Aggressiveness In Advanced Industrial Society - Frankfurt School

DaveFoster

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Here are some excerpts on the article by Herbert Marcuse, a Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist who contributed to critical theory within the Frankfurt School.

Herbert Marcuse's work here offers many parallels to Ted Kacynski's (the Unabomber's) manifesto.

Marcuse's mention of "normality" appears most synonymous with Dr. Peat's reference to the "natural man" in his interview On culture, government, and social class at reformermag.com

Aggressiveness in Advanced Industrial Society


I propose to consider here the strains and stresses in the so-called “affluent society,” a phrase which has (rightly or wrongly) been coined to describe contemporary American society. Its main characteristics are: (1) an abundant industrial and technical capacity which is to a great extent spent in the production and distribution of luxury goods, gadgets, waste, planned obsolescence, military or semimilitary equipment – in short, in what economists and sociologists used to call “unproductive” goods and services; (2) a rising standard of living, which also extends to previously underprivileged parts of the population; (3) a high degree of concentration of economic and political power, combined with a high degree of organization and government intervention in the economy; (4) scientific and pseudoscientific investigation, control, and manipulation of private and group behavior, both at work and at leisure (including the behavior of the psyche, the soul, the unconscious, and the subconscious) for commercial and political purposes. All these tendencies are interrelated: they make up the syndrome which expresses the normal functioning of the “affluent society.” To demonstrate this interrelation is not my task here; I take its existence as the sociological basis for the thesis which I want to submit, namely, that the strains and stresses suffered by the individual in the affluent society are grounded in the normal functioning of this society (and of the individual!) rather than in its disturbances and diseases.

“Normal functioning:” I think the definition presents no difficulties for the doctor. The organism functions normally if it functions, without disturbance, in accord with the biological and physiological make-up of the human body. The human faculties and capabilities are certainly very different among the members of the species, and the species itself has changed greatly in the course of its history, but these changes have occurred on a biological and physiological basis which has remained largely constant. To be sure, the physician, in making his diagnosis and in proposing treatment, will take into account the patient’s environment, upbringing, and occupation; these factors may limit the extent to which normal functioning can be defined and achieved, or they may even make this achievement impossible, but as criterion and goal, normality remains a clear and meaningful concept. As such, it is identical with “health,” and the various deviations from it are to various degrees of “disease.”
Reference: Frankfurt School: Aggressiveness in Advanced Industrial Society. Herbert Marcuse. 1967

GM: In Civil Disobedience by Thoreau, his acceptation of the motto “That government is best which governs least” made a lasting impression on me. It seems more natural and preferable that people be free from government impingement, and protected from the corruption that often comes with power. But without layers of regulation and law, it seems that the general public can quickly become vulnerable to greed and exploitation by private actors, as we see in neoliberalism. Is there a mode of governance that can both protect people from government oppression and from exploitation by private interests?

RP: I read Kropotkin, Tolstoy, Gandhi and Blake before I read Thoreau, and since Kropotkin’s political philosophy incorporated a lot of work in biology, I was looking for that sort of correspondence in Thoreau’s thinking. I think Thoreau’s biggest contribution was in learning to distinguish the natural man from the culture, including its laws, which usually rules the person and obscures the real potential of the essential person. I think his identification of culture itself as the problem was more basic than his putting morality above civil law. His attitude toward work was based on making natural life and consciousness the starting point for everything else.

Reference: On culture, government, and social class

Originally posted on the Foster Your Health blog: Aggressiveness in Advanced Industrial Society, An Excerpt
 

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