From: "Christian Fuchs" <christian-AT-igw.tuwien.ac.at>
Subject: Re: A Marcuse Renaissance????
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 22:41:35 +0200


the website should work again, you can also try at
http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/marcuse/.
i think the difference between marcuse and adorno is that the first one's
was a praxis philosophy, the latter's one a rather structuralist philosophy
that wasn't adequatly connected to its time. there is a lack of concreteness
in adorno's writings, there's much more mediation with the struggles of
those times in marcuse's works. but of course there are many aspects both
share.
i just want to mention one aspect from marcuse's works that i think is still
very topical: his philosophy of technology. the main argument is that with
the development of the productive forces in the 20th century (cybernetics,
automation etc.) the material conditions for an immediate transition to
communism have come. but the productive forces under capitalist
socialisation are also destructive forces, and hence as means of control,
hegemony, domination and means for producing surplus value they are also
used in such a way that radical social change is forestalled. so the paradox
situation which is constituting the dialectic of technology in late
capitalism is that the material pre-conditions have been reached and
communism seem to be objectively near, but due to one-dimensional man it's
subjectively far away. i think that with the transition to
information-societal capitalism this situation has further developed in the
way marcuse described it. new technologies pose both great possibilities and
at the same time great dangers. what is needed is a sublation of technology
along with the negation of the negation of capitalism. and sublation not
only means elimination, but also lifting up and preserving, getting rid of
the destructive moments and developing the creative and humanitarian ones in
full effect. but that's only possible in communism which as fully developed
naturalism humanism, and as fully developed humanism naturalism. and more
than that it'd also be the "materialisation of the human being, and
humanisation of matter" (ernst bloch) which means that both the human being
and the material forces would reach full, universal, well-rounded
development.

christian

needed is a qualitatively new technology in a new society because

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: "Ralph Dumain" <rdumain-AT-igc.org>
An: <frankfurt-school-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 05. September 2002 08:04
Betreff: Re: A Marcuse Renaissance????


> Well, it seems that Marcuse is somewhat dated, and not just because
postwar
> prosperity and social democracy and American liberalism are dead.  What do
> you think survives of his philosophy?  The Freud-Marx synthesis?  The
> esthetic dimension?  Repressive desublimation?  The reading of Hegel?  The
> concept of negation?  Politically, I think he was questionable even in the
> 1960s, and I can't imagine him being of much use in a changed world.  But
I
> will have to read your essay.
>
> BTW, I think the most brilliant of the F.S. was Adorno, though he is was
> not associated with any revolutionary movements in the '60s.  SO what do
> you think that Marcuse has to offer that Adorno hasn't got?
>
> At 12:57 AM 9/5/02 +0200, Christian Fuchs wrote:
> >marcuse's philosophy was a practical philosophy, he was always looking
for
> >social subjects of the negation of the negation of capitalism. on the
> >other hand the rebelling social levels were looking for theoretical
> >criticism of the situation of capitalism they live in and that they
oppose.
> >today, we're in a quite similar situation: again we have a new social
> >movement that is looking for radical social change and that to a certain
> >extent opposes capitalism. marcuse said in essay on liberation that the
> >students of 68 revoked the idea of revolution from the continuum of
> >suppression and connected it with its true dimension - the one of
> >liberation. to a certain extent, the same could be said about the new
> >movement. for it, maybe not-yet revolution, but at least revolt is a
> >topical material reality.
> >what they are still missing is a more concrete analytical perspective of
> >the situation they live in and of the concrete utopian possibilities. but
> >they are certainly looking for it as for e.g. the success of negri and
> >hardt's "empire" shows. a topical interpretation of marxist praxis
> >philosophies like the ones of marcuse, bloch and others is surely needed
> >now and i think there could indeed be renewed interest for these ideas
and
> >for a re-reading of marcuse at the beginning of the third millennium.
> >i think that hence it is very important that critical scientist show
today
> >that marcuse's ideas are still relevant and topical in
> >information-societal capitalism and that he is not a 'dead dog' (like as
> >Hegel said Spinoza was considered in the times of Lessing).
> >my own attempt of a re-interpretation of marcuse in postfordist
capitalism
> >can be found at
>
><http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/marcuse_eng.html>http://cartoon
.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/marcuse_eng.html
> >
> >christian
> >
> >-----Ursprngliche Nachricht-----
> >Von: <mailto:capitalismgotohell-AT-excite.com>Michael Handelman
> >An:
>
><mailto:frankfurt-school-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>frankfurt-school-AT-lists.
village.virginia.edu
> >
> >Gesendet: Mittwoch, 04. September 2002 02:42
> >Betreff: A Marcuse Renaissance????
> >
> >Marcuse in the 60s, was so popular that he could almost be seen as almost
> >a guru of the student revolutionaries.....However, it is quite amazing
how
> >quickly he has drifted in obscurity.
> >
> >Do you think there's a possibility of a "Marcuse Renaissance" soon? While
> >there are of course serious problems with Marcuse (he seems to accept the
> >dominant ideology that Keynesianism had solved the problem of economic
> >crisis, something that from hindsight was a mistaken notion), he does
seem
> >to have some extremely important ideas for the revolutionary project.
> >
> >
> >----------
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>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
> "Nature has no outline but imagination has."
>                            -- William Blake
>