed as the leaders and defenders of the whole can make mistakes, but they cannot do wrong they are not guilty. They may become guilty again when this identification no longer holds, when they are gone.
The societal division of labor obtains the dignity of an ontological condition.
The tangible source of exploitation disappears behind the façade of objective rationality.
In conditions of private property ... "life-activity" stands in the service of property instead of property standing the service of free life-activity.
Domination has its own aesthetics, and democratic domination has its democratic aesthetics.
The judgment that human life is worth living, or rather can and ought to be made worth living, ... underlies all intellectual effort; it is the a priori of social theory, and its rejection (which is perfectly logical) rejects theory itself.
The Superego, in censoring the unconscious and in implanting conscience, also censors the censor.
The range of socially permissible and desirable satisfaction is greatly enlarged, but through this satisfaction, the Pleasure Principle is reduced deprived of the claims which are irreconcilable with the established society. Pleasure, thus adjusted, generates submission.
That which is cannot be true.
The functional language is a radically anti-historical language: operational rationality has little room and little use for historical reason.
The web of domination has become the web of Reason itself, and this society is fatally entangled in it.
Society ... can afford to grant more than before because its interests have become the innermost drives of its citizens.
This is the pure form of servitude: to exist as an instrument.