Negations Essays in Critical Theory Herbert Marcuse may fly Negations Herbert Marcuse Herbert Marcuse’s Negations is both a radical critique of capitalist modernity and a model of materialist dialectical thinking. In a series of essays, originally written in the period stretching from the 1930s to 1960s, Marcuse takes up the presupposed categories that have, and continue to, ground thought and action in our administered society: liberalism, industrialism, individualism, hedonism, aggres- sion. This book is both a testament to a great thinker and a still vital strand of thought in the comprehension and critique of the mod- ern organized world. It is essential reading for younger scholars and a radical reminder for those steeped in the tradition of a critical theory of society. With a brilliance of conception combined with an insistence on the material conditions of thought and action, this book speaks both to the particular contents engaged and to the fundamental grounds of any critique of organized modernity. may fly www.mayfl ybooks.org Today, at one and the same time, scholarly publishing is drawn in two directions. On the one hand, this is a time of the most exciting theoretical, political and artistic projects that respond to and seek to move beyond global administered society. On the other hand, the publishing industries are vying for total control of the ever-lucrative arena of scholarly publication, creating a situation in which the means of distribution of books grounded in research and in radical interrogation of the present are increasingly restricted. In this context, MayFlyBooks has been established as an independent publishing house, publishing political, theoretical and aesthetic works on the question of organization. MayFlyBooks publications are published under Creative Commons license free online and in paperback. MayFlyBooks is a not- for-profit operation that publishes books that matter, not because they reinforce or reassure any existing market. 1. Herbert Marcuse, Negations: Essays in Critical Theory NEGATIONS Negations: Essays in Critical Theory Herbert Marcuse With Translations from the German by Jeremy J. Shapiro First published by Allen Lane, Penguin Press, 1968. Published by MayFlyBooks in paperback in London and free online at www.mayflybooks.org in 2009. Printed by the MPG Books Group in the UK. With permission of the Literary Estate of Herbert Marcuse, Peter Marcuse, Executor. Supplementary material from previously unpublished work of Herbert Marcuse, much now in the Archives of the Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main, has been and will be published by Routledge Publishers, England, in a six-volume series edited by Douglas Kellner and by zu Klampen Verlag in a five-volume German series edited by Peter-Erwin Jansen. All rights to further publication are retained by the Estate. CC: Literary Estate of Herbert Marcuse, Peter Marcuse, 2009. ISBN (Print) 978-1-906948-04-7 ISBN (PDF) 978-1-906948-05-4 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Contents Contents vii Acknowledgements ix Translator’s Note xi Foreword to the 2009 Edition Steffen Böhm and Campbell Jones xiii Foreword xvii 1 The struggle against liberalism in the totalitarian view of the state 1 2 The concept of essence 31 3 The affirmative character of culture 65 4 Philosophy and critical theory 99 5 On hedonism 119 6 Industrialization and capitalism in the work of Max Weber 151 7 Love mystified: A critique of Norman O. Brown 171 8 Aggressiveness in advanced industrial societies 187 Notes 203 Acknowledgements Chapter 1 originally published in German in Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, vol. III (1934). Chapter 2 originally published in German in Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, vol. V (1936). Chapter 3 originally published in German in Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, vol. VI (1937). Chapter 4 originally published in German in Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, vol. VI (1937). Chapter 5 originally published in German in Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, vol. VII (1938). Chapter 6 first published in German in Max Weber und die Soziologie heute (1964). This translation is based on a revised form of the essay first published in German in Kultur in Gesellschaft (1965). Chapter 7 (‘Love Mystified’) was first published in Commentary, February 1967. Norman O. Brown’s response (‘A reply to Herbert Marcuse’) was published in Commentary in March 1967. Chapter 8 printed first in Negations (Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1968). [...]... for a learning – or a relearning – of what dialectical thinking, in a materialist register, can offer Because our suspicion is that Marcuse continues to inform, and indeed should continue to inform, the diverse and often self-servingly isolated critical vocabularies currently circulating This we hold to be the case from those concerned with the incorporation of critique in the production of a ‘new spirit... weltanschauung: ‘heroic-folkish1 realism’ became the governing theory Blood rises up against formal understanding, race against the rational pursuit of ends, honor against profit, bonds against the caprice that is called ‘freedom’, organic totality against individualistic dissolution, valor against bourgeois security, politics against the primacy of the economy, state against society, folk against the individual... death in 1979 These essays therefore precede, and can be read as preparations for, Reason and Revolution (1941), Marcuse’s elaboration of the negative philosophy which he takes from Hegel The final three chapters in Negations appeared later, in the mid through late 1960s, in the years following the publication of One-Dimensional Man in 1964, in those years in which Marcuse was elevated into a public intellectual... founded in an understanding of the realities of ‘actually existing’ capitalist relations In the world of academic fashion, every dog will have its day There is little point in taking issue with those who have set themselves to sidestep the work of Marcuse, and others, in their interest to create ever more radical thought Rather, we offer this book as something of an invitation, an invitation for a learning... general interest and private interests, as well as social inequality are ultimately overcome in the all-encompassing harmony of the whole, and that the whole thus becomes a blessing for the individual.17 Here, in the center of the liberalist system, society is interpreted through its reduction to ‘nature’ in its harmonizing function: as the evasive justification of a contradictory social order.18 Looking... happiness, or theory bore evidence of inner disunity In an authentic way they revealed the genuine potentialities of man and of nature as being in contradiction to the given reality of man and of nature; thus they were eminently critical concepts At the same time, however, they invalidated this contradiction by giving it ontological stability This was the specific situation of idealism that culminated... the civil war in Spain and the trials in Moscow The new period saw the suppression, crippling, and neutralization of the classes and forces that, due to their real interests, embodied hope for the end of inhumanity In the advanced industrial countries, the subordination and coordination of the suppressed is effected through the total administration of the productive forces and the growing satisfaction... whose social meaning we shall come to later Compared with heroic-folkish realism, liberalism is a rationalist theory Its vital element is optimistic faith in the ultimate victory of reason, which will realize itself above all conflicts of interest and 10 Struggle Against Liberalism in Totalitarianism opinion in the harmony of the whole In keeping with its economic views, liberalism links this victory... breaking through the administered consciousness is a precondition of liberation Thought in contradiction must be capable of comprehending and expressing the new potentialities of a qualitatively different existence It must be capable of surpassing the force of technological repression and of incorporating into its concepts the elements of gratification that are suppressed and perverted in this xxiii Negations. .. was correct in it has since become, perhaps not false, but a thing of the past To be sure, the concern with philosophy expressed in these essays was already, in the thirties, a concern with the past: remembrance of something that at some point had lost its reality and had to be taken up again Precisely at that time, beaten or betrayed, the social forces in which freedom and revolution were joined were . Peter Marcuse, 2009. ISBN (Print) 97 8-1 -9 0694 8-0 4-7 ISBN (PDF) 97 8-1 -9 0694 8-0 5-4 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported reassure any existing market. 1. Herbert Marcuse, Negations: Essays in Critical Theory NEGATIONS Negations: Essays in Critical Theory Herbert Marcuse With Translations from the German by. chapters in Negations appeared later, in the mid through late 1960s, in the years following the publication of One-Dimensional Man in 1964, in those years in which Marcuse was elevated into a