Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Cumpridas e obsoletas:
Pargrafo a pargrafo
Parte I
#1 (89) "A doutrina segundo a qual"
Conhecimento Prxis (Grcia Antiga)
Abertura da D.Esclarecimento: relao entre saber e dominao prtica da natureza
Discusso parcialmente levada a cabo tambm por Habermas quando sob orientao de
Adorno (Cincia e Tcnica como Ideologia), como se ver:
#2 (89) Hierarquia aristotlica
Saber orientado s necessidades VS conhecimento filosfico depurado de finalidade
Teoria, a atividade de contemplar; theoros o espectador sem propsito dos jogos
olmpicos, j em alguma medida o sujeito do juzo de gosto
Emergncia de binmio TIL vs BELO Materialismo da prxis burguesa vs Felicidade e
Esprito
o Abandono da ideia de que conhecimento prxis
o em muitos sentidos, a grande vibe da Arte consiste numa oposio ao critrio de
UTILIDADE.
o Adorno: intil estiola utilit. 255 (As obras de arte so os substitutos das coisas que
j no so pervertidas pela troca, do que j no governado pelo lucro e pelas
falsas necessidades da humanidade de-gradada.)
o Heidegger, com quem Marcuse mantm dupla afinidade mesmo nesse ensaio
(Dasein e leitura de Aristteles, segundo Andrew Feenberg), tambm recorre
inutilidade como resistncia ao imperativo do mundo tcnico.
Notar tambm o anacrnico: Marcuse refere-se a algo que na Grcia Antiga seria tpico do
mundo burgus (tal como Adorno e Horkheimer fazem figura de Ulisses)
#3 (90) "Existe um tema recorrente"
Vida prtica instvel e no-livre:
"Que um fim exterior por si s j atrofie escravize os homens, implica o pressuposto de
uma ordem perversa das condies materiais de vida, cuja reproduo regulada pela
anarquia de interesses sociais opostos entre si, uma ordem em que a manuteno da
existncia geral no coincide com a felicidade e a liberdade dos indivduos"
Da necessidade de que a eudaimonia - a ideia de felicidade - s pudesse ser alcanada
com a transcendncia da faticidade da vida. (novamente: facticidade e Dasein)
#4 (91) "Essa transcendncia atinge"
Transcendncia metafsica tem impacto sobre demais reflexo: polarizao entre
sensibilidade e razo reproduz a existente entre as necessidades materiais e a pretensa
pureza da verdade.
(No difcil retomar esse tpico hoje quando se acusa algo ou algum de
"cartesianismo", de hipostasiar a oposio entre res extensa e cogito imaterial. Poder-seia extrapolar e dizer que essa polarizao existe em todas as condies de trabalho em
que h dominao: o corpo contra o intelecto, etc.)
prprio indivduo sobre todos os demais. Marcuse oferece a duas formas de se conceber a
relao com o mundo que poderiam ser resumidas como algum tipo de construtivismo radical
ingnuo ou como um objetivismo igualmente ingnuo. O caminho que Marcuse aponta seria
uma espcie de pragmatismo, uma sociedade de indivduos que se reconhecem reciprocamente.
#11 (110) Novamente, Marcuse olha a contradio inerente representao do amor burgus
na cultura afirmativa: por um lado, algo de individual, por outro, aponta no sentido contrrio
ao isolamento do indivduo. Como essa ideia de amor extremo, como "entrega gratificante da
individualidade solidariedade incondicional de pessoa a pessoa", oposta prpria sociedade,
ela aparece realizvel somente na morte, enquanto superao das limitaes experienciadas
pelo indivduo.
#12 (111) Ento o amor se realiza socialmente de modo ideolgico: "ameaa se converter
meramente em obrigao e hbito". A exclusividade que ele exige dotada de um carter
normativo, na medida em que passa de fenmeno da alma - o amor romntico - a uma
dimenso institucional, relativo pessoa. Exige-se a manuteno da relao amorosa. [Isso me
lembra um poema de Pessoa: No quero, Cloe, teu amor, que oprime \ Porque me exige amor.
Quero ser livre. \ A 'sperana um dever do sentimento. (Ricardo Reis)]
Por isso "Justamente nesse ponto deveria existir uma harmonia preestabelecida entre
interioridade e exterioridade, possibilidade e realidade efetiva, que justamente por toda parte se
encontra destruda pelo princpio anrquico da sociedade". A traduo em ingls dessa
passagem fala no numa "atrofia dos sentidos" mas numa "deturpao da sensualidade"
associada inverdade da fidelidade normativa e no natural.
#13 (111) As relaes afetivas so as nicas em que ocorreria uma "efetivao" imediata do
sujeito. Em contrapartida, a alma responsvel por alcanar aqueles valores superiores sem o
compromisso de dar-lhes uma realidade efetiva. Por isso Marcuse volta oposio entre "alma"
e "esprito/mente": a disposio subjetiva pode dar um desconto quilo que algum sabe que
objetivamente ruim - voc pode substituir sua conscincia de que a msica de sucesso dos seus
16 anos pura indstria pela ideia de que aquilo fez parte de um perodo importante de sua
formao -, pode reconciliar "no interior" as contradies exteriores. Vale a pena citar mais:
"Se existe uma alma ocidental, germnica...a ela corresponderia tambm uma cultura
ocidental, germnica...de modo que a sociedade feudal, capitalista, socialista seriam
apenas manifestaes de tais almas, e suas duras contradies se dissolveriam na bela e
profunda unidade da cultura" (112)
Marcuse olha para a ideia de Herder de penetrao emptica como condio de acesso
histrico. A interpretao adequada para Herder, algo que foi depois integrado pela
hermenutica de Schleiermacher, dependeria dessa possibilidade de fazer rasura das categorias
particulares que dizem respeito experincia formativa da pessoa e a tentativa de reconstruir o
contexto socio-cultural como determinado pelo esprito, por isso cada poca "tem o seu sentido
em si". A ideia de interioridade um elemento do relativismo histrico e cultural e serve como
escusa para a barbrie.
#14 (113) Marcuse continua: "Na cultura da alma foram absorvidas aquelas foras e
necessidades que no puderam mais encontrar seu lugar no cotidiano". Uma concepo comum
Marcuse, o transudo.
#17 (115) Mas essa dimenso que superaria a afirmao da cultura fica aqum da cultura e,
portanto, merc da troca. Porque somente o prazer espiritual tolerado, a beleza se limita a
ser uma prefigurao de algo que se poderia realizar. Marcuse continua discutindo a relao
entre beleza e verdade social na esttica romntica (116). A ideia de que a verdade s pode
aparecer sublimada no medium da arte, j que as demais reas da cultura tm compromissos
com a praxis:
#18 (117) A teoria no pode oferecer o consolo que o belo oferece. Aqui, Marcuse descamba
para a poesia filosfica: "O efmero que no deixa atrs de si uma solidariedade dos
sobreviventes necessita ser eternizado para ser suportado, pois se repete em cada instante da
existncia e antecipa a morte tambm em cada instante". Isso tudo para dizer que a ideia da
cultura afirmativa , na condio de um meio de sublimao, uma contradio em relao ao
que ela quer preservar.
Por isso,
#19 (117) "a soluo [propiciada pela cultura afirmativa] s pode ser aparente". Aqui Marcuse
faz um trocadilho: a categoria metafsica da aparncia, como aquilo que diferente da essncia
e muitas vezes seu desmentido, tambm a mesma empregue para a "aparncia" da arte, isto
, dimenso fenomenal da construo de uma obra, s vezes tambm comensurvel com a
ideia do estatuto ficcional das representaes artsticas. Da: de um lado, o prazer s aparece na
forma idealizada; do outro, a idealizao em si impede a realizao. Isso faz com que o prazer
esttico tenha algo de asctico. O tpico que Marcuse vai encadear a partir daqui, embora via
Goethe, o da suspenso voluntria da descrena: sabemos que uma obra de arte s uma
representao, que aquilo que ela promete s prometido na condio de no ser realizvel, e
no entanto essa representao um fenmeno real, que essa promessa efetivamente feita no
mesmo instante em que desmentida. Por isso:
#20 (118) "O decisivo nessa situao no que a arte apresente a realidade efetiva ideal, mas
que a apresente como realidade efetiva bela." Ou seja, como se ela fosse, em relao sua
forma, uma concretizao do ideal. Adorno coloca isso da seguinte forma: "No recai sobre os
homens e as coisas nenhuma luz na qual a transcendncia no transparece. Na resistncia
contra o mundo substituvel da troca, a resistncia do olhar que no quer que as cores do
mundo sejam aniquiladas irredutvel. O que prometido na aparncia [da arte] aquilo que
desprovido de aparncia." (DN 335)
#21 (119)
"A cultura afirmativa foi a forma histrica em que se preservaram as necessidades dos homens
que iam alm da reproduo material da existncia, e nessa medida se aplica a ela, bem como
forma da realidade social a que corresponde, a afirmao: o direito se encontra do seu lado."
Existiria na cultura um "rompimento privado da reificao". Aqui o argumento de Marcuse se
aproxima do de Heidegger sobre a apario da essncia da coisa no momento em que ela
representada, a ideia de que a transfigurao operada pela obra em relao realidade torna o
objeto mais verdadeiro, porque desinstrumentalizado. Numa "metafsica" da arte, a aparncia
no a traio da essncia, mas a essncia aparecendo.
#22 (119) Esse pargrafo sobre a concretizao do ideal. Nessa concretizao estetizada do
ideal de humanidade ou felicidade social, ocorre uma traio desses mesmos ideais, na medida
em que o mecanismo de consolo tambm um mecanismo de controle. (Adorno costumava
dizer que o trao caracterstico do autntico amor pelos homens a intransigncia, a tolerncia
seria algo como a figura invertida do dio do burgus justia social.) De qualquer modo, o que
Marcuse diz aqui da cultura afirmativa , como j vimos e mais uma vez, que ela se torna uma
compensao, e, como tal, apenas ratifica a situao que ela est compensando. Por isso ele diz
que "O indivduo, remetido a si mesmo, aprende a suportar e de certo modo at a amar seu
isolamento." (120)
#23 (121) A personalidade o portador do ideal cultural.
Esse pargrafo diz respeito forma como a individualidade toma parte num comrcio social
promovido pela cultura afirmativa. Basicamente, diz respeito ao cultivo pessoal (Bildung) como
signo de vida elevada - mais ou menos como hoje se imaginam outras figuras de sucesso, como
ter piscina em casa. O que importa que essa insularidade da experincia particular deixa
intocadas as coisas, "uma de suas virtudes [da personalidade] o respeito s relaes de
dominao dadas" (122).
#24 (121) Nem sempre foi assim.
A ideia de que a subjetividade era precisamente aquilo que se responsabilizava pelas prprias
condies, que tomava parte no contexto de forma ativa. A ideia que hoje se faz da
subjetividade , no mximo, a de que o homem se integra; seu papel ativo, por exemplo, na
construo do mundo s pode ser pensado como atividade interior, isto , como uma forma de
relativismo epistemolgico e tico que responde s limitaes que a sociedade lhe impe. um
sujeito recalcado, um sujeito que renuncia. A "personalidade" de que fala Marcuse, a que
participa da cultura hipostasiada como reino espiritual, aquilo que se sacrificou como sujeito
da transformao social para gozar mais tranquilamente da condio fantasmagrica da cultura.
Parte 3
#1 (122) A situao se altera quando uma mobilizao parcial (...) j no suficiente para a
preservao da forma estabelecida do processo de trabalho, exigindo-se em seu lugar a
"mobilizao total" pela qual o indivduo deve ser subordinado disciplina do Estado autoritrio
em todos os planos de sua existncia. (122-3)
Passa-se de um modo de cultura burguesa, de um paradigma da Bildung pessoal, para
uma outra relao com a cultura. Para Adorno, a Indstria da Cultura situar-se-ia aqui, no
processo de "auto-abolio" da cultura afirmativa.
#2 (123) A ruidosa luta do Estado...
um trao do contexto. A permanncia da funo da cultura com a transformao do contexto
poltico e social diz respeito, pode-se dizer, consolidao de seu carter instrumental.
#3 (123) O grande tpico aqui a formao de uma "falsa coletividade" que compensa o vazio
da interioridade burguesa. Na velha cultura, o leitor solitrio do romance ou do poema imagina
comungar do esprito da poca, ou tomar parte nas aflies do autor, ou reconhece-se no
personagem, ou projeta-se como eu da lrica; na forma autoritria que opera a dissoluo da
cultura afirmativa, o cultivo pessoal declina na dinmica do f e dos times de futebol: voc veste
a camisa. Por isso Marcuse fala numa "renncia e enquadramento no existente". A ideia de
Marcuse que houve uma longa domesticao cultural da subjetividade burguesa, e que isso
cooperou com o amansamento da sociedade no contexto de recrudescimento da opresso
institucional. O sujeito, noutras palavras, em si a figura fundamental da ideologia burguesa, na
medida em que se pe sempre s ordens.
[ Aqui eu voltaria indagao que pus outro dia sobre a subjetividade: por que que
precisamos disso? Bom, a meu ver, s precisamos enfatizar a condio do sujeito como
sujeito histrico porque da mesma figura que o sistema capitalista se serve para dar
continuidade injustia. Tambm a revoluo burguesa queria mudar as regras do jogo
para poder tomar parte no privilgio aristocrtico. No mundo redimido, no mundo em
que no h privilgio, o sujeito no seria uma ideia a defender, porque o indivduo no
veria sua existncia ameaada pela objetividade. O conceito em si de subjetividade se
aboliria, da mesma forma como o marxismo seria uma lembrana pr-histrica no
contexto da humanidade emancipada. ]
#4 (124) Os novos mtodos do processo...
Acontece de uma nova conformao social subtrair a dimenso emancipatria da anterior, num
crescendo da dominao. A nostalgia das formas da cultura vem da.
#5 (124) Marcuse enfatiza a afinidade entre "interioridade idealista" (sujeito e Bildung) e
"exterioridade herica" (o membro do grupo que ouve X). Nos dois casos, h uma recusa da
racionalidade como critrio para relao com o objeto e uma nfase sensibilidade. A partir do
instante em que se supe a razo como um universal normativo, a crtica no deixa nada
intocado, ao passo que a alma/sensibilidade, como registro particular, no tem nada que fazer
quilo que no lhe toca. "Justamente porque a alma vive alm da economia, a economia
consegue se impor to facilmente a ela". A funo social daquilo que no seria passvel de troca
operar todas as trocas, no fundo. De qualquer modo, a ideia de que a sensibilidade
mobilizada pelo discurso poltico. Ns vimos na votao do impeachment, por exemplo, a
quantidade de pessoas que se dirigiam a famlia, Deus e demais elementos da vida privada: eles
no estavam tentando justificar o voto, mas simulando a possvel afinidade a manter com os
espectadores, apelando benevolncia das boas almas que tambm amam sua famlia, seu Deus
e o futuro da nao.
#6 (125) Configurao heroica da cultura tem a ver com uma maior integrao necessidade do
presente, pelo que as exigncias de cultivo da "cultura afirmativa" aparecem como um entrave.
A cultura burguesa da erudio obsoleta. Em lugar dela, a nova cultura traria de forma
imediata os sinais de sua funo: subservincia, autossacrifcio, pobreza e senso do dever,
vontade de poder (ou de diferenciao), perfeio tcnica, etc. (126-7)
Marcuse diz: "Se anteriormente a ascenso cultural deveria prover uma satisfao para o desejo
pessoal de felicidade, agora a felicidade do indivduo deve desaparecer na grandeza do povo"
(127). Claro que isso diz respeito funo da arte como cimento social do Estado autoritrio,
mas no exatamente o mesmo que ocorre na Indstria da cultura? O imperativo participao
muito mais intenso e vivenciado de maneira real do que os contedos do processo de
participao. O sujeito que se dedica a aprender a gozar uma determinada forma cultural muito
mais se doa ao quadro social em que aquela forma tem um valor normativo do que realmente
aproveita o objeto cultural especfico. Isso o mesmo que dizer que mais difcil gostar de
Mozart do que se deixar levar por uma composio especfica, por um lado, mas tambm que o
que se ganha em relao experincia emancipatria do prazer e da felicidade
consideravelmente menor do que o investimento feito em suportar Justin Bieber. Por isso
Marcuse diz que ocorre um declnio da aparncia de felicidade concomitante abolio da
reivindicao dessa felicidade para si: as pessoas curtem porque todo mundo curte. difcil dizer
NO! na sociedade que interiorizou a sua prpria autoridade total.
#7 (127) Depois Marcuse fala na eliminao o carter afirmativo da cultura. No que consiste? Na
cultura deixar de ser esse reino paralelo do cotidiano e realizar-se. Mundo da produo ruim,
cultura como aparncia de tudo o que bom. Cultura assim uma metfora e uma alegoria da
recusa do mundo ruim, e o Belo/prazer/etc. seria a forma como aparece essa recusa do mundo;
em contrapartida, no mundo justo, a cultura no precisaria funcionar como meio de ratificao
da ordem social. O simples apagamento dessa aparncia, no entanto, colocaria a cultura numa
relao metonmica com o mundo da produo, numa relao de contiguidade: a boca est para
a ingesto de alimentos da mesma forma como a cultura passa a estar para a reproduo
material da sociedade.
#8 (128) H uma intensificao do processo de reintegrao da cultura no sistema da troca, que
ocorre j (mesmo na cultura afirmativa) e que no pode ser anunciada. Quando Marcuse diz que
a "felicidade j de incio calculada nos termos de sua utilidade", ns poderamos extrapolar isso
na opinio mais ou menos corrente de que a nossa participao cultural, alm de fundamentarse em nossa sensibilidade como sua origem, pauta-se tambm no nosso gozo como seu objetivo
nico. Uma coisa o prazer esttico como reconciliao do mundo necessrio com o mundo
possvel, um prazer que ele mesmo anuncia o mundo possvel; outra coisa o prazer esttico
que degenerou em cosmtica: ele recobre a aspereza do cotidiano sem conter nenhuma
promessa de libertao efetiva, to s remetendo, assim, prpria ordem estabelecida. Os
ditames das imagens culturais, a normatividade da felicidade subjetiva egosta hoje muito
maior do que em qualquer paradigma burgus de cultura como algo atinente esfera privada:
no apenas temos de participar, mas somos obrigados a sentir prazer nessa participao.
#9 (128) Por qu? Depois de introduzir com um raciocnio similar autoabolio do sujeito na
sociedade redimida - isto , ao carter progressivo da autoabolio da cultura afirmativa Marcuse dir, no pargrafo seguinte, que "simplesmente manter viva a ansiedade pela
satisfao perigoso na situao vigente". A ansiedade pe um hiato entre a necessidade e a
satisfao que propriamente onde se instala o aspecto emancipatrio da experincia
individual. A prpria subjetividade burguesa uma mediao entre a esfera pblica em que as
relaes intersubjetivas so dotadas de carter necessrio e normativo e a esfera privada que
sublima a necessidade de reproduo da sociedade nas figuras do amor ertico e da famlia. O
fato de que a forma reconfigura, por exemplo, a relao do sujeito a um determinado contedo
similar reconfigurao da relao que sujeito e objeto mantm no discurso da cultura
afirmativa: com a reconfigurao, h um afastamento do mundo que abre para a reflexo crtica
sobre esse mundo. Tambm a famlia protege o indivduo da sociedade destrutiva. A cultura
poderia ser abolida tranquilamente quando a satisfao prometida fosse realmente oferecida
aos homens, quando no precisssemos mais converter numa forma artstica uma felicidade no
satisfeita no cotidiano. No entanto, como isso no foi realizado, preciso oferecer um
sucedneo de satisfao, e a abolio da distncia serve a isso: o que se quer a substituio da
velha "cultura afirmativa" por uma forma mais eficiente de afirmao do todo social. Se
pensarmos aqui na indstria da cultura: trata-se da serializao - e no da manufatura - do
prazer. Na medida em que no se responsabiliza pelos momentos totais de construo de sua
vida interior, o esforo do sujeito consiste em enrijecer as suas faculdades de modo a se tornar
capaz de suportar a mesmidade do prazer que lhe oferecido. Todos os rtulos do prazer esto
sempre j disposio.
#10 (129) No pargrafo seguinte, Marcuse fala de duas imagens que resolvem a situao frgil
da cultura afirmativa: de um lado, a extino da civilizao como momento repressivo (o que nos
levaria imediato ao pas de Cocanha), e, do outro, a "democratizao" forosa da cultura.
Marcuse prefere o pas de Cocanha porque o segundo, pautado na coisificao da cultura,
imprimiria um carter necessrio ao que, por definio, seria j a compensao da necessidade.
O que falso na imagem da satisfao infinita, diz Marcuse, que as necessidades no se
podem esgotar simplesmente. Numa sociedade no reprimida, numa sociedade que no precisa
sublimar a dor ou buscar a satisfao num reino paralelo, o sofrimento no se extinguiria,
apenas no teria uma forma socio-eeconomicamente determinada. Nesse sentido, a superao
da cultura afirmativa no seria a abolio daquilo que conquistado .
//////////////////
Contrary to previous attempts at understanding the Marcuse project, Douglas Kellner states in
his opening essay to Art and Liberation: The Collected Papers of Hebert Marcuse, Volume 4, that
aesthetics is not the key, primary, or central element in his [Marcuses] thought, however, it is
an important part of Marcuses project (p. 3). Furthermore, Kellner insists that in the thirty
years after Marcuses death, most people have misinterpreted all, or at least part, of Marcuses
work, attempting to ascribe value to, or criticize that which is non-existent.
For example, Kellner takes issue with the first interpretation posited by Barry Katz (1982) and
furthered by Timothy Lukes (1985) which understood Marcuses aesthetics as a transcendental
ontology that would cancel the totality of existence without being cancelled by it(p. 2). Katz
contests the idea put forth by Lukes, that Marcuses aesthetics leads to withdrawal from politics
and an escape inward; and agrees more with Berthold Langerbein (1985) that Marcuse
emphasizes and repeatedly attempts to mediate between art and politics in order to preserve a
separate aesthetic dimension. However, Kellner asserts that Langerbein fails to address the
other dimensions Marcuse mediates, such as philosophy and critical theory.
In regards to more recent scholarship, such as Charles Reitz (2000), where Reitz states that
Marcuses work can be divided into two spheres art-against-alienation and art-asalienation. Kellner largely agrees, and yet suggests, that splitting his work this way is what leads
people to misinterpret Marcuses work as tending towards withdrawal, or aestheticising politics.
Marcuses project was to develop perspectives and practices of liberation that combined critical
social theory, philosophy, radical politics, and reflections on art and cultural transformation (p.
3). Readers need to be able to see the totality of the Marcuse Project as the various
components sometimes stood in tension with each other (p. 3). E.g. art is both alienation and
against it all at once. The remainder of Kellners opening essay walks the reader through a his
interpretations of Marcuses chronologically presented essays that follow beginning with a
segment of Marcuses dissertation written in 1922 and ending with a posthumously published
interview (1984). Kellners opening essay not only provides an interpretation of Marcuses essays
within the book, as well as other major works (Eros and Civilization, One-Dimensional Man, An
Essay on Liberation, and The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics); but
also provides useful historical and biographical information that sheds light onto the character of
Herbert Marcuse.
The first piece by Marcuse is the introduction to his dissertation. In this piece Marcuse begins to
grapple with art in a critical way, and the reader begins to see the seeds of what will be the
Marcuse project. In this essay classic Marcusean aesthetic tensions emerge: liberation/alienation
in art and artist; engagement for change by art in the world/escapism to idealized realms. There
are also hints at concepts later developed by Lacan, in which art is an attempt to find that which
is ultimately real and will completes the soul. Marcuse also clearly shows his reverence for
traditional artistic high culture, a theme that remains (with notable deviance) throughout his
writings on art.
In The Affirmative Character of Culture we are introduced to Marcuse the radical. Marcuse as
anti-(materialism, capitalism, positivism, affirmative culture). Here, he appears to embrace the
very notions of bohemia through a Hegelian mind-soul link, universal empathy, individuality and
his characterization of transcendence and the ideal; where transcendence is the good, the
beautiful and the true, the ideal is that which in its very unreality keeps alive the best desires of
men amidst a bad reality (p. 92). Marcuse does not articulate utopia or illusions as a particularly
bad thing, but dialectic in nature, asserting that while utopia may be an unattainable ideal, it is
not bad to have this. Furthermore, it is the illusions portrayed in art, which make utopia real,
even if never attainable.
The 1967 essay Art in the One-Dimensional Society outlines Marcuses core beliefs about art,
revolution and politics, as well as offering a rare tip-of-the-hat to popular culture in the name of
Bob Dylan (as the only revolutionary language left today (p. 113)). This essay illuminates
Marcuses understanding that art is a human need and a way of experiencing reality. Marcuse
states here that art can only be revolutionary when it refuses to become part of any
the reader with Kellners interpretation of Marcuse, before the reader has a chance to interpret
Marcuse. While the historical and biographical background was helpful, the book could have
benefited from a much shorter introductory essay accompanied by smaller interpretive essays
and critiques matched to Marcuses essays.
From <http://www.unrestmag.com/art-and-liberation/>
Nicole Callahan
Herbert Marcuse, The Affirmative Character of Culture
In The Affirmative Character of Culture Marcuse begins with original philosophy of antiquity,
where knowledge was said to function as the determinant of practice. Knowledge, in the hands
of Aristotle, morphed into a hierarchy of two forms: at the base a functional understanding of
everyday necessity, and at the summit philosophical knowledge. Marcuse broadens these forms
into the separate and somewhat oppositional forces of the necessary and the beautiful . These
elements and the rift between them are the fodder for his exploration of affirmative culture.
Through the entire chapter, Marcuse builds on these oppositional and complementary forces,
and molds them into a complex rubric of conceptual order.
He locates necessity in the material world of labor and matter, which is ruled by the mind and
characterized by immediacy and order. Simultaneously, he excludes philosophical knowledge
from the material world and instead relegates it to its own realm of beauty, sensuality, pleasure,
and happiness, which is ruled by the soul, characterized as ultimate, and manifested in art and in
history s theoretical discourse.
Marcuse begins with his definition of idealism, which says its basic demand is a transformation
and improvement of the material world congruent with the truth and knowledge of the Ideas .
He then draws upon Plato s program of reorganization and Aristotle s more historically minded
idealism, in order to introduce us to his own agenda of order, and his use of history: The history
of idealism is also the history of its coming to terms with the established order. (92)
He then moves on to look at historical forms and specific labor divisions to see how the
relationships between necessity and beauty, labor and enjoyment have changed and evolved.
The bourgeois epoch signaled the beginning of free trade, when people became both buyers and
sellers and the individual gained hypothetical equality, and unmediated access to society.
According to Marcuse, the cultural works produced become universal values that act upon all
individuals so as to bind everyone into a
Universally obligatory, eternally better and more valuable world that must be unconditionally
affirmed: a world essentially different from the factual world of the daily struggle for existence,
yet realizable by every individual for himself from within without any transformation of the
state of fact. (95)
\
Marcuse s model of bourgeois culture, excludes anything relating to the social process, and
separates civilization as a subordinate feature of society.
This pared down conception of culture, is what Marcuse calls affirmative culture.
Marcuse then goes on to identify the central problem with the bourgeois epoch philosophy,
which is that abstract equality is not actual equality. In an attempt to gloss over this
incongruence, the bourgeois responded to individual discontent by projecting the ideal of
humanity. Using art, they played upon humanity by elevating suffering and tragedy into eternal
forces. While this is generally manipulative more than anything else, Marcuse finds an element
of truth in the idea that the world can only be changed though destruction. He goes on to
assert that real gratification can only come if we work against idealist culture (100).
Where the philosophy of the bourgeois epoch harped on sorrow and suffering understood in the
mind, Marcuse goes on to show a historical example of converse elements not entertained in
bourgeois society. The enlightenment, he says, places emphasis on the body, on feeling, and on
the soul. The idea is to achieve happiness by embracing experiences, in contrast to the
bourgeois epoch, which did so by purging sorrow and distancing it from the individual.
In enlightenment thinking, Marcuse says that culture needs to be changed through the interior
of one s soul. The beauty of culture is an inner beauty. The soul is the real substance of the
individual. Here emotions reside, in the one realm untouchable by the external world.
Affirmative culture aligns itself with the soul, and not the mind. In his discussion of the soul, love
and friendship are evidence of Marcuse s functioning affirmative culture. Love, however,
requires an intimate level of socialization, which begins to erode the idea of the isolated soul and
leads to the breakdown of the individual. To Marcuse, this would require a surrender that can
only truly happen in death.
Marcuse then moves on to explain how art became constructed as truth through/because of its
emancipatory power, which then became a form of commodified pleasure or happiness. The
discussion turns to the idea that any satisfaction gleaned from art is in fact illusion. However,
beauty, unlike the soul, can be tangible, and in this quality it is uniquely positioned to traverse
the realms of illusion and reality. It is the power of illusion that Marcuse highlights:
This is the real miracle of affirmative culture the injection of cultural happiness into
unhappiness and the spiritualization of sensuality mitigate the misery and the sickness to a
healthy work capacity. (122)
Marcuse then presents his final example of the authoritarian and utilitarian cultures, where the
individual no longer has an internal identity, and affirmative culture no longer has a realm in
which it can reside.
QUESTIONS:
1) What does Marcuse mean when he says that the world cannot be changed piecemeal but
only through its destruction? (99) How (or is?) such a conception affirmative?
2) And a similar question What does he mean when he says that the ideal can only be
realized against the ideal? (100)
3) Marcuse talks about beauty as a central and integral feature of art and as a result
happiness/pleasure. What about art that dismisses beauty? Can it ever function in a way that
Marcuse imagined?
4) Marcuse says of affirmative culture: right is on its side (120) He frequently labels things as
good or bad . Is this justifiable? Do we all read the same understanding of right or wrong? How
does this relate to the concept of the politically correct?
From
<http://as.vanderbilt.edu/koepnick/AestheticNegativity_f06/materials/thoughtpapers/callahan_
marucse.htm>
Herbert Marcuse The Affirmative Character of Culture.
The most vexed question facing art in general and literature in particular today is that of social
relevance. Can literature address the problems facing us as a race, a society, a species? This
question poses many others, too often dismissed or ignored as being facile, too obvious or too
fundamentally potentially detrimental to the established notion that the artist / writer can
effectively take action on an issue, as Sartre called it, action by disclosure . What if Sartre was
wrong, and writing is not action at all, but inaction under the guise of action? Can literature
effect any change in the world of praxis? If it can, should it? On what authority does the writer
speak? How can one avoid works being allocated a programmatic social function within a state
system of domination?
Marcuses essay is concerned with culture and its affirmative character. This term refers to
bourgeois culture which designates itself as the realm of authentic values and self-contained
ends in opposition to the world of social utility and means [...] Its decisive characteristic is the
assertion of a universally obligatory, eternally better and more valuable world. Marcuses essay
is startling because it calls into question that which the liberal middle class prides itself on most:
its history of humanitarian intervention through the sphere of culture. Those who engage in this
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way are venerated as saints: Swift, Blake, Dickens, whilst the names of actual activists are often
obscure. The problem with affirmative culture is that its values are not realisable in real life
they are not even meant to be realised by the society which manufactures cultural artefacts.
The essay begins by tracing the history of affirmative culture. It opens with the assumption that
the goal of philosophy is to find demonstrably correct guidance for living, but shows that from
Aristotle onwards, philosophy has implied a dichotomy between what is purely ideal on the one
hand, and everyday materialism on the other. Marcuse does have sympathy with the notion of
hermetic philosophical endeavour as the highest pursuit, as to invest ones happiness in the
material is to make oneself a slave effectively to chance: a complex and opaque set of
contiguous factors and circumstances. This striving for idealism, however, is at the root of the
problem. Even at its inception philosophy finds itself facing a contradiction: between purity of
thought, and common existence. Philosophy in striving for truth is accused of being an elitist and
escapist pursuit, requiring certain concrete conditions (education and free time; in short, wealth)
which must be inaccessible to most, and probably actually depend upon the exploitation of
others. A dangerous precedent is set, that philosophy takes care of the idealist search for truth,
whilst common material existence is left to its own devices. Social stratification takes place,
determined by the workings of the economy, in which philosophy cannot help but collude.
Abstract systems of thought are apparently sympathetic to mans plight, but idealism
surrenders the earth it is either useless or perhaps potentially counter-productive. A
philosophy that seeks to be practical (that of Hobbes, for example) is viewed with suspicion by
those its content threatens, and derision by pure philosophy, which cannot stomach its
compromises and non-metaphysical, unscientific nature.
Idealism is then probably shamefully aware of its own irrelevance to common life, but its
impractical, apolitical nature is not neutral. Adorno points out that the apolitical is always
political, in that it signals its own interest and comfort in the established conditions. Marcuse
states that the history of idealism is also the history of coming to terms with the established
order; elsewhere he implies that the radical doubt that rationalism takes as its starting point is a
symptom of philosophys shame at the state of the world. His repeated use of the loaded term
appeasement suggests criticism of the traditional separation of the intellectuals from the
rulers; a separation which should not suggest the impartiality which many assume it does.
Affirmative culture is absolutely tied to the development of the bourgeoisie. The capitalist
system corrupts human relations, reducing individuals to the status of commodities. It cannot
provide happiness, which is also reified into commodity. Happiness exists as a tool of the system;
it is unattainable, instead perpetually deferred as a means of selling products or keeping people
compliant. For Marcuse, happiness may come only in the struggle of necessity against idealism.
He thus implies that although it was understandable, it was regrettable that metaphysics came
to occupy a position so divorced from life. Precisely what Marcuse is advocating in its place,
however, is unclear, a point I shall return to below.
Marcuse views all cultural production as economically determined . This determinism does not
admit the distinction which most people might assume exists between high and low culture;
Marcuses target is not the kind of mass or popular culture which is commonly identified as
reflecting contemporary social values, but rather art which prides itself on its autonomy and
therefore imagines it can disinterestedly engage on socio-political issues and promote a set of
moral values. This disinterest or critical distance, Marcus argues, is fictitious. It is not the
creation of a realm which may be populated with Platonic ideals for the illumination of mankind,
rather a by-product of the historical evolution of the bourgeoisie, who have removed art from its
obviously ritualistic pre-bourgeois function only to have it serve a further ritual purpose, albeit
one which does not declare itself in fact is usually not even aware of itself. This purpose is the
maintenance of the social status quo, or the mobilisation of society towards the ends of states.
Art with a character of protest simply results in the appeasement of the mind, with no change
in the world of fact. In fact, the potential for such change is effectively reduced, as both the
producer and the consumer of the cultural object may consciously believe they have taken some
action because of the imaginative experience they have had. It follows from this that intellectual,
philosophical, and artistic protest in fact maintains the conditions it ostensibly protests against.
This should not be a surprise to us, however, for it is unthinkable that the ruling class system
would allow the production of anything which would really threaten its own interests: only in art
can bourgeois society tolerate its own ideals, because what occurs in art occurs with no
obligation.
The manner of affirmative culture is not dissimilar to that of religion, in its reliance on the
Kantian notion that moral values are pre-existing and their existence can be somehow proved or
inferred by reason. According to Marcuse, this secular striving for an abstract set of moral values
has a tranquilising effect which accords with the capitalist stress on deferment of happiness; if
moral truth or justice may be attained in the future this potentially legitimises present suffering
in that cause. In Hegel as in Christianity, present man is a stoic, prepared to give up the present
to the future. History is presented as the prehistory of the coming future in which ideals will be
somehow made tangible. But the sacrifice required is absolutely not a worthwhile one: Marcuse
in 1937 is already writing from a point of disillusion with the aims of Enlightenment, and as a
German Jew is well placed to see the inevitable blurring together of utopianism and fascism.
Bourgeois culture must restrict the attainment of freedom to art, as it cannot allow it in life.
Similarly, sensual gratification must occur only through art (Marcuse goes as far as comparing art
11
to a kind of brothel, in which people can receive regulated exposure to beauty). This is the new
ritual function of art: the displacement and playing out of liberal ideas from life. Characters in
novels find solace in self-awareness. Generally, thinking characters are socially isolated, implying
that any meaningful solidarity that might result in action is impossible, or blighted by
compromise of divergent philosophies. The romantic subject finds his archetype in Hamlet,
which serves as an apt dramatisation of the problem: the man so constrained by the potential
roles suggested to him by his over-developed intellect that he is incapable of choosing any of
them. Hamlet also includes a meta-textual representation of the ineffectiveness of art as
prompting action. Hamlet plans the play as a means of definitely exposing Claudios guilt, and he
is euphoric after it apparently succeeds in this. However, he again gives himself up to
prevarication and vacillation, and we begin to suspect that the play itself may have been a
substitute for, rather than a spur to, action.
Marcuse devotes space to exemplifying that philosophers including Kant and Hegel have
effectively dismissed the concept of the soul, yet insists that literature insists on an outmoded
conception of soul that which is not mind. Religion is damned in the essay as excusing, via
the notion of the freedom of the poeticised soul, the poverty, martyrdom, and bondage of
the body , so why does supposedly enlightened art rely on this anachronistic conception of soul
to such an extent? The answer is because soul is a convenient way of isolating values in the
individual and away from life. Souls, once imbued with whichever poeticised concepts the ruling
class have use of, can easily be appropriated (we need only think of Stalins description of artists
as engineers of souls). The soul in art is a preserve of constant, abstract values - in order to
achieve its effect, which occurs through the cultural education of individuals. To do this, it
necessarily calls into existence concepts such as truth, falsehood, justice, injustice. The action of
literature proves the existence of these concepts, as there must be criteria against which
characters may be judged, if the didactic effect of the work is to be achieved. Demagogues
address their speeches to the soul; the soulful are the most compliant citizens - as their revolt
takes no coherent form. They are the products of affirmative culture; the soul is its invention.
The supposedly objective, timeless values or concepts of the soul (for example, truth), like the
soul itself, do not necessarily exist; they are subjective constructs which themselves emanate
from power relations. Marcuse follows Nietzsche in claiming that which we may assume to be
self-evident moral values are in fact the residue of systems of bourgeois domination. The soul
takes flight at the hard truth of theory.
Affirmative culture therefore obscures the real, chaotic conditions of life via its insistence that
problems can be overcome with reference to moral coda. What is more unclear is the extent of
the deliberateness of this obscurity. Most producers of affirmative culture are acting in good
faith, but are unable to transcend their place in the capitalist system. Marcuse seems to state on
the one hand that the system is absolutely determinate, but on the other hand the very
existence of his argument suggests it is possible to transcend this system. Marx was able to
explain the existence of anti-capitalism by explaining capitalism as a necessary stage of
development, which would be supplanted. Marcuse is unable to do this without providing the
function of philosophical consolation deferred to futurity, which he accuses idealist and
progressive philosophy of doing.
Marcuses work is highly relevent today. The enlightenment project has failed. There is no preexisting realm of abstract values; truth and justice alike are constructs. Worse still, they are
constructs which have been engineered by a bourgeois mentality in order to serve its own
convenience. What we call morality is actually the preservation (or reinforcement) of the
bourgeois status quo, just as charity is a function of individualism and apology is a function of
poor manners. A century of mass technological slaughters, each undertaken according to some
12
means-justifying end or other has offered proof of our failure. The self itself is revealed as a
construct, and it is constructed through text: language speaks us. It is our textual experiences
which locate us within the symbolic social order, and this order delineates our possibilities. We
have a mania for text, all of which prompts and is prompted by our urge to commit ourselves
into the hands of further ideological myths. These texts have neither autonomy nor critical
distance; they are manifestations of the economic structure in which we exist. And with the all
pervasive expanse of capitalism into even those few enclaves which art held as its last refuges
(nature; the unconscious), our relations are further reduced. In fact, art is responsible for
compromising the security of these areas by romanticising them; romanticisation idealisation
through art - is the perfect treatment before corporate branding occurs. We are reminded of
Marcuses poeticised soul, which can then be harnessed in the cause of oppression, it can do
honour to a bad cause .
What is especially interesting about Marcuses work is its profound opposition to the
mainstream assumptions which exist today, even within academic communities, about the
potential of artists to engage in a meaningful way on social issues. A large proportion of books
sold ostensibly address social or political issues. Many of these are novels written by respected
writers and check the various boxes of modernist or postmodernist cultural production. There is
a glut of novels (after Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea) that offer a revision of history from hitherto
neglected class, racial or gender subjectivities. There are also those which revert to and subvert
genre forms in order to highlight our cultural prejudices. Again, there are those which project
dystopian visions, which should serve as warnings to us. And there are writers who attempt a
formal subjective realism as a means of highlighting the inauthenticity of our simulacra
populated times.
It might be argued that literature which really advocates social change falls into two categories:
that which operates by narrowing perception (most didactic literature, including both protest
and state sanctioned art, falls into this first category) and that which operates by widening it. For
didactic literature, authorial intention is paramount; it must be able to have its intended effect
on its audience, and it mobilises an army of rhetorical devices in this cause. It therefore makes
use of its audience, unashamedly sending them into battle on a diet of propaganda (always
justified on the basis that it is counter-propaganda). It operates on the level of allegory, its real
meaning must be constructed with reference to data outside of itself. We are suspicious of such
texts when they are produced by or for a dominant ideology. This is obvious in the case of
Gorkys work for the USSR, but perhaps less obvious when a work endorses a more nebulous
ideology capitalism indirectly. The capitalist system is not even indirectly the object of the
work, but is its pervasive context. It lubricates the happenings of the work and its supposed
values form a comfortingly coherent moral backdrop to the action. Works of protest tend to be
taken more seriously than those which endorse a system. But these are potentially equally
problematic, necessarily calling constructions such as good, truth and justice into being. They
also depend upon their contexts, without which they become appropriable by those with
ulterior motives.
It is possible that the second category of non-propaganda protest literature can avoid some of
these problems. This art seeks to operate outside of history, and tends to attempt its own
criticism or deconstruction, to signal itself as a textual construct. These texts signal within their
form (via such devices as, in the case of Kafka, the actualised metaphor or the inviting of clashing
interpretations) that they are texts which may be interpreted, but this open ended exegesis is
not a means to an end but an end in itself; the onus is shifted onto the activity of the reader as
critique, rather than passive (perhaps flattered by his success in the face of difficult decoding,
but nonetheless passive) decoder of discourse or message. As I said above, Marcuse and
Adornos stress on the critical activity of the reader contributes to the formal justification for this
literature.
The potential of this (expressionist) strand of literature for achieving anything is however
diminished by several factors:
1. Its tools have become common currency, and so are rather blunted.
2. It is inaccessible to most readers, or open to a unitary, and therefore mistaken interpretation.
3. By its nature, it cannot itself advocate action, but merely negates the prompts of others.
4. It is compromised by its commodity status.
13
5. It takes time to read, and its reading is a mental substitute for action. It is still almost the
antithesis of action.
aesthetic dimension. It is not possible to discuss the role of aesthetics in all of Marcuse's works.
Therefore, the role of aesthetics in Marcuse's critical theory in general will be discussed. There
are three key works on aesthetics which were written at different times that reveal the overall
point of Marcuse's aesthetic theory.
Even in his youth, Marcuse had a love for the classics of German and world literature (Marcuse
2007a: 4). After serving military duty and after his brief period of political engagement Marcuse
returned to his literary studies. However, in the aftermath of his reading of Marxism, Marcuse's
literary studies had a decisive political orientation. He was interested in the revolutionary and
transformative function of art.
This turn to art and literature was a return to an earlier love with a new mission. This new
mission was of course inspired by his encounter with Marxism and its crisis. The turn toward
literature was also a quest for revolutionary subjectivity. Put another way, from the beginning to
the end of his literary career Marcuse looked for spaces of a critical consciousness that had not
been completely whittled down by the oppressive and repressive forces of capitalism.
Revolution and social change demands a space for thought and action that make resistance to
the status quo possible. Well before he began to use the term the Great Refusal, he was in
search of such.
In his dissertation of 1922, The German Artist-Novel, the artist represents a form of radical
subjectivity. In this work Marcuse makes a distinction between epic poetry and the novel. Epic
poetry deals with the origin and development of a people and culture while the novel does not
focus on the form of life of a people and their development, but rather, on a sense of longing
and striving (Marcuse 2007a: 72). The novel indicates alienation from social life. The details of
Marcuse's argument will not be addressed here. The point is to show that there is a certain
orientation of thought in Marcuse's 1922 dissertation that is motivated by his encounter with
Marxism and will stay with him as his project becomes more philosophical. In short, the artist
experiences a gap between the ideal and the real. This ability to entertain, at least theoretically,
an ideal form of existence for humanity, while at the same time living in far less than ideal
conditions produces a sense of alienation in the artist. This alienation becomes the catalyst for
social change. This function of art stays with Marcuse and will be developed further as he
engages psychoanalysis and philosophy.
As a dialectical thinker, Marcuse was also able to see both sides of the coin. That is, while art
embodied revolutionary potential, it was also produced, interpreted, and distributed in a
repressive society. In an oppressive/repressive society the forces of liberation and the forces of
domination do not develop in isolation from each other. Instead, they develop in a dialectical
relationship where one produces the conditions for the other. This can be seen throughout
almost all of Marcuse's writings and will be pointed out at different points in this essay. The task
here is to take a look at how this dialectic of liberation and domination occurs within the context
of Marcuse's aesthetic theory. This should not be taken to mean that there will never be a point
in time when human beings are liberated from the forces of domination. This simply means that
if an individual group seeks liberation, their analysis or critique of society must come to terms
with how things actually work at that moment in that society if any form of liberation is possible.
As Marcuse saw it, there is a form of ideology that serves domination and creates the conditions
14
for liberation at the same time. This will be discussed later. Also, there is a form of liberation that
lends itself to be co-opted by the forces of domination.
Just as art embodied the potential for liberation and the formation of radical subjectivity, it was
also capable of being taken up by systems of domination and used to further or maintain
domination. This is the theme of Marcuse's 1937 essay The Affirmative Character of Culture.
Culture, which is the domain of art, develops in tension with the overall structure of a given
society. The values and ideal produced by culture calls for the transcending of oppressive social
reality. Culture separates itself from the social order. That is, the social realm or civilization is
characterized by labor, the working day, the realm of necessity, operational thought, etc
(Marcuse 1965: 16). This is the realm of real material and social relations as well as the struggle
for existence. The social realm or civilization is characterized by intellectual work, leisure, nonoperational thought, freedom, (Marcuse 1965: 16). The freedom to think and reflect that is
made possible at the level of culture makes it possible to construct value and ideals that pose a
challenge to the social order. This is the emancipatory function of art. However, art itself does
not bring about liberation it must be translated into political activity. Nevertheless, art is
important here because it opens up the space for thinking that may then produce revolution.
The separation between culture and society does not suggest a flight from social reality. Instead,
it represents an alien or critical space within social reality. The ideals produced by culture must
work within society as transformative ideas. In The Affirmative Character of Culture Marcuse,
in good dialectical fashion, shows how culture separates itself from society or civilization and
creates the space for critical thought and social change but then succumbs to the oppressive
demands of bourgeois society. It does this by separating culture from the everyday world
(Marcuse 2007a: 23). In affirmative culture art becomes the object of spiritual contemplation.
The demand for happiness in the real world is abandoned for an internal form of happiness, the
happiness of the soul. Hence, bourgeois culture creates an interior of the human being where
the highest ideals of culture can be realized. This inner transformation does not demand an
external transformation of the real world and its material conditions.
In such a society the cultivation of the soul becomes an important part of one's education. The
belief that the soul is more important than the body and material needs leads to political
resignation insofar as freedom becomes internal. The soul takes flight at the hard truth of
theory, which points up the necessity of changing as impoverished form of existence (Marcuse
2007b: 222). Hence, the soul accepts the facts of its material existence without fighting to
change these facts. Affirmative culture with its idea of the soul has used art to put radical
subjectivity under erasure.
In his last book The Aesthetic Dimension (1978) Marcuse continues his attempt to rescue the
radical transformative nature of art. In this text he takes a polemical stance against the
problematic interpretation of the function of art by orthodox Marxists. These Marxists claimed
that only proletarian art could be revolutionary. Marcuse attempts to establish the revolutionary
potential of all art by establishing the autonomy of authentic art. Marcuse states: It seems that
art as art expresses a truth, an experience, a necessity which, although not in the domain of
radical praxis, are nevertheless essential components of revolution (Marcuse 1978: 1). It is the
experience that art tries to express that Marcuse will focus on and it is this which separates him
from orthodox Marxist.
It must be remembered that for Marcuse and the Frankfurt School there was no evidence that
the proletariat would rise up against their oppressors. In addition to developing theories that
disclosed the social and psychological mechanisms at work in society that made the proletariat
complicit in their own domination, Marcuse saw possibilities for revolution in multiple places.
Some of this will be discussed later. The student revolts of the 1960s confirmed much of the
direction of Marcuse's critical theory form early on. That is, the need for social change includes
class struggle but cannot be reduced to class struggle. There is a multiplicity of social groups in
our society that seek social change for various reasons. There are multiple forms of oppression
and repression that make revolution desirable. Hence, the form of art produced, and its
revolutionary vision may be determined by a multiplicity of oppressed/repressed subject
positions.
Orthodox Marxism focused on the proletariat by excluding all other possible sites for revolution.
For this reason, Orthodox Marxism itself becomes a form of ideology and produces a reified
state of affairs. In orthodox Marxist aesthetics
The subjectivity of individuals, their own consciousness and unconscious tends to be
dissolved into class consciousness. Thereby, a major prerequisite of revolution is
minimized, namely, the fact that the need for radical change must be rooted in the
subjectivity of individuals themselves, in their intelligence, and their passions, their drives
and their goals. (Marcuse 1978: 34)
In orthodox Marxism, radical subjectivity was reduced to one social group, the proletariat.
Marcuse greatly expands the space where radical subjectivity can emerge. Marcuse argues that
liberating subjectivity constitutes itself in the inner history of the individuals (Marcuse 1978:
5). Each subject as distinct from other subjects represents a particular subject position. For
example; white female, working class, mother of two, born in the mid-west, etc. However, with
each distinct feature of the individual subject corresponds a structural position. That is, in a
given society gender, race, class, level of education etc, are interpreted in certain ways.
Experiences and the opportunities provided by them are often affected by subject and structural
position and produce what Marcuse calls the inner history of the individual (Marcuse 1978: 5).
Given that there are many subject positions that are positions of repression and
dehumanization, radical subjectivity and art may come from any of these positions. Economic
class is just one structural position among many. Hence, it is not only the proletariat who may
have an interest in social change.
From <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcuse/>
15