Review of 'One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Third time reading this book all the way through. It's a good and enlightening text. His explorations of how critical, negative, thinking becomes increasingly impossible still holds true today. I also find the critique of technology and technics fascinating, especially the emphasis on technology developing in the modern era as a dominating force. Even though Marcuses philosophy of technology is ambivalent concerning whether its is a mere instrument or if technics have some substantial dominating content, I think the latter opens for a far more interesting discussion, especially concerning what we must do if we want to overcome capitalism. An overcoming of capitalism would probably also entail some form of transformation or revolution in technology. At the same time, the text is severely lacking when it comes to a more general understanding of capitalism. Trapped in the engelsian and second international interpretation of Capital, critical theory here as elsewhere are …
Third time reading this book all the way through. It's a good and enlightening text. His explorations of how critical, negative, thinking becomes increasingly impossible still holds true today. I also find the critique of technology and technics fascinating, especially the emphasis on technology developing in the modern era as a dominating force. Even though Marcuses philosophy of technology is ambivalent concerning whether its is a mere instrument or if technics have some substantial dominating content, I think the latter opens for a far more interesting discussion, especially concerning what we must do if we want to overcome capitalism. An overcoming of capitalism would probably also entail some form of transformation or revolution in technology. At the same time, the text is severely lacking when it comes to a more general understanding of capitalism. Trapped in the engelsian and second international interpretation of Capital, critical theory here as elsewhere are unable to grasp the more subtle details about the value-form and thus locate abstract domination in technology, instrumental reason and positivism. All I've read in critical theory points towards this lack, and the need for value-theory, theories of abstract domination and the state as ideal total capitalist is necessary to elevate critical theory from a progressive and sometimes even conservative critique of modernity, to a theoretical endeavor capable of supporting a communist movement today.
