Week 11 Quiz

Marcuse, Horkheimer, Adorno

One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Marcuse)

critical analysis of advanced industrial societies, focusing on how they suppress individuality and critical thought through consumerism and technological rationality

• technological rationality is social control

• consumerism creates false needs

• one-dimensional thinking

  • negative thinking

technological rationality is social control (Marcuse)

• technological advancements perpetuate existing power structures

• technology is a mode of domination, shaping individual’s perceptions and behaviors to align with the interests of those in power

consumerism creates false needs (Marcuse)

• advanced industrial societies create false needs through mass media and advertising

• individuals are driven to consume products and services that reinforce the existing system of production and consumption

• consumerism integrates individuals into the system, making them complicit in their own domination

one-dimensional thought (Marcuse)

• critical and oppositional thinking is marginalized and co-opted

• conformist society that sustains status quo without questioning power

• potential for transformative social change is limited

the great refusal (Marcuse)

• a radical opposition to the dominant system to counter pervasive control

• promotes “negative” thinking and the role of marginalized groups in challenging and transforming societal structures

negative thinking/negation (Marcuse)

dialectics

1. thesis: existing idea or state

2. antithesis: negation or contradiction of thesis

3. synthesis: resolving conflict between thesis and antithesis by integrating them at a higher level

society has become one dimensional (Marcuse)

1. antithesis is actually part of the thesis (does not actually challenge/critique it)

2. synthesis is not a new thesis, simply an expression of the old thesis