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Herbert Marcuse Biography

Herbert Marcuse

Herbert Marcuse (German: [maʀˈkuːzə]; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was 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 (1924–1951), Inge Neumann (1955–1972), and Erica Sherover (1976–1979). In his written works, he criticized capitalism, modern technology, historical materialism and entertainment culture, arguing that they represent new forms of social control.

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Herbert Marcuse Quotes

The liberating force of technology the instrumentalization of things turns into. . . the instrumentalization of man.

Technology, Men, Force, Things, Instrumentalization, Turns

[Art] can speak its own language only as long as the images are alive which refuse and refute the established order.

Art, Established, Images, Long, Order

Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.

Abolish, Doe, Election, Free, Historical, Masters

The slaves of developed industrial civilization are sublimated slaves.

Civilization, Developed, Industrial, Slave, Sublimated

The neo-conservative critics of leftist critics of mass culture ridicule the protest against Bach as background music in the kitchen, against Plato and Hegel, Shelley and Baudelaire, Marx and Freud in the drugstore. Instead, they insist on recognition of the fact that the classics have left the mausoleum and come to life again, that people are just so much more educated. True, but coming to life as classics, they come to life as other than themselves; they are deprived of their antagonistic force, of the estrangement which was the very dimension of their truth.

Come, Culture, Fact, Mass Culture, People, Plato

One-dimensional thought is systematically promoted by the makers of politics and their purveyors of mass information. Their universe of discourse is populated by self-validating hypotheses which, incessantly and monopolistically repeated, become hyponotic definitions of dictations.

Definitions, Incessantly, Information, Promoted, Self, Thought

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.

Claims, Enlarged, Pleasure, Principles, Satisfaction, Socially

Technical progress and more comfortable living permit the systematic inclusion of libidinal components into the realm of commodity production and exchange. But no matter how controlled the mobilization of instinctual energy may be (it sometimes amounts to a scientific management of libido), no matter how much it may serve as a prop for the status quo it is also gratifying to the managed individuals, just as racing the outboard motor, pushing the power lawn mower, and speeding the automobile are fun.

Automobile, Fun, Libidinal, Motor, Progress, Racing

Entertainment and learning are not opposites; entertainment may be the most effective mode of learning.

Entertainment, Learning, May, Mode, Opposites

Coming to life as classics, they come to life as other than themselves; they are deprived of their antagonistic force, of the estrangement which was the very dimension of their truth.

Antagonistic, Dimensions, Force, Life, Mausoleum

While it [tolerance] is more or less quietly and constitutionally withdrawn from the opposition, it is made compulsory behavior with respect to established policies.

Behavior, Established, Made, Respect, Tolerance, Withdrawn

The range of choice open to the individual is not the decisive factor in determining the degree of human freedom, but what can be chosen and what is chosen by the individual.

Choices, Degrees, Individual, Open, Human, Chosen

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.

Effort, Intellectual, Life, Rejection, Worth

The world of immediate experience the world in which we find ourselves living must be comprehended, transformed, even subverted in order to become that which it really is.

Comprehended, Living, Order, Transformed, World

Contemporary industrial society is now characterised more than ever by the need for stupefying work where it is no longer a real necessity.

Contemporary, Industrial, Needs, Real, Work

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.

Gone, Leader, Leaders, Mistake, Mistakes

The web of domination has become the web of Reason itself, and this society is fatally entangled in it.

Become, Domination, Fatally, Reason, This Society

This mutual dependencies no longer the dialectical relationship between master and servant, which has been broken in the struggle for mutual recognition, but rather a vicious circle which encloses both the master and the servant. Do the technicians rule, or is their rule that of the others, who rely on the technicians as their planners and executors?

Broken, Circles, Encloses, Relationship, Rely, Struggle

Nobody really thinks who does not abstract from that which is given, who does not relate the facts to the factors which have made them, who does not in his mind undo the facts. Abstractness is the very life of thought, the token of its authenticity.

Abstract, Doe, Given, Mind, Thinking, Token

The philosopher. . . subjects experience to his critical judgment, and this contains a value judgment namely, that freedom from toil is preferable to toil, and an intelligent life is preferable to a stupid life. It so happened that philosophy was born with these values. Scientific thought had to break this union of value judgment and analysis, for it became increasingly clear that the philosophic values did not guide the organisation of society.

Intelligent, Philosophy, Preferable, Scientific, Stupid

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