Marcuse Herbert: biography, main works, ideas and views

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:40

One of the brightest representatives of the famous school in Frankfurt, which appeared in 1930 on the basis of the Institute for Social Research, was Marcuse Herbert. He made a critical assessment of modern society and published many works related to the study of the views of Hegel and Marx, with an attempt to understand the mind, analyze it, combine it with politics and revolutionary movements.

A short note about the philosopher

Herbert was born in 1898 in Berlin. He lived for 81 years and died on July 29, 1979, 10 days after his birthday, also in Germany. Its main directions were neo-Marxism, neo-Freudianism and neo-Hegelianism. One of the main works was considered "One-Dimensional Man" as a continuation of the teachings of the School. This work was the largest in the 60s of the last century.

The people who had the greatest influence on the fate and choice of Herbert's path were Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, V. I. Lenin, Edmund Husserl and others.

Biography of Marcuse Herbert

The future philosopher was born in a Jewish family. During the First World War, he was drafted into the army, where a few years later he became a member of the soldier'sCouncil, which took part in various uprisings and revolutions. But after some time he left this society, because he did not agree with his views, and went to receive a doctorate in literature, which he was awarded in 1922.

Already in these years, he began to think about philosophy, studied the works of Freud and Marx, which had a great influence on him, and at the same time began to work at the Institute for Social Research.

When the Nazis came to power in the 1930s, many representatives of the Frankfurt School decided to emigrate to the United States. Thus, they brought European traditions in education to America. Later, their students created the "New School of Social Sciences", which still exists today.

After World War II, Marcuse returned to Germany, where he worked as an expert on denazification. In addition, it was very important for him to understand whether a person, for some reason, can become a Nazi and what guides him. He was strongly affected by this topic, because many representatives of the German intelligentsia converted to Nazism.

School

The Frankfurt School did not appear out of nowhere, but arose on the basis of an institute that was engaged in social research. The main object of study was society, and its representatives believed that it had turned into a totalitarian system. The revolution in such a society played a decisive role, and the intelligentsia occupied not the last place in it. Their false consciousness was shaped by the media and the culture that imposed their opinions.

The main ideas of Marcuse Herbert, which influenced various variants of ideology, were the following:

Tell about capitalism and socialism as a kind of industrial society.
Rejection of all revolution.
Rejection of regimes such as totalitarianism and the influence of an authoritarian personality.

Philosophical views

Throughout his life, Herbert changed his point of view several times in different areas. At the initial stage, when he received a professorship in literature, he adhered to the views of Karl Marx. But, however, he was not satisfied with the orthodox doctrine, where such a science as philosophy was underestimated.

Marcuse Herbert decided to give Marx's historical materialism a philosophical aspect, referring to the ideas of M. Heidegger. However, later, when the philosopher got acquainted with the previously unpublished works "Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts", there was a gap in the views of Marx and Heidegger, and Herbert abandoned these ideas. A new period of creativity has begun.

The writer and philosopher stopped considering economic categories, and the acquaintance and study of Western civilization with the subordination of nature came to the fore. He used categorical and conceptual series, explored the causes of the conflict between human nature and his social form, and believed that a person will always struggle with his essence and the civilization in which he lives.

Even achievements in the sciences, Herbert considered the desire to satisfytheir "false" material needs. If you get rid of everything unnecessary, then a person will become self-sufficient and will not depend on anyone.

At the end of his life, Marcuse tried to develop new models of behavior to study the deep sources of humanity and its being, and even here the influence of the philosopher Heidegger was traced.

The main work of the philosopher

One of the main works of Marcuse Herbert was a continuation of the critical theory that was developed at the Frankfurt School. The book first appeared on the shelves in 1964 in America, and three years later it was released in Germany.

Despite the fact that the philosopher was greatly influenced by the works of Marx, he still did not believe that the working class plays a decisive role in the formation of society, because consumption affected people for the worse. A person is one-dimensional, he can be easily manipulated, simply influenced by the media.

Summarize the philosophical views of Marcuse Herbert in a few theses:

Why is man one-dimensional? Because all people are the same and subject to the same laws and desires.
How free is society? It is visually independent, but at the same time it is controlled, influenced by values, culture and attitudes, every person is essentially watched.
And how free is a person? His needs are imposed from outside, they are all false and make him a slave to these same needs.
Can a person change? Maybe if he renouncesall imposed desires, stop exploiting nature and be in harmony with it, turn to spiritual needs.

Proceedings

To understand Herbert's philosophy, one should study his works, where he not only expresses his opinion, but also thinks about how to help humanity and society, in which direction it is better to move and where to start. In addition to the book "One-Dimensional Man", there were others, such as "Reason and Revolution", where the author studies Hegel, his social and political sphere. He defends it, believing that the philosophy was based on German idealistic culture, and not as a premise of fascism.

Other works of the author:

"Eros and Civilization".
Soviet Marxism: Critical Analysis.
“Negations. Essay on Critical Theory.”
"Psychoanalysis and politics".
"Counter-revolution and rebellion".

Marcuse Herbert: key ideas

The main idea, which can be distinguished from many works of the philosopher, his interviews and various notes, is that society has reached a dead end of totalitarianism. What a person has achieved in the world suppresses his individuality and freedom, and all people become the same. They have the same desires and needs, which means that it is very easy to control and dominate them, from where the “one-dimensional person” appeared. This was the "critical theory" and the main view of the world.