Contemporary industrial society is now characterised more than ever by "the need for stupefying work where it is no longer a real necessity." Herbert Marcuse More Quotes by Herbert Marcuse More Quotes From Herbert Marcuse Art cannot change the world, but it can contribute to changing the consciousness and drives of the men and women who could change the world. Herbert Marcuse menworldart The so-called consumer society and the politics of corporate capitalism have created a second nature of man which ties him libidinally and aggressively to the commodity form. The need for possessing, consuming, handling and constantly renewing the gadgets, devices, instruments, engines, offered to and imposed upon the people, for using these wares even at the danger of one’s own destruction, has become a “biological” need. Herbert Marcuse tiesmenpeople The truth of art lies in its power to break the monopoly of established reality to define what is real. Herbert Marcuse reallyingart Under the rule of a repressive whole, liberty can be made into a powerful instrument of domination. Herbert Marcuse libertypowerfulmade The means of communication, the irresistible output of the entertainment and information industry carry with them prescribed attitudes and habits, certain intellectual and emotional reactions which bind the consumers to the producers and, through the latter to the whole social system. The products indoctrinate and manipulate; they promote a false consciousness which is immune against its falsehood...Thus emerges a pattern of one-dimensional thought and behavior. Herbert Marcuse communicationattitudemean Most people are afraid of freedom. They are conditioned to be afraid of it. Herbert Marcuse people The people recognize themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment. Herbert Marcuse soulhomepeople The spontaneous reproduction of superimposed needs by the individual does not establish autonomy; it only testifies to the efficacy of the control. Herbert Marcuse doephilosophyneeds There is no free society without silence, without the internal and external spaces of solitude in which the individual freedom can develop. Herbert Marcuse solitudespacesilence Art breaks open a dimension inaccessible to other experience, a dimension in which human beings, nature, and things no longer stand under the law of the established reality principle...The encounter with the truth of art happens in the estranging language and images which make perceptible, visible, and audible that which is no longer, or not yet, perceived, said, and heard in everyday life. Herbert Marcuse lawrealityart 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. Herbert Marcuse informationdefinitionsself Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves. Free choice among a wide variety of goods and services does not signify freedom if these goods and services sustain social controls over a life of toil and fear – that is, if they sustain alienation. And the spontaneous reproduction of superimposed needs by the individual does not establish autonomy; it only testifies to the efficacy of the controls. Herbert Marcuse toilchoicesdoe Those who devote their lives to earning a living are incapable of living a human existence. Herbert Marcuse existencehumansearning Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves. Herbert Marcuse electionhistoricaldoe The web of domination has become the web of Reason itself, and this society is fatally entangled in it. Herbert Marcuse dominationthis-societyreason 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. Herbert Marcuse mass-cultureplatopeople Entertainment and learning are not opposites; entertainment may be the most effective mode of learning. Herbert Marcuse entertainmentoppositesmay Thought that accepts reality as given is no thought at all. Herbert Marcuse ontologylogicreality Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right, and toleration of movements from the Left. Herbert Marcuse tolerancemovementmean Glorification of the 'natural' is part of the ideology which protects an unnatural society in its struggle against liberation. Herbert Marcuse gaystrugglenatural
